Spinners are the latest craze making the rounds and rounds and rounds in Northeast Ohio.
Stores are having trouble keeping them on the shelves, and kids (as well as kids at heart) are having trouble keeping their hands off them.
This is leading to some consternation for teachers as the days count down to the end of the school year.
Spinners are distraction devices that until now were reserved for those who have trouble focusing in school and in life.
The tactile toys — they can come in a variety of shapes and sizes — literally spin with little effort when placed on a table or between two fingers. They offer a quiet diversion for the user, burning off some pent-up energy while, some argue, helping him or her focus on a teacher or instruction.
But they have spun their way into the mainstream and have, quite frankly, become a fad. Kids and teens can be found spinning their spinners at the lunch table, on the sidelines of games or while walking in Wal-Mart.
Julie Bennett’s family has owned the Smartickles Toy Store for about eight years.
And they have never had such interest in a single toy. Folks keep wandering into the toy store tucked by the family’s dog kennel and play-set business along state Route 18 in Granger Township.
“It’s to the point that people are coming in the door and we’re like, ‘You are here for the spinners?’ ” she said.
There are spinners available at discount places, costing from just a buck to five or so. Bennett said the versions she carries are more heavy duty and durable, so they’re in the $20 range.
“I didn’t want to sell junk,” she said. “I don’t want my customers to have to bring something back when it breaks right away.”
Folks are willing to pay a little extra, Bennett said, as she is already on her fifth shipment of the spinners.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook,” she said. “Customers are buying two and three at a time.”
Similar products
There are similar products out there, like durable putty that can be stretched and manipulated but never dries out, and small fidget cubes that look like oversized dice with various buttons and the like on each side.
No one is quite sure why fidget toys have suddenly taken off. But they are a force, with kids clamoring for them and parents weighing what, if any, restrictions should be placed on using them.
Akron Children’s Hospital’s Sarah Groves, a clinical counselor and a mental health therapist in the hospital’s Executive Functioning Skills Building Program, said there is nothing wrong with the spinners, cubes or other similar tools that were once reserved for kids with attention-deficit symptoms.
Groves said it is a good idea for parents to set up some guidelines and make sure a child practices with the spinning device that can create a cool centrifugal force effect.
When used properly, it offers a quiet diversion, but if not handled correctly, it can whack someone in the head or finger, or create a ruckus when dropped onto the floor or a school desk.
“Make sure the child understands when they are allowed to use it and where they can use it,” she said.
Groves said spinners and similar tactics — some as simple as placing the fuzzy side of Velcro under a school desk — have long been effective tools for those kids who struggle to pay attention in class and need an appropriate release for excess energy, restlessness or anxiety.
“It gives them an outlet to get their activity out so they can engage in the classroom,” she said.
Even adults have their own internal fidget devices or activities so they can better engage in the workplace, whether it be fidgeting with a ring, clicking a pen or tapping a foot.
“These are all meant to keep us engaged,” she said. “I will doodle at a meeting or I will volunteer to take the minutes. I like to take the minutes because it helps keep me engaged.”
Novelty for students
Dr. Erich Merkle, who works with pupil adjustment and student support services for Akron Public Schools, said for the average student this is more of a novelty, rather than something that will help improve success in the classroom.
Merkle points out some of these fidgets, like the cubes, can be fairly complex and could actually pull a student’s attention away from the teacher.
“People have a myth of how much one can multitask,” he said. “In general, we tend to overestimate how much we can multitask.”
For Akron Public Schools, like most districts, Merkle, who also serves on the boards for the Ohio School Psychologists Association and the Ohio Psychological Association, said it is up to the teacher’s discretion to allow such devices for students who are not covered by state-mandated special accommodations or learning plans.
Merkle said he personally finds other techniques, like special swivel chairs that encourage gross motor skills, are more effective with students with attention issues rather than the fine motor skills offered by the handheld spinners or cubes.
“I am a bit more dubious,” he said. “I see these as more of a distractor.”
It seems many teachers agree.
Stephanie Luecke has three students in Copley-Fairlawn schools and all of their teachers have put the kibosh on spinners in class. So once they clear the last step of the big yellow bus, the toys come out. They spin them on their fingers, noses, foreheads and knees.
Son Michael, 11, said one day about a month ago, one kid walked into Copley-Fairlawn Middle School with a spinner, then the mad rush was on.
“Everyone just started getting them,” Stephanie said.
When local stores sold out, the family turned to Amazon for help.
So now her ears are full of the buzzing sound of three spinners going at once in the house, even at the dinner table, when Michael’s sisters Maddy and Makayla join in the action until mom has had her fill.
“I thought this wouldn’t be too bad then we had three spinners,” she said. “At least they don’t have anything to do with electronics. They are not looking at a screen.
“So, yeah, I don’t mind spinners.”
Craig Webb, who will use a pen to fill in the holes in letters during particularly long and boring meetings, can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547.