apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

hee-hee, love the photo. I never got around to getting any of those videos, but knew people who raved about them, how much there children loved them, etc. They would act pretty smug about it, how they were only allowing their children to watch the BEST, blah blah blah. I did get one of the toys from the baby einstein line, and it was annoying, to say the least.

Watching videos is an extremely passive activity. There is no opportunity for interaction between the "educator" and the "student".

When you read to a child there will always be interaction: questions will be asked, reactions from the child will be responded to and the story will never be read the same way twice which increases the depth of both the story (learninf about different levels of meaning via how language is used) and the experience of learning.

I'm firmly in the camp that video's, any kind, are a lazy form of babysitting and should only be employed as a last resort - god knows parents will need the break every once in a while!

While I do own some Baby Einstein videos, it's not like I leave them running all day. ;) Occasionally I pop one in when I really need a shower to myself, or when I have the flu and am laying on the floor like a rag doll. Like anything else, a little every once in awhile won't kill you.

I don't own any of Baby Einstein or Brainy Baby videos. I cannot see myself buying any either. I have mixed feelings about videos/television in general. My husband and I grew up on a lot of television, yet we are fairly intelligent and highly educated (one PhD, the other a MA - we believe school is a game, like anything else). I don't think intelligence is something that can be passed through a video but likewise I don't think a video could reduce intelligence either. I just plan on avoiding anything with a large marketing force behind it (SpongeBob, Dora, Diego, etc). And thank god for Tivo!

My son is almost two and he watched the baby einstein dvd's when he was younger. I think as long you don't put them on for long periods of time they can't do much harm. I was also always watching them with him and naming the things on the video. Without my interaction I don't think they'd have been remotely educational. My son now watches some Sesame Street and a few other programs now and again. He knows his alphabet, can count to 20 and has an extensive vocabulary, so I can't imagine him having been harmed at all by watching some tv. I think moderation is the key here. My husband and I grew up with lots of tv and since we've both done well educationally we don't subscribe to the "all tv is bad" camp of parenthood.

Baby Einstein creator is a rabid republican (recall last state of the union address where Bush oddly introduced her vapidly smiling visage with "she started out making children's videos in her basement"). Boycott and/or sell off any videos of hers that you have, even though she sold the company, Disney is no better.

Regarding TV w/ babies. To report as "news" that TV kids will have 6-8 less words PER HOUR than non-TV kids is ridiculous and really irresponsible. What does that even mean? This is classic propaganda scare tactics to make women feel guilty about sitting the kid in front of the TV so they can make dinner when they get home from work.

Kids get *nothing* out of Baby Einstein videos. If you really need to get your kid to watch TV so you can shower (meaning your child can't entertain him/herself without you there -- something they might learn to do, btw, if you do not rely on TV too much), why not have them watch something a little more stimulating, with a little more language?

MamaChilanga,

Well, seeing as my child is NINE MONTHS old, he's usually pretty clingy when he's tired. And since I take a shower in the morning before work, he's usually tired. Most days I pop him in the tub with me (where he's happy to play), but every once in a while, it's nice to be able to just shower by myself.

How long do you really think a nine month old can spend by himself?

Although studies like this are nothing new, interactive shows, such as Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street, have had thousands of research studies over the years on their educational effectiveness. But when one study finds otherwise, it gets published in Time magazine!

Despite that, it scares me when kids under two years old watch a LOT of TV. When a one-year-old knows characters by name but can’t yet move away from the TV on his or her own … that’s not good.

While preschoolers are able to decide for themselves if they want to watch a particular program, babies, on the other hand, can’t.

With the growing number of programs — and even networks — out there catering specifically to preschoolers and babies, a lot of content can slip through the cracks.

Although all research studies should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s a good reminder for parents to analyze what (and at what age) their children are watching.

I wonder about a report like this that determines causality instead of correllation. I mean, who is to say that the type of parents who would put their kids in front of videos for 5 hours a day aren't, er, dumber and producing dumber kids?

There is a vast difference between Blue's Clues for a 3-5 year old with imagination concepts and Baby Einstein for a 9 month old who is just figuring out the world. The whole Baby Einstein enterprise is built on the ridiculous idea that: Because a study with college students showed that they did better on short-term retention while listening to classical music; clearly playing tinny nonsense with some vague underlying notes that might match some mozart music coupled with disjointed images of things and places that don't exist anywhere in the known world would make infants more likely to retain knowledge. A) college students were tested, not infants; B) short-term memory retention; C) actual classical music, not tinny pretend versions; oh yeah, and D) the results couldn't be duplicated by other teams consistently. I avoid it at all costs because I feel their business model is duplicitous, and the videos are insipid.

But my 3 year old does watch some TV, and she did when younger too. The first things were dog shows, because she loved dogs, these were real world events, and there's nothing scary in them. Tivo is perfect for finding these, and it's not like a 1 year old needs many different dog shows. She didn't have any idea that anyone was "winning" anything. Just "look at the funny dogs!" Then Mr. Rogers, starting some make believe, eventually cartoons.

We were given a (full?) set of Baby Einstein videos when our 2.5-yo son was born. I don't think they are necessarily any better than any other videos out there. The key is moderation. I don't even know if he's watched all of the videos yet (~15 of them). Somebody almost always watches the videos with him and he typically narates (sp?) it.

MamaChilanga: what is more stimulating and has more language? The news?

Why don't we just invest all our energy in being the best parents we can be to our own children. Judging and criticizing people you don't even know is a habit your kids will most likely pick up!