This morning my husband flipped through television channels and paused on the infomercial for “Your Baby Can Read!”. I’d seen parts of this infomercial before, but have to admit I’ve never watched the whole thing. What I know about the product is it’s a series of videos designed to help young children learn to read. It’s popular because it purports to take advantage of a small window of superlearning that babies have, and teach them language skills before this window of opportunity closes forever. It was created by a child development specialist because he wanted his children to have wholesome television to watch while they were in daycare. The half-hour long infomercial has endorsements from multiple teachers, and shows clips of children as young as nine months recognizing words written on flashcards and pointing to corresponding objects around the room. The images are compelling; it’s pretty amazing to see a baby reading, and it’s intriguing to think that we can purchase a product or use a technique that unlocks some extraordinary potential in our child and set up for success in life. But there’s something about the pitch that bothers me. I just don’t like the idea of investing in things that claim to turn our kids into superkids. As much as I would be thrilled to be the parent of prodigies, I just don’t think my goal as a parent should be to raise a genius.
I’ll admit that the idea is tempting. I was thrilled and a little smug when my son was one of the first in his age group to sit up and then crawl, and a little deflated when he took a bit longer to walk. It’s ingrained in us to be competitive and want our kids to be the best. We want them to have opportunities in life, be successful, and struggle as little as possible. But how far should we go in pushing achievement for our children?
Like so many things in parenting, there’s a balance between encouraging children to achieve and having them simply appreciate the journey. If we lean too far towards achievement, we flirt with narcissism. If we lean too far towards appreciating the journey, we can end up with kids who don’t know the importance of making things happen (and maybe living in our basements when they should be on their own?). Finding the balance between the two sets our children up for the most success, but it’s a difficult line to walk, and the hardest thing about it is there isn’t a step by step roadmap we can follow.
Products that claim to make our babies into superbabies seem to pop up all the time, but I think they lean way too much towards focusing on achievement without enjoying the journey. What raised the flag for me with “Your Baby Can Read!” was watching a parents’ testimonial. They gushed about the product and how much their year-old son liked it. It was fantastic, they said, he just sat and actually paid attention to it without losing interest and running around the room to explore other things the way he did with other videos they tried. But isn’t that what year-old children are supposed to do? They’re not supposed to sit and be enthralled by a video for half and hour or more. They might take a peek now and then at the television, or dance to a song in the midst of their play, but I just feel like we’ve lost something if we’re happy with a product that takes away from so many other areas of development for the sake of one skill.
While it is tempting to have something at our fingertips that will quiet our children for a period of time so we can get other things done (who doesn’t want or need that at some point!), if we want that, then we should just call it what it is and not pretend that we’re giving our child a special skill or a leg up. That time away from us might help them learn a trick, but it’s taken away time that we could read to them, or sing with them, or dance with them ourselves. I think if we look to these products to truly make our kids smarter or help them learn, then we need to be dedicated to spending the time with them, or we are just fooling ourselves to the benefit it can give them, especially at very young ages. Superkids are fantastic, but they’re a rarity. If creating a prodigy becomes a parenting goal, we risk missing out on the wonderful journey that we get to take with our more ordinary, but still super kids.
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Erica Sebring said,
January 4, 2010 @ 2:47 pm
I don’t know who HAS’NT seen this infomercial as it is on ALL the time. When my husband and I saw it, I was almost immediately sold. I’m not an easy sell but really did buy into the idea that the one thing you can give your kids and never take away is a solid education.
Of course, a child will learn to read without this product but I loved the fact that it was geared to stimulate babies as early as 6 months. So, we bought it and our daughter watches it everyday. While some mothers may use television as a means to a “break”, this is NOT the reason we decided to buy it. One of the biggest reasons I thought it would be a great investment for our family was mearly based on the fact that I stay at home with Della. As you know, staying at home with a child can become rather monotonous. Reading the same books, singing the same songs, going on walks looking at the same sky, same cars, pulling the same grass, throwing the same rocks and even kids get tired of the swing. I looked at “Your Baby Can Read” as just one more tool I could use to stimulate and entertain her throughout the day.
When Della was about 8 months she would not sit through an entire video without my participation. When I learned that she actually enjoyed it more if I said the words and sang the songs with her, it became ritual for us to watch it together.
The videos are not like others we have seen like Barney and Baby Einstein. They are rather boring but surprisingly funtastic for a blossoming mind. Della get’s so excited when she knows it’s time to watch “Your Baby Can Read.” Regarding the ‘promise’ that your child will actually learn to read….it’s working. In the beginning, the children do memorize the letters and words but eventually they are able to actually read the words through letter recognition. After following the program using not only the videos but flashcards and books as well, our daughter can read “eyes”, “wave” and “arm” after just showing her the words without the pictures.
We are not trying to raise a child prodigy, just trying to stimulate her in as many ways as we can without losing our minds from doing the same things over and over and over. I’ve also found that we have more to talk about because of everything I know she is learning with the program. Her new favorite word when we take walks in the evening is “moon”. I would have never made such a big deal about the moon with never having used the Baby Read program.
I think it was a great investment for our family. We are going to continue using it and will use it for our other children as well.
Mama Eve said,
January 5, 2010 @ 9:16 am
Interesting perspective! Honestly, I think it’s great when people use products like this as a way to spend quality time with their children and and stimulate their own imaginations about what their child can do. It only bugs me when people toss in a video, leave their kids to veg, and then think they’re doing a fantastic thing by making them a genius. Thanks for pointing out that it’s not always like that! ~Suchada