I'm all for keeping violence out of any equation.  I'm also old school in my thinking that kids' games shouldn't always be so safe that it takes the fun out of the game.  The new "No Hit" pinatas were made with the intent of keeping the fun of pinatas but removing the violence out of the game.  But do pinatas promote violent behavior?  There are different views on this new product so lets take a look at both sides.

Some details on the No Hit Pinata:
It is still a paper mache character covered in bits of colored paper that you fill with candy.  It looks exactly the same but instead of needing to whack the character with a bat to break it open there is a string the child pulls and the candy comes flowing out.

My first reaction: "Lame". I had the same thought as Cafe Mom's article

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Cafe Mom - Are we that scared that our children might be "violent" that hitting an inanimate object with a stick is now off limits? If so, we might as well stop building anything because smacking hammer to nail is an aggressive move. And forget closing the hatch on the back of the car with a slam to get it shut. Gentle. Gentle! Who cares if the rain gets in, and the open door signal won't stop beeping.

By putting the pinata into a context that is non-violent there is no way the kids will associate it with violent behavior, right? But before I go off on some sort of tirade about how we are loosing our minds and that there is no way these sorts of games encourage violence, I knew there had to be a different angle to view this issue.

There is.  I immediately looked at how we did things in the past and whether or not they influenced kids to be violent now.  Instead we should be looking at how humans will operate in the future.  We should be changing how we get our kids ready for the world they will face down the line.  I didn't realize the reason I think that the "No Hit" Pinata idea is dumb, is because ultimately I WANT to hit the pinata.  Everyone does.  But does that want mean we should be encouraging that behavior?

MSN - Humans are a very violent species. We’ve had to be to survive. But violence is becoming an increasingly useless trait. It used to be that the guy who could kick everyone’s ass would be the chief. Now it’s the guy who can program everyone’s computer—and we call him the chief executive. Brains have mostly replaced brawn.  However, our biology doesn’t seem to know this.

Mark Zuckerburg
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Case in point

It may be out of our comfort zone but by encouraging different ways of thinking we can help the evolution of our minds.  We can be smarter and do things differently.  Better.  After all, how we did things before got us here, but how can we expect a better result in the future if we don't change our approach now?

What do you think of the no-hit piñata?

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