Speaking of learning and PBS... anyone else remember Villa Alegre? My first introduction to Spanish.

"The Baby Einstein Company believes that when used properly, developmentally-appropriate video content can be a useful tool for parents and little ones to enjoy together."

Useful HOW? Not for learning but for "enjoy[ing]." They really can't come up with a good response to that study, can they? "Okay, so it doesn't make your kids smarter like we say it does. Okay, so it does the opposite. But it's USEFUL (for distracting the little monsters while you go make a sammich and talk on the phone) and ENJOYABLE!"

Don't get me wrong; enjoyable is good . . . if you're just marketing the thing as a toy. When you jack up the price and call it an educational aid, though, just FUN doesn't cut it.

meh. i usually take my daughter out with me to work with my truck or my bike.

Then when things start going wrong and i start cussing at the truck or bike i look at her and say "you should probably be in watching TV"

such a good dad, aren't i?

The story you are about to hear is a fib. But it's short. The names are made up, but the problems are real.

I think my parents liked watching that show as much as a did. I was under standing orders to find them when it came on.

I didn't have a TV untill I was 7 however I was taken to the movies every weekend ... Anyhoo I think the effects of not having a TV when i was younger made me much less reliant on the thing for entertainment. When I am bored I don't turn on the television, I read or draw.

If I have children I would keep the TV away until they are a tad older, except I don't think there is anything wrong with cartoons just the ads in between!

Dude, that's Frankly.

I know, but I couldn't find any pictures of Monday by herself.

Here's a tiny one:


Also, Mathnets are on the Youtube! I've been watching them for an hour now! Happy day!

Edit: Angle Dance, bitches.



Further edit: I wanted to find the video with Kid 'n' Play but couldn't.

I just happened to be watching on National Geographic, yesterday, a show about babies and their development. Quite interesting to say the least. To see that kids can do so many things and understand their share while being so young (it was about the period from birth to one year old).

Now I was raised with my share of attention, my dad, working the evening shift, would do all sorts of things with me all day. Play with me, we'd look at books and magazines, and yes, we did watch some tv, but it's not like it's all I did. Sure, I loved Sesame Street and The Price Is Right but so what ? I still loved all sorts of the so-called educational stuff. Like Legos, railroad sets that required assembling, and later on I was the geek that loved board games.

If all that made me smarter, I'm not sure, probably, I mean school was almost a joke to me, quite easy... and today I'm the guy that loves watching documentaries, reading about science stuff...

So nope, there's no way that if I had it kid it would spend all day in front of the tv. (S)He'd be a damn smart kid who loves smart stuff.

Oh, Flux!

Brains galore, and good-lookin' as well!

Oh man.... The number of memories that have come flooding back reading this article, and the comments that followed, are almost overwhelming. Everything from Danger Mouse to: "My name is Monday. I'm a mathematician." Ahhh... the memories.

T.V. defined a large portion of my childhood. Though admittedly it was mostly through marketing tie ins. When I was very young (2-8) living in Ireland, we only had 3 T.V. stations to chose from. (I was really jealous of my friend down the street. He had cable: 6 T.V. stations!). I used to watch T.V. only in the mornings. The shows I loved most were He-Man and Transformers (and Bosco for anyone who knows that one). The merchandise from these shows was an even bigger part of my life than T.V. ever could have been. My friends and I spent hours fighting out battles between Autobots, Decepticons and various He-Man figures.

Then I moved to America (ages 8 to 12).... 30 T.V. Stations!! I was glued to it! When I was a "bad boy" My parents used to punish me by sending me outside to play instead of allowing me to stay in and watch T.V. (this is not a joke). I was an addict. And I continued to be one for several years. As a result I was a pretty dorky kid. Seriously, I had the social skills of a brick. It wasn't until my last years of High School that I started watching less T.V. and interacting more with people IRL. Man did my life improve after that!

