Your little cousins have one. Your mom has one. Every child within a mile radius seems to have one, and are constantly trailed by a stream of disgruntled parents. But what is it, really? Upon close inspection, it’s nothing more than a series of bearings held together by some well-molded plastic. If you’re lucky, it’s an interesting pattern - perhaps some sort of camouflage. You can spin the three prongs around and around the weighted center, as fast or slow as you like. If you’re bored enough, try balancing it on your nose.

And goodness forbid it actually breaks. So far, there seems to have been one recorded incident in which it’s actually fallen apart - in Texas, where a little girl attempting to clean her beloved possession inserted it into her mouth, promptly choking on one of the bearings. An almost unbreakable toy is a dream come true, for both parents and children alike.

Fidget spinners. They’re everywhere. They quite literally spin off of shelves, due to the idea that the simple combination of bearings and plastic has the ability to help children with attentional issues concentrate. And with many children displaying an inability to concentrate, whether it be from an attention deficit disorder or from simply being plain old energetic, fidget spinners seem to be hailed as the newest solution to keeping children still and in their seats when they’re needed.

However, their rise brings back to life an idea that seems to revive itself with every newfound solution - that parents are too reliant on shortcuts and easy solutions to keep their child in check, rather than taking the extra step to understand their child’s behavior and modifying their parenting styles in response. Society has always advanced in the period of time between each new possible solution, bringing with it different responsibilities and difficulties.

Take the fidget spinner. It is touted as the best solution for a child with attention problems - give them the toy in class (or whenever their attention is needed) to fidget with, and suddenly, voila! With their hands occupied, they are able to keep their attentions on where it matters most - receiving an education. But there are plenty of problems to consider, the first of many being that what keeps one child occupied may completely derail another. Several schools have gone so far as to ban fidget spinners, citing them as distractions to other children and disruptive to classroom environments. Which, of course, cycles back to the original argument: how is a child supposed to focus on academics when they have no handheld stimulation to aid them? What is a parent’s solution? (And preferably, can it be easy?)

But, as is with raising a child with any type of behavioral variance, a solution is never easily forthcoming. Providing a child with a fidget spinner is what can be known as a shortcut solution - it allows the parent to shelve away the problem of their child’s inattentions with a simple toy, rather than carefully studying their child’s behavioral patterns and adjusting their styles of parenting in accordance with those behaviors. Changing parenting styles is much more likely to retain an impression on a child as they grow up - something such as carefully monitoring their diet during childhood is a much more permanent solution than repeatedly investing into whatever fad may be present at the time. A diet is also something that the child may take with them into their adult years, and would already be incorporated into their lives instead of being a new object added into their routines.

Another “shortcut solution” that’s widely used (and in many forms) is technology. Today, in the age of technology constantly demanding an individual’s attention, it’s especially easy to keep a kid in control by handing them a device such as an iPad or a mobile phone. It’s grown to the point where, if a family is at dinner with a young or excitable child, as soon as they sit down, out comes the screen to distract the child so the adults can have an intelligible conversation for what seems like the first time in a long time. The screen is meant to take the place of proper interaction between the parent and child - giving the child an electronic device signals to them that the parent is too busy with carrying on their own lives to make time for their child’s, and repeatedly doing this can deprive a parent of developing a relationship with their child. This can be detrimental to both parent and child as time goes on. A child that knows how to interact with nothing but a screen can face serious social obstacles in making friends and forming attachments; having never had the opportunity to interact with real people, forming those social bonds can be difficult and may result in the child remaining isolated with nothing but the technology they’d relied on from the very beginning.

The parent, on the other hand, has no idea how to interact with their child. In cases where plopping technology in front of them isn’t an appropriate solution, they are at a loss. They often aren’t receptive to knowing their child’s needs and wants, nor can they discipline properly, having never been in a situation in which discipline was necessary. Any discipline that is delivered may be ineffective in the long run, or the parent’s relationship with the child may be so far removed that the child may dismiss the parent’s discipline and continue the action as if they hadn’t committed a transgression at all. Technology, when used for the right purposes, can be a boon to society in many ways. However, when used in a context similar to that of fidget spinners - as a shortcut to a solution to temper a child’s energetic movements - it prevents the parent from sincerely connecting to a child and can keep the child from living a normal life.

The seemingly most legitimate of “shortcut solutions” can be medication. Medication to control things such as ADD and ADHD is used quite often, mainly because it provides a sense of routine and is a surefire way to help calm the behaviors that come with the disorders. For one, it comes in dosages; all that is required that it be taken once or twice a day, instead of needing to constantly remember to charge an iPad or pack a certain toy. Secondly, there is no guarantee that a toy or technology will quell the behaviors, something that medications are engineered to do. While medications to treat the disorders are far from a terrible idea, they should be used as a supplementary branch to a solution, and not the primary resource to solve the problem. Dosages of medication are easy to distribute to children, as they can be easily summoned and are obedient. But what happens during the adolescent years? When a child’s schedule becomes less predictable, and relationships may become strenuous? A parent can want the best for their child, but not even they can force a child to take medications if they do not want to. To be known as a child taking medications is a far cry from normal, and during the formative years, all they would want to be considered as was normal.

Again, the best course of action could be to find ways to work with a child’s behavior from a young age, altering different aspects of their lives during early years so that by the time the child began to take control of their own lives, the changes would already be ingrained into their daily routine. Perhaps medications are a part of it, but there can also be other habits, behaviors such as drawing or doodling that enforce paying attention, but also free them from the stigma that comes with having to take medications on the regular. Even drawing and doodling can be far more beneficial coping habits than fidget spinners; the former provide no additional distraction to classes, and can eventually lead to a valuable skill that can be used later on in life.

For all intents and purposes, fidget spinners are interesting objects. They can be balanced on an infinite number of objects, come in many different colors, and can, in some cases, actually aid with prolonging an attention span. Its claims to be a solution, however, fall in line with the claims of medications and technology: they can temporarily solve a problem, but to create a solution that withstands the tests of time, parents are going to have to turn to prolonged, trial-and-error interactions with their children.