My Love/Hate relationship with LeapFrog products.

First, the easy part. Love. Adorable lil' wide eyed frog children who teach my kid stuff! Simply awesome. Voices and story lines that only grate upon one's nerves the THIRD time in a row he requests to watch any given video. (Anyone who has watched just one episode of Dora the Explorer knows how irritating one word can be… "Backpack! Backpack!") I am confident the Letter Factory video dramatically improved his comprehension of letter sounds, and has helped him phonetically spell out words only moments after learning them. "Elevator Etiquette" was a recent topic at preschool. TheBoy came up with 'edikt.' Yea, it's nowhere near the correct spelling, but it still freaked me out.

So I love LeapFrog (regardless of what the rest of my posts here seem to say). They're formula of characters and weaving fun and learning together WORKS. I enjoy watching and using their products with my son. (I also believe that reading/using/watching stuff TOGETHER is key, with just about anything with toddlers.)

Up first in my LeapFrog product categories is DVDs. This was our first REAL exposure to Tad and Lily. As a baby, he had a stuffed Tad that talked, which he really liked, but I always felt it was a bit much for him at the time. As he got older (and the second set of batteries died), Tad the stuffed toy found his way into a storage container. (I probably should bust him out now that I think about it.) ANYWAY… I have nothing bad to say about the DVDs. TheBoy is still excited to watch them, and I've even heard him singing songs or speaking various dialogue from them days, even weeks, after the last viewing. As stated earlier, the Letter Factory definitely helped him, as did "Math Adventure to the Moon" which introduced some basic math concepts that so far have stuck with him in a way that is fun for him.

The "TAG Reading System."
As a learning tool, a technological and printing MARVEL! The pen reacts to various points on specially printed cards and books, including sound effects for images, and "reading" the words of a story. (I happen to be in the printing industry, and I am positive the collaboration required to produce these books is no easy task.) The books are also fairly durable, which is a plus when a certain someone gets a bit excited about a story.

Let me back up a bit here. We have a similar system, though not quite as advanced as the "reading" features of TAG. The "My Poingo Reading System" works much the same way, with a pen that interacts with specially printed books, but it doesn't actually "read along" a story book like TAG books. TheBoy LOVES these. The pen asks questions which require him to select items from the page. All very basic, but the "play span"(time spent reading and re-reading the books) is still lengthy. He really got into this at about 2.5 to 3 years old. Poingo uses cartridges for the pen. A slight drawback in that of course, these can be easily lost. BUT the books do have a place to store the corresponding cartridge, and if you couple that with a crazy neurotic Dad (ahem), the cartridges (almost)ALWAYS go back in the book. (Yes, it does elevate my stress level when I find a book without one… and when it takes days to find it. But we still have 3 complete sets and the pen.) Neither the cartridges nor the books are available separately should you lose one. But I do dig this system, and more importantly, TheBoy loves it. Which is why when given a TAG system free (a hand me down) I was stoked. (Because these were gifts, I feel I should not comment on the pen systems pricing, though it is definitely something you should consider.)

The "play span" of the TAG books is also very long. If he hasn't had a dose of sugar that prevents him from sitting still, he'll sit and mess with a book for about an hour. (Sugar negates all stationary activities.) The system is easy for a toddler to learn quickly. Spoken instructions (though sometimes a bit repetitive) are clear and easy to understand. Comprehension quizzes (masquerading as "Games") are sprinkled throughout the pages. The pen narrator will ask questions about the story and he earns "rewards" with correct answers (more on these rewards later). If an incorrect answer is given, the narrator ask again, but gives a hint. So play moves along and is not frustrating. Or he can simply move the pen along the words and read the story line by line, with the occasional touch to an image for effects or additional dialogue.

