Yesterday's New York Times ran a story about the Walt Disney company offering refunds on Baby Einstein DVDs sold in past years in response to complaints that not only was the advertising for the DVDs misleading (in claims about their educational value for babies and toddlers), but that they might actually be harmful (on the basis of research that suggests that very young children might actually be harmed by watching excessive amounts of TV).
My question is: Did anyone REALLY think they were "educational"? Sure some of them have numbers in them, and some have words and pictures. But how many parents really thought they were more than a useful babysitting device? And they are really quite good at that...
I got my money's worth in that I could take a shower while my daughter watched them (she wouldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time until she was 10 months). But if Disney wants to give me my money back, I'm cool with that too.
Posted by: Ammon | October 24, 2009 at 08:51 PM