Baby Einstein is NOT a bright idea

Mommy3.5 ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 9:56 am

Any TV in the first two years of life is bad. Its been shown that children who watch videos as babies, have increased levels of ADD. I believe the American Academy of pediatrics, recommends zero screen time till the age of two.

That said, I cannot imagine why ANYONE would choose to have their kids watch Baby Einstein! I was once subjected to it at a friends house, It was awful. I wanted to pull my hair out.

As a rule, my kids only see videos or hear tapes that I could tolerate. We no longer have a TV, but when we go to my parents, my kids only see the Classic Disney movies I loved as a kid. As for CD's, my kids have Shmuel Kunda tapes, The Marvelous Midos Machine, and Kivi and Tuki. I find the things I loved as a child I still love to hear today.

In the kitchen ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 10:29 am

I think that anything that overstimulates a child will lead to "ADD". You push one button or bat one toy and you get a whole song and dance...also a video you see so much at once. When a child grows up and goes to school they don't get that same amount of stimulation and voila they're bored out of their minds and restless and acting up.

The good old fashioned toys and songs are perfect, simple and children learn from them. Much better than any baby einstein video.

imasinger ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 11:02 am

In the kitchen wrote:

I agree 100% that the old fashioned toys are great. But I strongly disagree that electronic toys "lead" to ADD. ADD is a brain chemistry problem, and I'd hate to see parents blame themselves; life is hard enough when your child has these problems.

That being said, I find that electronic toys are both particularly tempting and particularly bad for a child that already has ADD.

↑ Isramom8 ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 11:07 am

Our one child out of nine who has an ADHD diagnosis was always the child least interested in the computer. Sorry to debunk the theory.

It's actually good for these kids to have something that can occupy them when they get restless, like a gameboy.

Atali ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 11:19 am

Isramom8 wrote:

Same here.

My ADHD child never had the patience to sit and watch a video for more than five minutes. It is my non-ADHD child who would love to sit and watch (Jewish) videos for hours if I let him.

↑ In the kitchen

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 11:24 am

I am more than happy to have my theory debunked. And if my theory were correct I still wouldn't blame the parents, those kind of toys are pretty much all you can find today...I have a difficult time finding simple old fashioned toys. Of course I have more reasons why I prefer them etc. But I am glad that people with more experience have told me not to worry about the newer toys.

↑ Mommy3.5 ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 1:47 pm

Atali wrote:

Isramom8 wrote:

Same here.

My ADHD child never had the patience to sit and watch a video for more than five minutes. It is my non-ADHD child who would love to sit and watch (Jewish) videos for hours if I let him.

While this may be true of your child, children parked in front of tv at a young age on a whole, are more likely to be ADD.

↑ Atali ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 2:03 pm

Mommy3.5 wrote:

Atali wrote:

Isramom8 wrote:

Same here.

My ADHD child never had the patience to sit and watch a video for more than five minutes. It is my non-ADHD child who would love to sit and watch (Jewish) videos for hours if I let him.

While this may be true of your child, children parked in front of tv at a young age on a whole, are more likely to be ADD.

According to whom?

People think that ADD just means kids who cannot pay attention and it is some made up name for active kids.

ADD is a real neurological disorder that people are born with.

↑ imasinger ↓

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 2:10 pm

Atali wrote:

Mommy3.5 wrote:

While this may be true of your child, children parked in front of tv at a young age on a whole, are more likely to be ADD.

According to whom?

People think that ADD just means kids who cannot pay attention and it is some made up name for active kids.

ADD is a real neurological disorder that people are born with.

Exactly.

Mommy3.5, you should never know from it firsthand, but it might be helpful to read further. This is from http://psychcentral.com/lib/20.....adhd/

Quote:

Causes of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD)
By Ben Martin, Psy.D.
...

As with all mental disorders, the exact cause of attention deficit disorder (ADHD) is unknown, so parents should not blame themselves for this problem. It is likely that many factors play a role in each case of ADHD, very little of which has to do with specific parenting or child rearing skills.

Inevitably, parents will ask themselves “What did I do to cause this?” or “How could I have prevented it?”, but most of the evidence points to genetic factors, environmental facts or brain damage.

Instead, parents should focus on how best to help their child with ADHD. Experts hope that someday, understanding the causes of the condition will lead to effective therapies, and evidence is building on the side of genetic causes for ADHD rather than elements of the home environment...

↑ Atali

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 4:45 pm

I would be curious to see then if the incidence of ADD is lower among kids from frum families, most of whom don't show little kids many videos even if they have a DVD player.

It does seem to quite often be from birth. As soon as DS learned how to crawl at six months he was constantly moving and couldn't stand having to sit still. He always needed to be touching or doing something and still does.

ora_43

Tue, Oct 27 2009, 5:29 pm

Atali wrote:

People think that ADD just means kids who cannot pay attention and it is some made up name for active kids.

ADD is a real neurological disorder that people are born with.

It's both. It's a real neurological disorder that some people like to "diagnose" in pretty much all kids who can't pay attention in class. At least in my experience.

Watching TV or not is unlikely to change a child's brain chemistry, AFAIK. But it is likely to change their attention span (if TV watching is too frequent and/or at too young of an age), and I think it's probable that the decreased attention span could increase their chances of getting the ADD label.

Seraph

Wed, Oct 28 2009, 5:42 am

Mommy3.5 wrote:

First of all I have experienced ADD first hand, and there are definite links to Early TV watching. There are literally hundreds of studies done on it. Feel free to google it yourself.

just one article,

I think the connection most probably is- the parents who resort to plugging their kids in front of the tv so they can have a moment's reprieve are probably the same parents of kids that are very hyper with adhd tendencies... hence, its not the tv that causes adhd, but adhd makes them be more likely to be watching tv.
make any sense?

↑ Marion ↓

Wed, Oct 28 2009, 5:57 am

LeahW wrote:

I wonder what Albert Einstein would have to say about his name being lent out for this rubbish. I guess Hebrew U could care less, as long as they made a couple million $$ off of it. Gotta love secular Israeli institutions.

Wow, there's a non-sequitor, if ever I did read one. Baby Einstein is a Disney brand. And while it WOULD be interesting to get Albert's opinion, I'm not sure where Hebrew U comes into all this.