Disney DVDs - The Baby Einstein Fiasco

The Walt Disney Co. is putting out refunds to anyone who bought the Baby Einstein Disney DVDs in America who is unsatisfied with their product, and finds that their babies are not geniuses after all. The Walt Disney Company didn't pull Baby Einstein concept out of thin air; it closely followed the latest research into how babies grow. And it not only put the research to the ultimate test, it also put to parenting to the test. Music entertainment for toddlers is a market in America that is worth about $250 million, and Disney DVDs commands almost all of it. Why, it's been reported that a third of all babies in the US who are under two years old, have had a Baby Einstein DVD bought for them.

So the scientists who did the research were wrong; and it is those very scientists who admit to it. As it happens, parents who try to put their children on the road to becoming an Einstein may find it coming back to them today that you should be careful what you wish for. Albert Einstein actually was kind of dyslexic, did not learn speech until he was almost 3, and did poorly in school. New research now says that television is not good for children learning speech or anything at all. So how did this fiasco begin for Disney DVDs?

Around 20 years ago, researchers in neuroscience began to form the theory that there was something about the way the human brain developed from the time a child was born to the time it got to be two years old. A newborn was felt to be putty in the hands of the environment it finds itself in, so to speak. The brain of a baby supposedly molds itself in direct response to stimulation received from the environment. And the most important influence in the environment that affects the baby, are parents, friends and other children; objects have an influence too, but understandably not as much. Around the year 1990, when the dictatorship in Romania fell, the media constantly reported how there were hundreds of children in the neglected state-run orphanages over there. It was also seen that very young children who could be placed with families generally made it really quickly, while the children who were over two did not really recover well. So scientists figurd, that if neglect under the age of two could retard children, excess stimulation in that age group probably could rip their brain muscles. So, to cater to a large market of overly-devoted parents Disney DVDs with this strange mishmash of concepts put out the Baby Einstein series based on this theory. It had a Mozart soundtrack because some more ill-founded research suggested that listening to classical music pushed up a baby's IQ .

Actually, the Baby Einstein concept was thought of by someone else - a stay-at-home mother in Georgia - and cheaply put together in a home production. The concept was later adopted by Disney. Even if Disney DVDs is offering people refunds if not satisfied, they still defend their product. Researchers now say that television for anyone under two is quite a bad idea. Stimulation might really work in turning your child into a genius, but it can't come on DVDs. It has to be with at least one real person. The whole entire developed world seems to be behind the idea that you can't plop a child before TV and expect anything. France for example bans television shows for children under three, and America discourages it too. So much for ambitious parenting then.