Baby Einstein.. not really

eee

The Disney Company, makers and distributors of Baby Einsteinproducts are apparently offering a full refund of $15.99 to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein DVD between June 5, 2004 and Sept. 4, 2009.

Why? Because apparently while these videos were marketed as “educational,” they do little to educate. And, apparently, they weren’t just ineffective, they may, in fact, have been DETRIMENTAL.

This assessment is based upon a study which linked kids who were exposed to Baby Einstein videos to lower scores on tests that measured standard language development. Thus striking a blow to neurotic parents everywhere who’d put their kids on a regimen of watching these videos as a first step on the road to Mensa.

On the one hand I believe it. Because, personally, I STILL, almost a decade later, can’t get those songs out of my head. And I’m sure that would be distracting to anyone trying to take any kind of test. But on the other hand – how sad!

The Baby Einstein videos were, in their heyday, the pinnacle of doing something good for your kid–while not having to make any effort. You were grooming the next Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist while they were sitting there drooling, swaddled in their own excrement.

Now these videos have been thrown atop the heap along with things like lead-based paint, heavy metal music, and playing in old refrigerators left out for the trash with the door left on.

But let’s be serious, did we REALLY think we were conditioning our kids for brilliance by watching a puppet stick its tonge out to the tune of light classical piano? Or were we just psyched that we could get stuff done for 45 minutes while the kid was otherwise amused?

I think it should be sort of obvious to any parent that sitting in front of a TV, not talking, not listening to someone else talking is going to do more harm than good to any child’s language development. Of course real human interaction is better for them. You’d have to watch an awful lot of harmful kids videos not to recognize that.

Source: nj.com