Truth About Baby Einstein

[thanka2]

Can't stand most "baby programming" on TV. We leave the TV off during the daytime. The only thing my son sees regularly on TV is the Chinese national anthem which he totally loves and dances to but even with that, we don't make it a point to have him watch it. My son is under 2-years-old and we avoided TV altogether with him until he was about 1-year-old.

Probably 2-3 times/week my son and I will cuddle and watch an episode of Elmo's World from www.sesamestreet.com. Each small episode is about 15-minutes long. I find that it's a calming, peaceful time for both of us and my son likes to point out the different things that he sees in the video and I ask him questions about what he's seeing. He always has a big grin on his face when he sees Elmo.

My son has seen Bob the Builder maybe 2 or 3 times and he likes that as well. My son really likes Thomas the Train as well but he hasn't seen any Thomas TV shows--he only knows about Thomas from the books we've read him. He calls him "Tom Tom" which makes me smile.

Overall, we prefer books to TV and it's really amazing to see how much my son picks up from the books we read to him. We've got to expand his library soon but in the meantime we just keep borrowing some great books from the public libraries.

[carang]

i forgot to say that we, too, are HUGE readers... i probably have over 2000 kids' books (some are at school, some are at home) and i can easily spend thousands of dollars on books.

[Shenzhennifer]

That`s a really funny article - thanks for posting it.
North Americans (esp. Americans) love to take people to court:)
I read the article several times but failed to really get any real information from it. What, parents all of a sudden want their money back from Baby Einstein because they finally believe the scores of research that says watching tv is bad for babies? Because they had the `audacity` to use the word `educational` to describe their videos?
Just because they`re on the tv screen, that automatically negates any possibility of being educated? Seeing shapes and colours and hearing the names of animals and other things gives babies an attention deficit disorder when they turn 7?
Or are parents really p&%$"# off because their dvd babysitter failed to produce a real Einstein? And how could they possibly know the videos failed to imrove the baby`s intellect? They would have no way to measure this, actually.
I don`t know... I`ve got a bunch of the videos. I think they`re pretty cool, but my son doesn`t care so much about them and would rather watch Harry the Bunny on BabyFirst TV.
I like what I have seen of In the Night Garden. I agree that it seems a bit silly to use non-words in a pre-school kids` show, but the non-words and characters are admittedly pretty cute.
I think my son`s favourite though, is Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I don`t know why....;)

[starbucks2]

Shenzhennifer - I agree with your sentiment re the use of "educational" - I don't see the issue there either. Surely no-one really expected that watching the DVDs would turn their child into a genius.

Laughed when I saw your son's favourite - hope he will enjoy "Kate plus Eight" just as much since they have now split!!

[southside852]

My son also loved Baby Einstein - don't see anything wrong with them.

At 22 months, my son loves Hi-5 and Blues Clues. He likes Little Einsteins too. He used to love Teletubbies and In the Night Garden on CBeebies, but it's strange that they don't really speak English.

The under 2 policy doesn;t seem realistic at all especially when your flights home are 15+ hours long.

[thanka2]

I think my son`s favourite though, is Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I don`t know why....;)

ROFL!

[buddhafun]

False advertising. Hope people get their money back. We don't have TV in our household. Actually, we get a sports channel (about to expire) and few news channels. But my son, age 2.5 can't watch TV. We do not allow it.

He's watched very very little. Mostly at other people's when it's on during a playdate, but usually, he is not so interested as he was not trained to watch it.

He's seen some on the airplane, 2x he saw Finding Nemo (in the past 3 months), and 2 episodes of a Beatrix Potter BBC production. Other than that, some youtube lego bike safety videos, Obama speeches, a session of gymnastics, maybe an hour total of football with his dad. We're not big TV watchers. He's not therefore, interested.

I think it's about parental habits. If you watch TV, your kid watches it.

[wwg2102]

When the kids aren't really watching the TV, then I'd switch it off. Since all that extra stimulation in the background is possibly what contributes to attentional problems in kids. I'm no expert but i've discovered my kids are quite happy just playing when i turn it off.