Looking back on my own life like this, I can see where the dichotomy of the situation lies. In moderation, T.V. proved to be a valuable stimuli for me as a kid. It fueled my imagination, gave me and my friends something to talk about, and allowed my parents some free time in the mornings

When taken to excess however it became a problem. Stunting my (social) development and turning me into... well.... a dork.

We live in a media driven society. To totally exclude T.V. (or internet and video games for that matter) from a child's life would be a foolhardy endeavor. It is a fundamental part of the word we now live in, and can be VERY benificial for a developing child. But as the old saying goes: Too much of a good thing can be bad for you. We need to teach our children how to view and deal with the media input they will be getting. We must also however prevent them from becoming overwhelmed by it.

It is a tricky balancing act, being a parent, but no one ever said raising a child was easy. In fact... I believe most people say it is really quite a challenge.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

I don't have any kids. My girlfriend however has a n 8 year old son. She confronted me this morning with the question: "How are you with children?"

Now on the one hand, it gives me a great deal of hope for our relationship that she is thinking this far ahead.

On the other hand it scares the shit out of me.....

But hey... I'm up for a challenge.

End of rant.

The big question here is, how *much* time does that 68% of under-twos spend in front of the tv, and why? Is it mom or dad popping in a Baby Einstein DVD for fifteen minutes so they can take a shower? Is it the kid parked in front of the television for two or three hours in the morning after breakfast so that mom or dad can take a nap after working the graveyard shift? Or is it the kid watching tv all day because mom and dad really just don't know any better? Or is the kid watching tv with the parents, or because the parents are doing so with the kid in the room?

I don't think videos/blocks/talking to kids are mutually exclusive; I surely did the fifteen, thirty minutes of tv thing with mine when he was under two, usually Sesame Street after breakfast while I got dressed. The thing about kids that age is that they can't be trusted not to get in trouble if they're actively playing, so tv is a pretty safe babysitter if you have to be in the other room for a while. But god knows he got a lot of talking to and block play and he's plenty verbal now.

If it's lots of tv watching because mom and/or dad are just exhausted, then that's shitty for the kid, but it isn't lazy parenting. Ditto if they simply don't know any better. There are certainly indifferent parents who park their kids in front of the tv so the kids will leave them the hell alone while they talk on the phone for ages, or piddle about with some hobby, or who themselves watch too much tv and are actively teaching the kids to do the same with them.

But 68% of parents of under twos? That's not lazy. That's something else--most likely a combination of primary caregivers being alone in the house with the kid all day and needing to snatch some down time, or else the working parent conundrum of just seriously being so damn busy and/or tired that you reach for the easy thing more often then you really should. Work hours are much longer now than they were when most of us were kids, you know.

That said, yes: as a culture we pay a lot more attention to providing "stuff" than we do to providing time, and this includes how we raise kids, and I'm definitely pro-the counter-cultural type of parenting.

Oh bullshit... TV is like anything else - moderation is the key. My youngest has no interest in the television whatsoever (unless that damn iPod nano commercial comes on, she loves the song in that one) but eventually, she will want to watch a show or 2. And I will let her. I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons every week, and a show or 2 after school, and I was identified as being gifted. Why? Because it wasn't all I did - I actually enjoyed reading and going outside more. TV was there when there was nothing better to do. My kids regard TV the same way (and the eldest was also identified as being gifted).

I don't think Baby Einstein is any better or worse than anything else on TV... the idea is to not try and get the television set to raise your kids for you!

I didn't really watch much tv till I was around 4 or 5. I got up on Saturday mornings for Bugs Bunny with my dad. As I got a bit older I used to watch Abbot and Costello movies every Sunday morning. I watched Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley on Tuesday nights, and Barney Miller. Other then that I didn't watch much the rest of the time until I got into Kung Fu theater on Sautrday afternoons!

I started reading books when I was around 10 or 11, not to mention all the comic books I read. I read all kinds of stuff. If I ever have kids of my own, I will do my best to show them how awesome reading is. But I will also do my best to moderate how much tv they watch. TV is not a bad thing provided it is taken in moderation, and it isn't shit tv. It's about being involved with your kids, not enough parents are these days it seems.