On Monday morning, I confiscated a toy from a kid (I have a “no toys” rule when kids come to the carpet for lessons). After I gave it back to him at the end of the day, I saw another kid with an identical toy during dismissal. He’s the one who told me it was a fidget spinner, designed to help kids with ADHD focus. That afternoon, I found out my wife had ordered one for my nephew for his birthday.
I’d never heard of them before Monday. They’re like locusts.
Now that I know what they are, I’ve revised my rule slightly: if they’re distracting the user or the neighbors, it goes away for the rest of the day. So far, that rule seems to be working.
Every traditional Arab man walks around all day with a set of prayer beads in his hand. Probably serving the same purpose, but with a guise of religious significance. They are made to have a certain heft, which is comforting.
I work in a discount store. We started getting phone calls a month ago “Do you have fidget spinners”? Having never heard of them and not knowing what they were, it sounded to me like a horrible disease and I always said “No.”
We finally got a 1,000 of them in a shipment, which I priced and put at the registers. They sold out in 3 days. Three Fucking Days for a 1,000 of them.
We got another shipment of 1,000, and limited it to five per customer. We had several customers go ballistic, demand to speak to the manager, and a call from the head office about someone calling them about the policy. We were in hysterical, on-the-floor laughing over that. We sold the 1,000 in a day and a half, and are currently waiting for more.
The person who invented those things should be shot.
Well, you got two names in the links above for candidates for shooting. But, as it appears that neither of them are getting any royalties from these (as they watch the sales go through the roof), isn’t that punishment enough?
I used to fidget with a coin. Moving it between my fingers and passing it from hand to hand. It kept me occupied in class. The teachers rarely said anything about it. They’d call on me in class to confirm I was paying attention.
Today’s spinners are too big and draw to much attention. IMHO
You got to use something small. A cap off a pen, eraser, or coin.
I saw my first fidget spinner in my weekend class for ASD kids just yesterday. This is roughly commensurate with them sweeping the country everywhere - so, yeah. Not really an Aspie thing. Or at least, only in the sense that Pokemon and Minecraft also are.
It was really fun to play with BTW, and only 2 bucks, and now I want one. Yeah, it’s a fad, but so what? So were Rubik’s cubes, but I still enjoy fiddling with mine…
I had never heard of them until this week. My wife often watches Ellen in the afternoon, (No, I don’t watch it myself. Really. It just happened to catch my attention for a minute. Stop looking at me like that.) and a kid she was interviewing gave one to her and was trying to show her how to play with it. I assume this will boost their popularity even further.
Muslim (not only Arab) men have their prayer beads (33, for 99 names of Allah), but there are also Catholics (men and women) with the rosary Prayer beads - Wikipedia and Buddhists Prayer beads - Wikipedia
Okay so one woman claims that was her inspiration, but there is no follow-up on how well the palestinian boys accepted the spinners as alternative.
Hint: if you (that woman) think that boys throw stones because they are fidgety, you might be missing some context of that whole “Middle-East-ongoing-conflict” thing that has been mentioned in the press once or twice.
That’s the same woman who’s in the link from post #9. But, as I point out in post #20, the patent she filed doesn’t at all resemble the present Fidget Spinners. She invented a spinning toy, but it ain’t the same.
The “torqbar” referred to in post #20 , on the other hand, looks a lot more like the current Fidget Spinner, only with two lobes instead of three, and appears a much closer match, as well as closer in time. That one looks like the real ancestor of the Fidget. Only he apparently isn’t getting royalties, either.
He also wasn’t looking to find work for troubled (or autistic) hands – only idle ones.
I had never heard of them until I opened this thread. But I totally understand it. When I was a kid * I always took apart broken tools and found things that I thought might have either a bearing or magnet in it. Then I played with them and put together various parts and formations, until I broke them, lost them, or modified them in a way that made them suck.
Then unspoken goal I guess was to see how long something could be made to spin with a single impulse.
*Who am I kidding? I would do it tomorrow if I found an appropriate device to extract from. I have a fair amount of bought magnets and bearings bought for various thing that would work better, but for some reason it only counts for the game if it’s found or reclaimed stuff.
I saw them at the local gas station. Asked the guy, “What are those things?”. He replied, “Spinners”, which basically told me nothing. I thought “The Spinners” were a singing group.
My daughter was prescribed one by her OT to possibly help with her stimming (knuckle cracking and skin picking). I ordered one, but it was backordered. I ordered another, but a week later was told it was backordered. I went to the special needs store in town. They were out. I ended up pre-paying 20 bucks, but she finally got it two weeks ago and it’s really helping her BUT now three of five of her teachers have banned them from class. I could make a fuss since she does have a prescription for hers but she doesn’t want attention called to herself so she’s agreed to put it away. It kinda sucks because the skin around her nails was finally growing back. Oh well. Four more days and school will be out for summer. I just hate that what helps her became a cool toy. Let’s just hope the next cool craze isn’t “spinny seats” so wheelchairs don’t get banned too.
I see them all over the schools I am in, I really don’t see what good they do, I don’t see it helping with focus, they are mostly a distraction. I guess they are good, though for kids that just need something to help with fidgeting. I’m a sub, so I just play it the way the classroom teacher does as far as whether I allow them or not.
