Welcome to A Collector’s Armory! This is a podcast about collecting different things throughout the stages of life. The name of this episode is Pre-Tween Collecting.
I’ll be your host, Ayaan Pirani, and in this episode we will be covering what 6-9 year olds collect. I’ll be talking about what is commonly collected at this age and what my friends and I collected at that age. I will also talk about why kids collect these items plus a few bonus things.
When I was a 6-9 year old kid I collected Pokemon cards, fidget spinners, and beyblades. A lot of kids get ideas to collect items from other kids. This can occur because they become inspired by what other kids are using. This can lead to children connecting with other people and developing new friendships. On the other hand, kids may collect things because they are jealous of what others are collecting. This may lead to arguments between kids and result in breaking of friendships. Thankfully, this never happened to me. Children who collect out of jealousy should reach out to others and collaborate and bond over collecting rather than making collecting a competition.
As a child, I lived in a fantasy world over Pokemon cards. These cards demonstrated high value to me as they showed amazing, powerful creatures that never existed before. During my time as a kid, everyone traded and battled with Pokemon cards--if it was after school, during bus rides, or even during class. They were so valuable to me that every time I received an allowance I begged my parents to take me to Target or Walmart. Kids would go out of their way to get new cards even if it was scamming another kid in a trade or just straight up stealing another kid's cards. Pokemon cards had a big effect on people’s childhood.
Many children at this age also collected fidget spinners. Even though all the hype has now died out, they are still collected by 6-9 year olds. This toy became a craze in 2017 due to kids spreading the word by mouth and others becoming jealous of others. These toys were eventually utilized for kids with ADHD and Autism but originated as toys for children to entertain themselves. Fidget cubes also became popular with children because it fascinated kids that they could flip switches and turn gears. All fidget toys were originally made to keep kids busy but quickly became a worldwide fad with adults participating too.
Another toy that I was obsessed with and gazed over for hours was Beyblades. These spinning tops were a big part of what I did during and after school. It was very satisfying to watch the Beyblades battle. These tops were launched out of a plastic launcher that spun them into the arena. The game functioned when two competitors launched their Beyblades at the same time into the arena chanting… 3.. 2… 1… Let It Rip! They would then launch the tops into the arena waiting to see if their top would stop spinning first or burst into three pieces. Collecting these tops was based on the types of attack, defense, stamina, and balance. One type was not better than the other; however, some editions of the Beyblade were so powerful they could conquer the other types.
This is your host Ayaan Pirani signing off for today. Next month we’ll be talking about collectibles for ages 9-13. Until next time then! See ya!
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