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The baby NEEDS an AppleTV.
- Thread starter mediaboy
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Baby Einstein is a high tech babysitter which does more harm than good.
Children under 2 years should not watch any television at all. Period.
Children under 2 years should not watch any television at all. Period.
We ditched the TV when we had our first kid in 2003. We still have DVDs and we've watched movies with them. But the difference in our child's development and the kids from families in the same education/social status - but that watched tv - is INSANE. We have other no-TV friends and we have friends that don't see it as an issue. Kids that watch TV regularly (or any screen media for that matter) are way behind in language skills.
It is such a simple thing - like giving them food. All the activities you could come up with don't matter as much as just killing the TV from their lives (or at least severely restricting it) for the first two years.
Think of watching TV as a skill. No skills can be gained from watching TV other than "watching TV". Is this a skill? Not in the last million years of human development has TV watching been a skill.
Communicating with others is a necessary skill for survival. Our babies are geared to gain that skill as quickly as possible. The more you retard that development, the harder they will have it. Let them watch it when their older - watch it with them as a family. But keep it off for the first two years (or longer) and you will have maximized your time invested in them and you and your child will reap the benefits for the rest of their lives.
The worst culprits are the educational programs as they purport to ENHANCE learning. From the Time article:
I have to say I agree with the poster who says that not knowing TV characters is a social blunder on my daughter's part. She really cannot carry on a conversation regarding Dora and that has made her feel like an outcast at times. But the kids that value friendships based on "tv watching skill" are probably not worth having anyway.
It is such a simple thing - like giving them food. All the activities you could come up with don't matter as much as just killing the TV from their lives (or at least severely restricting it) for the first two years.
Think of watching TV as a skill. No skills can be gained from watching TV other than "watching TV". Is this a skill? Not in the last million years of human development has TV watching been a skill.
Communicating with others is a necessary skill for survival. Our babies are geared to gain that skill as quickly as possible. The more you retard that development, the harder they will have it. Let them watch it when their older - watch it with them as a family. But keep it off for the first two years (or longer) and you will have maximized your time invested in them and you and your child will reap the benefits for the rest of their lives.
The worst culprits are the educational programs as they purport to ENHANCE learning. From the Time article:
I have to say I agree with the poster who says that not knowing TV characters is a social blunder on my daughter's part. She really cannot carry on a conversation regarding Dora and that has made her feel like an outcast at times. But the kids that value friendships based on "tv watching skill" are probably not worth having anyway.
Suggestion (TIFWIW): Buy it ONCE, and if the kids destroy it, it's gone. Or they can buy another with money that they have earned from working if they choose.
This way they learn:
1. To take care of their stuff
2. The value of work and money in getting what they want.
This has worked marvelously for us.
I love it when a parent says that something will help a child get ahead in some area, or lag behind in another. As if there's a race to acquire all relevant skills as quickly as possible. TV will make your kids fall behind in language skills. Whatever. By the time they're grown up, most kids of people reading these boards will be able to read, write, add and subtract as well as any other kids. Adding skills at an early age means nothing. Thus, not having skills at a particular age detracts not at all.
When you consider that by the time you're out of grad school, where you went to undergrad is lost (as far as relevance goes) back in the murky depths of your past, it's funny to think that little Johnny reading at a fourth grade level in grade 2 somehow will make a difference in Johnny's life. Sure, if he gets into AP Kindergarten he'll be tracked to AP First Grade, etc, right through Harvard Med School, but it never really works that way. The only thing that works is long-term committed interest and support from one's family, with or without a TV, and with or without educational toys.
And again, kids need TV to be able to talk to other kids -- arguably a more important skill than anything.
When you consider that by the time you're out of grad school, where you went to undergrad is lost (as far as relevance goes) back in the murky depths of your past, it's funny to think that little Johnny reading at a fourth grade level in grade 2 somehow will make a difference in Johnny's life. Sure, if he gets into AP Kindergarten he'll be tracked to AP First Grade, etc, right through Harvard Med School, but it never really works that way. The only thing that works is long-term committed interest and support from one's family, with or without a TV, and with or without educational toys.
And again, kids need TV to be able to talk to other kids -- arguably a more important skill than anything.
Yeah, our 6mo. old is big on the Wiggles right now (Aussie middle-aged men dancing around). And it is like crack. I can't get the songs out of my head. Personally, I don't see it being detrimental to my son's development. Then again, my wife and I spend a great deal more time face-to-face with our son rather than sitting him down in front of the TV. Occasionally, we use the TV to keep him occupied so we can do housework, etc., but regularly, one of us is sitting there with him watching it. It's also amazing that he's picked up on the songs himself, to where my wife or I can quote something from the show to him and he will smile because he's already associated the show with being happy.
In our case, he's progressing very well according to his pediatrician, as he is beginning to "talk" in more complex sounds and learning to produce consonants; although he still hasn't said da-da or ma-ma, he can do ba-ba quite consistently.
I will agree, though, that too much can end up being a bad thing, but taking it away completely just seems overboard to me.
While you're on the shopping list for the new baby, don't forget an eight-core Mac Pro 3.0, 16GB ram, 3TB hard drive, and anything else that may add to the cost...
Dang, I knew I left something off the baby registry.
Hmmm... amortizing the cost of the computer over the 18+ years of raising a child (not taking into account having multiple children). I think I can justify the purchase with the fact that this will still be a very small percentage of the total cost of child rearing. Now to convince my wife.This isn't about acquiring advanced skills - it is about BASIC skills like saying "i am hungry, mommy" instead of grunts and whines. It is also about connecting your kid with real life instead of the 2D plane of TV. If you don't take it seriously you risk putting your child through a rough time or making inborn developmental disabilities even worse. Why take that chance?
