The Great "Baby Einstein" Scam

[derby378]

Of course it was too good to be true.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Disney is offering a refund to buyers of its ubiquitous “Baby Einstein” videos, which did not, as promised, turn babies into wunderkinds. Apparently, all those puppets, bright colors, and songs were what we had feared all along—a mind-numbing way to occupy infants.

This news has rocked the parenting world, which had embraced the videos as a miraculous child-rearing staple. Videos that make your kid smarter while you prepare dinner? Genius!


Or not. According to the article, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two years old stay away from watching screens. In the letter threatening Disney with a class-action lawsuit for "deceptive advertising," public health lawyers hired by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood cited a study which found a link between early television exposure and later problems with attention span.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/the-great-baby-einstein-scam-531147/

:rofl:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. I can't imagine how anyone thought that planting an infant in front of a monitor

is a good thing for brain development. Seems to me it would encourage passivity and sedantariness.

[KittyWampus]

2. keep children under 2 away from tv screens? Yeah, good luck with that. Although I applaud

every parent who manages to do their best.

What did parents do before tv?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. When I was little there was very little programming for children in the first place

and it was extremely unsophisticated and basic. Even as a toddler I thought Romper Room was lame, although I did covet one of the bouncy balls with the handle on it. Aside from that, there were local kids shows on in the afternoon after school and then the famous Saturday morning line-up of cartoons, specifically designed to allow kids to get their own Rice Crispies and plant themselves in front of the TV while Mom and Dad slept late.

Sesame Street, while great in many senses is what really transformed TV into the great babysitting entity. Before that, parents knew that TV rotted your brain and they shooed you away from it and made you "go play outside". Sesame Street allowed parents to say, "well, at least they're learning something."

[Tansy_Gold]

17. It can be done, and the results are worth it

My grandson, who just turned 4 this summer, was not allowed to watch tv at home until he was at least two. My daughter and son-in-law simply never turned the tv on at home while the baby was awake. They both worked, but they chose a day care facility that did NOT use tv as an "activity." As a result "E" never got into a tv habit. He had toys to play with, music to listen to, books to be read to him and to read for himself.

This past summer, when I visited them, I only saw "E" actually watch tv once in the entire week. He was granted the privilege of watching a particular Sesame Street-like show on PBS. He sat on the couch and watched for 15 minutes or so, then got up, turned the tv off, and went back to playing with his cars.

On a three-hour-long drive that we took, he was allowed to watch one DVD movie. The rest of the time he looked at books or looked out the window and commented on what he saw. His parents conversed with him rather than indulging in constant updates on FB.

At age 4, "E" knows his alphabet, can write most letters (upper and lower case) without assistance, can count to 60, knows all his basic colors as well as such Binney & Smith favorites as aquamarine and bittersweet, identifies dozens of animals in books like chimpanzees, koala bears, komodo dragons, stegosaurus and triceratops, black bears and geckos, carpenter ants and sperm whales. He sings along with Bruce Springsteen.

My daughter and son-in-law both work, and my daughter just recently completed an advanced degree, so she worked and went to school and was "E"'s mother. This is not a stay at home mom who has lots of time on her hands. But they made a commitment that they would not raise a tv baby. The pay off is that while it may have taken more time while he was really little, it takes a LOT less time now. "E" is able to entertain himself, he is a favorite at his school, and he's fun to be around.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Of course it was "deceptive" and manipulative.

Disney didn't reckessly or ironically assign the moniker of "Einstein" to this product. It wasn't named "Average Baby" or "Baby Bush".

[apnu]

4. People are so dumb.

I have a 3-year old now, I bought the videos, I let my baby watch them, but I never expected them to turn my son into some kind of Mensa member. I knew right away what they were and why I put them on the TV. I wanted to just stimulate my son's brain and that happened, for that matter I was a satisfied customer. The one good side benefit is he loved Baby Galileo and learned to love space, the planets and about the Universe. Something he still likes when not playing with his Thomas trains.

But parents who think that they can plug in any video and expect the boob-tube to educate their kids for them are idiots. TV is not a good education tool, never was and never will be.

[Uben]

5. My child did poorly on the SAT

At 18 months, he should have already graduated college. Fuckin rip-off!


















/sarcasm

[RKP5637]

6. Damn fools to have fallen for this crap... and sticking babies in front of the brain dead TV. n/t

[Buzz Clik]

8. Playing Mozart in utero didn't make them geniuses. Now this.

Damn it! You mean ... kids actually have to work to learn?

[derby378]

10. If not Mozart, can we try techno instead?

Maybe some old-school Richie Hawtin? Or something from the late Gaspar Pound, grandson of Ezra Pound? Or maybe we can try a little hardcore from Lenny Dee, straight outta Brooklyn.

