To begin with, during year one of my son's life, my wife and I had a ridiculous amount of responsibility. We just had our beautiful baby boy, and my wife returned to work part-time shortly after he was born. We spent the bulk of our time trading off parenting duties while maintaining professional and school routines. She would see clients while I watched my son, then my wife would take my place as I performed the myriad tasks I had to accomplish in my last year of graduate school. We found that we had a limited amount of time to simply be in the same company without also having our progeny deservedly insisting on our undivided attention.
Here is where Baby Einstein and his cronies: Baby Van Gogh, Baby Mozart, etc., came in quite nicely. We allowed ourselves no more than an hour a day to allow our little baby to fixate on our computer monitor to watch little objects dance and wiggle around to the tune of some of history's greatest compositions. All the while, we basked in the few moments we had to share a conversation over breakfast or relax together with some tea. With this in mind, I loved Baby Einstein videos. Yet the song begins to carry a different tune when considering what the content of these videos actually produces.
The premise of the Baby Einstein collection is to animate the brain of a child through moving toys, rapid scene changes, and dazzling colors. The content supposedly activates the neurochemistry to stimulate learning. In theory it is effective. However, the content of these videos ventures into the field of hyper-stimulation, where the brain simply overloads and becomes flooded with activity until learning becomes secondary, non-existent, or even regressive. This can be disastrous to a baby who is continually bombarded with video babysitters. Their neurochemistry is roused constantly, and the ability to sustain their attention becomes more challenging in reality.
A Time article in 2007 was quite critical of Baby Einstein, even going as far as to claim, "researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good. And they may actually delay language development in toddlers." (article information is included below). In the article, Dr. Vic Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, explains further:
"Babies require face-to-face interaction to learn...watching probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development."
As media proliferates attention-seeking materials as the main source of educating children, so goes the interaction between child and adult, which has continually been proven to produce the most effective comprehensive education. With the videos, "(children's) minds come to expect a high level of stimulation, and view that as normal," says Christakis, "and by comparison, reality is boring."
In 1999, The American Academy of Pediatrics went as far as to recommend that children under two should avoid watching any television. While this is a noble recommendation, it is rather unrealistic in the 21st century and was quite impractical even for the author of this blog, who remains constructively passive about allowing our son a little bit of television time per day. We have even developed a modest collection of videos for him to watch. Not surprisingly, because we offer him a lot of other options and educational materials, he naturally loses interest in the videos after less than an hour.
Taking a humble look at what media giants like the Baby Einstein Company have done in the learning industry, I can admit that these videos can have their place in family's homes. But, I speak ever-so-boldly that they will not produce the educational benefit that the company purports to accomplish. Nor do they support neurological development in any facet. So, to quote the old warning label often used to protect children: "use this product with caution!"
**Time article can be found at: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html.**
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