I began writing about early learning 9 years ago because I was always searching for credible sources of information to back up the sale of the educational toys that I was involved with. I would be told things like, “Children learn through play, young children need to learn about shape because it is the foundation for handwriting, movement wires the brain”, etc. These facts were dished out to me regularly and I wanted to know where they came from and if they were all true, or whether some were just marketing speak. So I took a whole lot of interesting facts and researched them by interviewing professionals in the field, doing a lot of reading and attending many talks and seminars. Not only was I able to build a speaking and writing career out of this research, but it gave me a good frame of reference as a parent – a lense through which to view the world and make my decisions about what I would and would not purchase for my children, without being overly influenced by the power of marketing and advertising campaigns. With a little bit of knowledge you can see through the claims the advertisers and marketers often make about their products and services. I cannot claim to be so wise when it comes to purchasing computers and printers, that’s not my field of speciality!

It’s easy to seduce parents into purchasing by offering them something that will help them to make their children brighter and more successful. As I reiterate in all my talks and presentations to parents, gen yourself up with some basic knowledge about early childhood learning, then use your common sense when it comes to choosing appropriate toys and games (including video, computer and Playstation games.) Remember that babies and young children were born to move in order to explore and discover the world around them. For learning to have any meaning the child must use his physical body to experience his world. Occupational and physiotherapists tell us that the body is the architect of the brain, so encourage your baby to move rather than leaving him or her sitting in front of the goggle box.

More on this in an opinionated piece from Michael Mendizza from Touch the Future………………….

In the State of the Union address the President took several minutes to applaud the founder of Baby Einstein, a beautiful woman, for her entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit. No doubt she is all that and much more.

Baby Einstein, however, is one of my Orwellian “double speak” pet peeves, for there exists compelling evidence that the more time a young child spends watching Baby Einstein the less like Einstein that child will become.

What made Einstein notable was his capacity to imagine, imagination being the creation of mental images not generated by the sensory system. Descriptive language is the primary and perhaps the only stimulus that develops this capacity, not pictures flashing on a screen. Understanding this distinction is critical.

Sesame Street was sold to us as an educational pre-reading tool for tots. Millions were spent, over twenty years of taxpayers’ dollars, promoting this myth. When tested, researchers often found the opposite. The more time spent watching Sesame Street, and television in general, the lower the reading and math skills. Reading and math are imaginative functions. Watching videos like Baby Einstein are primarily a sensory experience.

Why is this important? The brain systems involved in an experience profoundly affect both the meaning of the experience and the capacities that experience develops. From a sensory point of view this means that watching Baby Einstein might be compared to skipping rope. If I advertised a rope, implying it would make your child a genius like Einstein, would you buy it? Apparently millions of concerned parents will. (Gee, maybe we are on to something here.)

The name and product Baby Einstein targets (the parents of) infants and very young children. The image of MY baby growing up to be the next Einstein is so seductive that most media-marinated parents can’t resist. Contrary to the warnings of the even the conservative American Academy of Pediatrics published in 1999, that infants and children under two watch NO television or ANY screen entertainment, the producers of Baby Einstein, now Disney, go right ahead pumping out more programming targeting infants and very young children.

From my way of thinking this is no less outrageous than tobacco companies pimping cigarettes to teens.

For more I invite you to review Just Say No to Baby Einstein.
In-Joy,

Michael Mendizza

Touch the Future is a public service. Your financial support is needed and appreciated.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm and is filed under 21st Century Parenting, General, Noise & Clutter, Parenting on the Run, Toy Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.