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from Natural Life Magazine, July/August
2009
Making Baby Brainy?
by Andrea Cameron
I’m afraid I must apologize to all the friends and relatives who generously gave us countless DVDs covering every topic from foreign languages to farm animals. Sorry, but I played Baby Beethoven for my son when he was six months old and after one viewing, I put it away for good.
I put all those DVDs away for good.
I must be crazy. What’s wrong with little duck puppets and babies speaking Japanese? Isn’t it good to get kids learning early? Don’t these DVDs introduce our children to the wider world of language, science, art and classical music? That’s what the marketing campaigns claim. Surely, as a high school English teacher, I’d see that these programs make kids smarter. The earlier the better, right?
Nonsense. These products are directed to children under two years of age, yet the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two have absolutely no screen time. It’s not necessarily the content that is problematic. It’s the medium itself. Watching these programs daily hinders cognitive and behavioral development.
Survey a room of informed, caring parents and many will recite most of the current recommendations for children. Put them on their back to sleep. No honey before sixteen months. Yet, most of these devoted parents believe that educational videos for children under two are beneficial, if not vital, for childhood development. This is the result of clever (but not genius) marketing. My fellow parents, we’ve been duped.
All parents want to believe that their children are gifted. The truth is that most of our children aren’t “gifted” by definition. They are gifts. All children are special, intuitive and valuable without that label. Marketing for programs directed at the zero to twenty-four month set preys on the desire of parents to provide their children with every opportunity possible. Such advertising provides the false claim that by accelerating development, we can create giftedness. Not true.
So why are these programs actually detrimental to childhood development? ...
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Andrea Cameron is a high school English and Drama teacher. She lives in Eastern Ontario with her husband and son. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Room Magazine and The Antigonish Review. She has also written two non-fiction books for young people.
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