DVD Players for Kids

A few years ago, my wife and I wanted to get a DVD player for our two sons room. While at Walmart before some Christmas, we found a Sponge Bob TV and a matching DVD player. We thought it would be cool for the kids. It was the last set they had and was on a good sale. When we gave it to them for Christmas and I set it up, I found that it wasn't very kid friendly. The TV was ok and the remote only had the essential buttons. The DVD player and the remote was a different story.

One good thing about the DVD player was that to open it to put your disk in, you pressed on the top and it popped open instead of an open button and a tray that slid out reducing the possibility that a curious child might break off the tray. But, the DVD player had a readout on it that of one at the Kennedy Space Center. It showed pretty much all aspects of the current movie. Yeah, my kids found the displayed information very useful...not. Next was the remote control. It had more buttons than the navigation console on the starship Enterprise. I had a hard time figuring out how to use it. I expected it to have a play button, stop button, menu button and some direction arrows. Plus, the remote is a yellow color to match the TV but had light green text printed for the buttons. Made it really hard to see.

Anyway, to make a long story short, while my kids liked the Sponge Bob design, they were unable to operate it by themselves. When we moved to Missouri, the kids got a Spiderman DVD/TV combo from my wife's uncle. And yet again, the unit was supposed to be for kids, but the controls on the TV and the remote were too many and poorly designed.

Bottom line: If a company is going to make a DVD player and/or TV for kids, at least make the controls and remote reflect that...not take their designs from a fighter jet cockpit. They would make more sales and kids and parents would be happier.

Note: I guess if I was a good parent, I wouldn't have put a DVD player or TV in my kids room.