Baby Einstein

Rococo · #1 08-16-2007, 05:01 PM

So its turns out that the Baby Einstein videos don't turn your kid into Einstein. To the contrary, like all television, they may slow slow language development in small children.

In the view of the EDF, what other things are widely regarded as beneficial now, which you believe in the future will be shown to be harmful or useless?

destro · #2 08-16-2007, 05:08 PM

bottled water

guids · #3 08-16-2007, 06:56 PM

what correlation does language development have to being smart? In fact i thought einstein didnt talk until he was like 4?

tw0please · #4 08-16-2007, 07:01 PM

Guids, the metric that was used for testing language was the amount of vocabulary learned, not the time that the children first spoke. The number of words you know sounds like it should correlate with intelligence.

Max Raker · #5 08-16-2007, 07:45 PM

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what correlation does language development have to being smart? In fact i thought einstein didnt talk until he was like 4?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sample size?

DING-DONG YO · #6 08-16-2007, 08:23 PM

The issue I have with baby einstein (and similar products) is that it is selling people this idea that if you don't provide your baby with such and such stimulation, then your baby will somehow be underdeveloped. Numerous studies have debunked that "90% of brain development occurs by age 2" crap.

I just had a baby (well, not me, wife did most of the work, OK, I only did 30-40 seconds of the work) and so have many of my friends. A number of them are completely sold on this crap. First off, you're better off taking the money you would spend on that nonsense and putting it away for college. Second off, the best thing you can do for your baby's development is <gasp> play with him/her!! Read, play, just talk to your baby. It doesn't even matter what. My daughter is 4 months old and tries like crazy to imitate our words.

Never seen her try to imitate TV.

jsaund22 · #7 08-16-2007, 08:53 PM

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what correlation does language development have to being smart? In fact i thought einstein didnt talk until he was like 4?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hence the name..."Baby Einstein".

DING-DONG YO · #8 08-16-2007, 08:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what correlation does language development have to being smart? In fact i thought einstein didnt talk until he was like 4?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hence the name..."Baby Einstein".

[/ QUOTE ]

n1

LetItBe · #9 08-16-2007, 09:24 PM

Yeah, Baby Einstein is worthless, and may actually be bad for the child. Waste of money.

Anywho, another thing that fits (sorry to keep on the child thing) are those walkers where the kids hang in the air. Bad for a child's development. DDY is right on for what a baby needs. And tummy time...most kids get nowhere near enough of it.

MasterLJ · #10 08-16-2007, 09:53 PM

I just had this conversation with a dude on the plane yesterday.

Your kid will be smart no matter what school/program/products they interact with as long as you put in the time. Me and this dude are fathers of 6 year olds who can read better than most adults... it's not because of their school or baby einstein, it's because we read to our kids and encouraged development. We took the time to advance our child's learning. The problem I have with a lot of these products is that it's almost like the parents invest in these so that they don't have to do the work when there's simply no close substitute to spending time tutoring your child.