People learn at different rates and at different times of their life. But the first two years are unique in the brain of a human and you don't ever get those years back.
How do kids use TV to talk to each other?
The basic skills you refer to are the ones you need to worry least about. A pediatrician I know frequently has to tell parents concerned their child is not walking yet that he has yet to see a child crawl down the aisle at his or her wedding. Whats the rush? The kid will learn eventually.
Did you see that Power Rangers yesterday? Whos your favorite? I like ____ because ______. That episode isnt as good as the other because ____. I wonder what _____ is going to do next? Do you want to play Power Rangers? You be ____, Ill be _____. Those all sound like typical kid quotes and good ones, too, for fostering social interaction. Its culture. Not Culture with a capital C, but culture as in the things that surround everyday life.
If you want to rip on Power Rangers, then insert some more acceptable TV above and re-read.
Did you see that Power Rangers yesterday? Whos your favorite? I like ____ because ______. That episode isnt as good as the other because ____. I wonder what _____ is going to do next? Do you want to play Power Rangers? You be ____, Ill be _____. Those all sound like typical kid quotes and good ones, too, for fostering social interaction. Its culture. Not Culture with a capital C, but culture as in the things that surround everyday life.
If you want to rip on Power Rangers, then insert some more acceptable TV above and re-read.
The market for baby-brain DVDs -- titles like "Baby Einstein," "Brainy Baby" and others that make up what's been called the Baby Genius Edutainment Complex -- is huge: striving parents spend hundreds of millions every year on videos that are marketed as giving tots a leg up in the IQ wars that are sure to dominate tomorrow's robot-led wasteland. And hey, why shouldn't parents believe the promise that these DVDs are HGH for the mind? After all, even President Bush recommends them, going so far as to honor Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner-Clark at a State of the Union address.
But new research shows that Baby Einstein might better be named Baby Paul Shore. Babies who watch the videos are less verbally proficient than those who do not; researchers found that for every hour that an infant between 8 to 16 months old spends watching a brain DVD, he understands, on average, 6 to 8 fewer words than a kid who didn't do Einstein.
Pediatrician Frederick Zimmerman and his colleagues at the University of Washington discovered the discrepancy through a telephone survey. They called up a thousand parents and asked them to ask their kids a list of common words -- things like "truck," "cookie" -- and to note which ones the infants understood. The baby DVDs seemed to have no effect on the vocabularies of older kids -- toddlers over 17 months. But younger tykes just couldn't place as many words as their non-DVD-addled fellows. The researchers controlled for all other likely factors -- such as the parents' education -- showing the finding was correlated closely with DVD-watching.
The researchers are careful to note that their study doesn't prove that the DVDs are the cause of reduced infant vocabularies; it could be that parents who are buying such DVDs are doing so because their own verbal skills aren't strong, and that this weakness is being reflected in the kids' confusion over words like "cookie."
But Zimmerman tells Newsweek that it's possible that DVDs are causing the verbal slippage. "It might be that the baby videos are just displacing time that the child would otherwise spend with a parent or another adult caregiver, or even with an older sibling -- all of whom can help the child develop language by interacting with them," he says. "That interaction could be reading books, or telling stories or just getting down on the floor and playing."
Zimmerman also cautions that much of the hype surrounding these DVDs is just that -- marketing puffery. "You can produce a video in your basement and tell people that anyone who watches it will definitely turn into Mozart -- and no one will stop you from saying that," he tells Newsweek. "And those claims are effective. At the population level, about a third of parents have bought into those claims. So parents should just realize that people are making a lot of money off this."
The study is published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Also see The New Scientist's coverage.
But new research shows that Baby Einstein might better be named Baby Paul Shore. Babies who watch the videos are less verbally proficient than those who do not; researchers found that for every hour that an infant between 8 to 16 months old spends watching a brain DVD, he understands, on average, 6 to 8 fewer words than a kid who didn't do Einstein.
Pediatrician Frederick Zimmerman and his colleagues at the University of Washington discovered the discrepancy through a telephone survey. They called up a thousand parents and asked them to ask their kids a list of common words -- things like "truck," "cookie" -- and to note which ones the infants understood. The baby DVDs seemed to have no effect on the vocabularies of older kids -- toddlers over 17 months. But younger tykes just couldn't place as many words as their non-DVD-addled fellows. The researchers controlled for all other likely factors -- such as the parents' education -- showing the finding was correlated closely with DVD-watching.
The researchers are careful to note that their study doesn't prove that the DVDs are the cause of reduced infant vocabularies; it could be that parents who are buying such DVDs are doing so because their own verbal skills aren't strong, and that this weakness is being reflected in the kids' confusion over words like "cookie."
But Zimmerman tells Newsweek that it's possible that DVDs are causing the verbal slippage. "It might be that the baby videos are just displacing time that the child would otherwise spend with a parent or another adult caregiver, or even with an older sibling -- all of whom can help the child develop language by interacting with them," he says. "That interaction could be reading books, or telling stories or just getting down on the floor and playing."
Zimmerman also cautions that much of the hype surrounding these DVDs is just that -- marketing puffery. "You can produce a video in your basement and tell people that anyone who watches it will definitely turn into Mozart -- and no one will stop you from saying that," he tells Newsweek. "And those claims are effective. At the population level, about a third of parents have bought into those claims. So parents should just realize that people are making a lot of money off this."
The study is published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Also see The New Scientist's coverage.