"Rewards." NOW we're getting into the 'hate' part of my relationship with LeapFrog. The TAG system does not use cartridges, so one MUST connect the pen to the computer/internet. Ok, I get that. Fine. But wait, you MUST install LeapFrog Connect software. Sure. Proprietary, keep you as a customer as much as possible. Fine. All of this means you cannot purchase/receive a TAG book, and hand it to your child to start using it immediately. You have to download the content to the pen first. Because we only received 3 books, I didn't think to much about this. Nor did I really pay attention to elaborate tracking that LeapFrog does. (More on that with the Leap Pad.) So as your child earns parental marketing opportunities, masquerading as "rewards," by playing the games within the books, the narrator repeatedly reminds the child to ask (pester) their parents to connect the pen to the computer to get the reward(so they can market more books and products). (Usually a printable coloring page of some sort.) I've said no to this so many times that TheBoy has learned that this WILL NOT happen immediately and we will only occasionally go online and see what he has earned. So parents, be ready for that. Maybe establish a regular time to get rewards. This has worked well for me, and he gets very excited.

I'm really torn. I was a marketing major (many moons ago) so I get it. I do! And the products ARE educational. I've witnessed my child learning while playing. They do that VERY well.

But I'm also very skeptical of, no, irritated by a company taking EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY to sell me something. The way I see it, I'm an involved parent. I have these products to help ME teach my child, because I'm not a teacher, and I've only been a parent for a couple of years(and a lot of that time was spent changing diapers and washing dishes and clothes). BUT, because I'm an involved parent, that means I'll seek out additional products that I see value in. Once I seek them out, yea, I want the purchasing experience to be clear and simple. But I don't want it thrown at me at every possible interaction. I certainly don't want it initiated by way of my child.

LeapFrog seems worried that either they must wear one down with constant bombardment, OR, just like spam emails, they gotta hit ya a million times or they'll miss that one time you WILL buy. It'd be an easy fix to make this irritation go away, AND make me feel better about the "company" that is LeapFrog… allow me to opt-out of that chit, completely. The marketing graduate in me wants to give LeapFrog execs a giant high5, but the parent in me, and because they're marketing products for toddlers(MY toddler), I want them to chill.

The products are excellent "learning toys." And because of that, I will(have) buy more. I'll recommend them even. But first, I will warn people about the freakin' marketing geniuses that work there.

I'll write up details about the LeapPad eventually, hopefully with some screen shots and obligatory "kid playing with it" photos... But just in case you're thinkin' about one, I'll tell you to save your money. Get the first iPad, or an iPod Touch even. The LeapPad is not a "bad" product, but the additional games and such are just WAY too expensive.

Thanks for the LeapFrog write-up (sorry about the image loading problems we are having -- our web server had a security breach and now all our FTP is down, so no new images can be added anywhere until we can get this straightened out.)

I understand the marketing fatigue. Good point.

I look forward to hearing the Leap Pad review. I'm sure it has evolved from the device that is still in a drawer near where I write this. Our kids liked theirs so much I haven't had the heart to give our old system away yet, though they've outgrown it by a couple of years.

My kids loved LeapFrog , it's really nice for their brain development.

The videos are great, the tag system in theory is cool but the pens suck and break easily.

My youngest loves the leap pad but personally I feel that while the toy is cool, charging 7.99 for apps is a rip off and you cannot transfer content you already own to it (i.e. tag audiobooks,leap frog videos). I can go to walmart and buy the dvds for 5 bucks each, yet to download it is 7.99 per video. I wish I could find a way to jailbreak it as I've already invested in their content and feel like the company is ripping me off by making me buy it twice, at a higher price. To the point where I'm considering selling the leap pad and buying a tablet. Then I could load the leapfrog vids I already own on it.

Leap Frog the company doesn't care about the issues either. I contacted them regarding the inability to transfer to the leap pad and was basically told "too bad for you".

I got to have a wee play on this at the Hamilton Product Meet and was pretty impressed. I liked that it was in a 'normal voice' (not computer sounding and not with a strong accent like American or English etc) though I thought the sound could be a bit louder (I was in a room with others talking so I found it a bit hard to hear the toy over the talking). I liked that it there was 4 different sections (capital, lower case, games and drawing). It felt very sturdy and well build which is great considering it's made for pre-schoolers and I liked that the pen clipped into a hole on the back when you were finished.