Baby Einstein = Baby Genius?

By Linda Shiue

I was comparing notes the other day with some friends who, like me, watched an awful lot of TV in the 70s and 80s... starting with Schoolhouse Rock, Electric Company and Sesame Street, and advancing to Scooby Doo, Mork and Mindy, and The Love Boat. Not recommended, but we all turned out OK.

At that time, though, the earliest we started our TV habits was in the preschool years.  Enter the 2000s, and we saw the introduction of infant oriented educational TV.  Most parents who had a child born in the early 2000s bought Baby Einstein DVDs for their infants and toddlers, at face value for some sweet, old fashioned videos with a classical music soundtrack.  If classical music is thought to be good in utero and in early childhood for brain development, then maybe these videos could do the same! I was one such mom, and I must have watched the Baby Mozart and Baby Shakespeare DVDs dozens of times between my two kids.  I never thought it would make them smart, but it couldn't hurt.  I certainly did not expect a money-back guarantee!

So what a surprise to find out that, with the aid of some parent advocates and public interest lawyers, the Disney company, which bought the Baby Einstein company a few years ago, is actually offering full refunds to people who were misled into thinking that buying Baby Einstein videos=making a baby genius.  Go ahead and get your refunds!

But what does the science tell us?

Well, don't panic, but based upon the scientific data out there, the American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends ZERO screen time for kids under two, and further warns that TV watching in the infant age group could actually cause harm.  Some of the problems suggested by various studies included issues with memory, attention, and language fluency.   The jury is still out, but it pretty clear that there are better ways to stimulate your babies' minds:

-good old fashioned play

-music

-talking and reading to them

Interested in learning more about the effects of TV on infants and toddlers? PBS Parents gives a great summary of these issues.