You Mean a DVD Didn’t Turn My Kid Into a Genius?
By Glinda
I remember when the Munchkin was born, the hottest thing for babies was the “Baby Einstein” DVD set. Actually, I wasn’t really aware of them until my mother brought them up, and told me that there was a set of ten available at Costco, and did I want them?
Well, as the sleep-deprived mother of an infant, I said yes. But really, who says no to free stuff for their kid?
I read the promotional materials that accompanied the DVD’s, all of which claimed that simply by watching puppets do things to classical music, your baby would become smarter.
Seriously.
To be honest, the Munchkin really did love watching those things, and I will admit that I would put one on when I needed to go to the bathroom or take care of something really important. I tried to limit his time with them, which I think I did successfully.
I watched all of them at some point, and I remember wondering why in the world these particular skits with puppets and things floating around the screen would make my child smart. I know that classical music has been shown to aid logical thought processes, but that was about where the educational value of those DVD’s began and ended.
Did anyone truly think they were raising their child’s IQ? And if they did, were they also the kind of parents who made their in utero baby listen to classical music via headphones? Or read Voltaire out loud, hoping that by osmosis, their baby would somehow pick it up?
Ah, the vulnerabilities of the new parent! In this competitive day and age, it seems they will stop at nothing to gain even the slightest advantage over other people, even subjecting their children to nonsensical, non-verbal, hand-made hand puppets that make the Muppets look extremely high-tech.
It seems that quite a few people did think these DVD’s were magic, and now due to pressure from a child’s advocacy group, they are offering a refund for up to four of the DVD’s, no receipt required. It says that the videos had to be purchased after 2004, but I’m hoping they aren’t really going to look, since mine were purchased in 2003.
It certainly doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s an offer well worth taking advantage of.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:20 am
We got a few of these as gifts. We watched about 10 minutes of one of them.
Firstly, the music drove us crazy. This over-simplified synth crud bore no more than a passing resemblance to the music it was supposed to be playing. If our daughter is going to listen to Mozart, we want it played on real instruments, with actual harmonies.
Most atrocious, however, were the visuals. The best way to describe it is that it was as though the muppets were being performed by people who had never heard of the muppets. It was clear that whoever was making this had no idea what they were doing. The effect was to simulate what we could only imagine was an LSD-induced hallucination.
Real classical music is complex, and has a great deal for the brain to analyze and interpret. Real kids shows like Sesame Street have actual plots and purposes. The Baby Dumbass series is nothing more than drivel.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:53 am
These were quite helpful in providing some non hospital stimulation for my eldest son when he was in the hospital a lot as a baby but outside of that I find them to be useless. We never get them out anymore now that he is too old for them and his baby brother has never even seen one.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:43 am
I’d love to see some of the demands for refunds.
“My kid’s still stoopid. i want mi munny bak.”
October 28th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Yet another sign that the appocalypse is upon us. I am amazed that people actually expected this to magically enhance their kids intellect. Hellllooooo! Kids learn through actual human interaction and creative play that stretches their own inate abilities, not by sitting in front of a TV screen watching the same mind numbing video over and over again. This is absolutely the most frivolous of legal actions since the product liability suit brought by the man who lost several fingers due to picking up his power mower and using it as a hedge trimmer. Now there’s a guy who could have used some “smart baby” videos growing up.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
The fad had mostly passed by the time my daughter was born, and as the entire concept annoyed me, I avoided any of the other products. I certainly wasn’t going to show my infant any DVDs. What gets me about these is the laziness of it–parents wanted their children to be smarter, but they didn’t want to do the work of it, they wanted to pop a DVD in the player and let it magically happen. It doesn’t work that way. Obviously. If you want your baby to be smarter, you have to interact with him or her. Read books from an early age; I read to my daughter from the time she came home from the hospital. At first they just love the sound of your voice, and later the pretty pictures catch their interest. Talk to your baby all the time, tell her what’s going on, explain things. Trust me, it will work. And it will strengthen your bond with your baby.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:39 am
My sister was getting her master’s degree to be a neo-natal nurse practitioner when those videos came out. She had to take classes in child development. She hated the videos – she said that kids should not watch tv until they can actually talk about what they are seeing.