So, the whole Baby Einstein thing is a sham. Honestly, did anyone really believe that plopping a toddler in front of the television to listen to whatever it was, was going to produce little geniuses? Do we really believe we can manufacture prodigies? Just as Baby Einstein was exposed as a scam, I saw an infomercial on some program that could get toddlers to read. The entire thing showed parents holding flashcards up to their toddlers while they read. It’s disturbing to me to see parents on television coaxing their toddlers to read something from a card while sitting in some sterile, toy-less room.
What happened to just letting kids be kids? Don’t get me wrong. I hope for the best for Kid One and Kid Two when it comes to my kids’ achievement, but I realized a long time ago that I can’t force development on them. They need to develop on their own terms–for their sanity and my own. I can help by having fun with them, playing games we love to play as a family, singing songs, baking cakes, going fishing, and all that. Novel concept, eh? What good does it do any kiddo to sit for hours on end staring at flashcards if there is no time left to discover the wonders of chasing a firefly? What we’ve done is made learning more complicated and less tactile. Why do you think little ones are constantly putting things in their mouths? They want to use all of their senses to learn. They don’t want to just process information.
Instead of reading flashcards to toddlers to have them process the words back, we should be read stories that can be found inexpensively at a bookstore or free at a library. Let them discover the fascination of what words can do when they are strung together to create a vivid story or a sing songy rhyme.
In the end, wanting our children to be baby Einsteins is a bit misguided anyway. Einstein himself wasn’t a baby Einstein in the sense that modern-day parents want their children to be baby Einsteins. Einstein was a slow learner and mischievous. So, if we really want our toddlers to be like Einstein, perhaps we should encourage them to develop slowly and be mischievous rather than sit them in front of a bunch or random, floating words.
M.O.M.
one of my favorite books is “einstein didn’t have flashcards” I put it up right on my desk when my Bean was little to remember that I didn’t have to buy the hype!!! Great post
Thanks Melissa. Yes, I’m constantly having to ward off the hype from others who criticize my “sit back and let them do what they do” style of parenting.