Are you sure the Christmas and Hanukkah toys you're buying are really safe? They could be (or not), but experts are rightly saying to avoid the latest toy fad and pick up gifts that are geared to promoting healthy habits and social/personal skills.

Those toys be Leap are great -- especially the "Pen Computer" that could become a de-facto homework helper and language teacher for some kids.

But, that's a gift for older kids. What about younger ones? Try finding toys that promote creativity, imagination, manipulation, and change. A model car, without spinning wheels, for example, may not do the trick.

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More bad news from China, as another round of recalls related to lead-based paint on toys has been announced.

This time, more children's jewelry and cake decorations were recalled from shelves late this past week due to -- you guessed it -- excessive lead amounts.

About 665.000 products were announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Thursday, including 38,000 Go Diego Go products from Mattel. On the list as well were roughly 142,000 Halloween pails sold at Family Dollar Stores from August through October.

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With all the recent hubbub on lead paint-containing toys being recalled and pulled from the marketplace, there is one expert who thinks that lead levels deemed safe for exposure to kids still is too high for comfort.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear believes that the current safe lead exposure guidelines need to be cut in half to really ensure kids remain safe around items which contain the element.

Right now, the limit of 10 micrograms of deciliter is considered "safe" by environmental and medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control, but Dr. Lanphear wants that level cut to 5 micrograms. Is lead-based paint the absolute cheapest way to make paint for children's toys or something?

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Although the massive toy recall currently in progress from the likes of Fisher Price and Mattel may be swaying some parents from buying toys at the moment, these problems still won't end up deterring many of them from buying similar toys (according to parental feedback this week).

Why, you may ask? Well, the parents in question say that American companies that branded and marketed the toys were as much to blame as the Chinese factories which created them. I agree with this -- if lead paint was put on toys in Chinese factories and the actual companies had no outside quality control to check for things like this, they are just as much to blame.

Will you stop buying toys for your kids? Probably not -- but is it time to actually research toys and buy ones from known good sources (non-Chinese), even if it means fewer toys (non-mainstream, most likely) but with higher quality?

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