Then again, I do have some goa from The S.U.N. Project sitting in the CD player... :headbang:

[Buzz Clik]

15. Maybe whatever was playing during conception....

[derby378]

18. Damn. I think you nailed it.

:applause:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. Not just "kids actually have to work to learn" it's that parents actually have to invest time

in their kids.

It's not just the Baby Einstein phenomenon either. Every time I go to the store, I see more and more "self readers"--things like Leap Frog.

There's nothing wrong with these things. I had Reader Rabbit when I was a kid. But they should be supplemental things. They should not take the place of the parent.

[csziggy]

23. LOL! Actually let them play to learn

When I was a kid, my sisters and I played with books (radical idea, there) and toys with the participation of our parents. None of it was "work" - we just played. When our younger sister came along, the three older of us played "school" with her and taught her stuff for fun. By the time she was four and a half, she was reading on a first grade level.

Mom wanted to enroll her in first grade, but the public schools would not allow a child that young in, so Mom put her into a private first grade instead of kindergarten. Little Sis was doing stuff way above the first grade level, and the private school was perfect since they let the kids work to their own level.

None of us ever thought that early learning was work. We all enjoyed reading, playing with toys that taught us spatial relationships, colors, numbers, etc. We also spent a lot of time outside, playing in a "dangerous" environment - a swampy lake next to our house with alligators and water moccasins. But we also built our own playhouses, toys, and learned about practical things, like how to use tools. Mostly on our own once we were over six, since my parents both worked long hours.


When I got to school, I never understood the kids that thought learning was terrible and boring - it is exciting and fun! We all still enjoy reading and learning on our own. :shrug:

[Walk away]

9. My brother and I used to get up at 5am and watch "Modern Farmer"..

And we lived in NYC.

They basically talked about seed and fertalizer without clips or props in black and white. Bored kids watch TV and it was the only thing on at that time in the morning.

p.s. Neither one of us can even keep a house plant alive.

[HughBeaumont]

11. It's all about this sentence right here:

Call it the perfect storm of parenting. Who doesn’t want to believe that there is a magical, wondrous, no-parental-guidance-required product that will turn their kids into Mensa members? The combination of our lack of time, our paranoia over our kids performance, and our faith in technology primed this generation of parents to accept the clever advertising around "Baby Einstein" as truth, just as parents before us have seized on corporal punishment, or the teachings of Dr. Spock.

Yep, gotta make them into exemplary cubeslaves early!

"The idea of having kids is GREAT . . . . I just WISH I had time for that whole inconvenient pesky "parenting" . . thing. I'd like to contribute to little Hamish's development, but I got a conference/Seminar/lunch in D.C. to go to. Sorry, life doesn't buy itself!"

[derby378]

14. Nailed it

Kids need parents - parents who are ready to nurture and develop their kids, slow to anger, sober in thought and deed, able to impart love, patience, and diligence in their children. No TV set can ever do that.

[GoCubsGo]

19. Heaven help them they'd have to sit and read a book to their kid

How times have changed. My mom had four of us. She worked full time. Yet, she still found time to read to us. I was reading by the time I was two because of that. No "Baby Einstein" back then. Just books and the simple toys that were available back then. This was in the early 1960s. Lots of credit goes to my dad, too. He did his share of parenting, as well, which included doing household chores, like the grocery shopping. I sometimes wonder why some of these people even bother having kids if they don't want to actually be parents...

[HughBeaumont]

20. I had a combo of Sesame Street, reading and flash cards.

My mom was a stay-at-home for a little bit. This is why we're not having any more kids: not only is it financially impossible (well, it's possible, but it involves pretty much working until they stick us in our graves) but the attention that's going to be needed isn't going to be there, and we know this. People overidealize the notion before sitting down and actually understanding the work and money involved in having a kid. They don't stop to think about this part. Kids can't raise themselves.

[Burma Jones]

12. And the founders of the franchise are 'Pukes.......

The paragon of GOP-defined success, produce something that turns out to harm its intended audience under a pseudo scientific imprimatur then collect millions of dollars.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. I know an adolescent in masters classes in high school whose father

would put her on his belly when she was an infant at 3 a.m. and they'd watch MTV while he'd drink beer. She got her stimulation and turned out fine.

Baby Einstein was just another form of media.

[TwilightGardener]

16. Babies' brains develop at a certain pace--no amount of puppetry

and vocabulary and flashing colors is going to make a difference if the neuro development just isn't in place yet for the intended "lesson". Like someone else said, they tried playing classical music for fetuses, how'd that work out? But when they can absorb what they're seeing (toddler-age), I do believe some TV is good--I learned to read before kindergarten by watching Sesame Street.

[SoCalDem]

21. Babies don't want "Baby Einstein"..

they want Mom & Dad down on the floor with THEM//playing with them. singing to them, reading to them, rocking them..

They want their PARENTS..not hundreds of dollars worth of tapes, DVDs, etc.

The more interaction with their loved ones, the "smarter" they are :)_