How being a parent changes you...

[MRT144]

elok, sure you want your kids to be smart, but that isnt the end all be all of being a person. you want your children to be happy first and foremost. if that means watching Barney over "The news hour with jim lehrer" then so be it.

thats the thing that ive realized in so many of my friends. many of them have been pushed to be academic dynamos by their parents but at what expense? well the two arguably brightest friends are socially retarded. i think if they had spent less time with piano lessons and more time playing with other children that might be different.

thats not to say you shouldnt encourage your kid to be the best and brightest he or she can be. just dont force something on your child, other than love.

[FrustratedPoet]

Being a parent sounds like the most beautiful and terrifying thing you can do with your life.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by monolith94
johnt - you do realize she's wearing mismatched shoes in that picture, right?

"Hug your wife, and tell her that you love her 10 times a day? Ditto."

Doesn't sound bad to me.

She's not. The baby has just three pairs of shoes - white, black, and sneakers.

[monolith94]

Yeah - I see that now.

[Elok]

Originally posted by JohnT
Obviously. But being a part-time babysitter has just FILLED you with wisdom, eh? Can you just imagine my eyes rolling, or do I have to draw you a smilie?

I'm not saying your kids are stupid

Then explain what you meant by the following:
"but really it's just a desire not to have my next of kin grow up pre-stupefied."

I'm just saying that Barney probably did not profit their intelligence.

And you come by this information how? Oh, wait:
"Barney teaches no actual information and he gives me the creeps."
So, you don't like Barney because he "gives you the creeps". Ergo, he's "stupid" and kids who watch him become "stupified."
And how is this not insulting my little girl????
Another thing about being a parent: it makes you very protective. I'm in the process of (potentially) suing my very own parents for something they did to her (and us) - taking you on in a message board is a piece of cake.

No need to get aggressive here. I realize that you are a strong man or what-have-you, but online belligerence raises your blood pressure to very little purpose. No doubt your child-raising experience makes you Alpha Male here as opposed to simple old babysitting me. And I'm not criticizing your ideas about how kids should be raised. I just disagree over the definition of good programming for kids. I've seen my niece watching Sesame street and the Wiggles. For the former, she repeats words and gets a look of curiosity on her face. For the latter she just looks glassy-eyed like a deer in the headlights. I don't know how she would react to Barney because my brother doesn't show her that junk; she wouldn't have seen the Wiggles either, but her mom has custody at the moment.
I do not imply that your child is stupid, or at least I didn't mean to; I don't know her. I just believe that a hypothetical child who watches Barney, Teletubbies, Wiggles, etc. is not, generally, going to grow up as intelligent as he/she would have if he/she only watched only your higher-quality Jim Henson stuff and the like. Maybe your daughter was spared the mentally dulling effects of trash TV. Like I said, I don't know her.
And to suggest that proper social behavior can be taught by such an antisocial medium as TV strikes me as ridiculous.

[JohnT]

The fact is, it's all crap. Telling me that one is more "crappy" than the other is, well, uninformed. Blues Crews? It's crap. Barney? It's crap. Sesame Street? Crap. Mr. Rogers? Crap. All of it: crap.

The fact is, TV is horrible at educating and stimulating intellectual development. To rate one show as "better" than another shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the mediums effect (or lack of) on learning.

And comparing Barney to Sesame Street makes no sense whatsoever. Barney (and Teletubbies) are aimed at babies, SS is aimed at toddlers and older.

"Books are fun! Books are great! Let's sit down with a book today!

Books are fun! Books are great! Is it book time, yet? Oh, I just can't wait...

To read a book, book. Book, book."

[gunkulator]

Many adults just don't "get" that there are TV shows that are not meant, in any way, to appeal to them. As long as it is not harmful, TV is an OK way to entertain a child - for non extended periods of course.

[Ming]

TV is just one form of entertainment. There are also books... games... toys... playtime with others... as long as TV isn't over viewed, it's a good thing.

[Elok]

TV is not educational? Then how exactly does Barney "teach kids to play nicely," as you said?
Just out of curiosity, of course.

[Dr Strangelove]

John T- There are a number of book oriented programs regularily on the tube (Reading Rainbow), but obviously your kid won't be ready for them for another 5 years or so.

My kids too have been raised on sugar coated brain nutrition deficient kid's programs too, but recently we have begun instituting reading at dinner time with each family member getting to pick a book. My 8 year old chose something entitled "The Cupcaked Crusader". I followed suit with a collection of O. Henry stories. To my amazement the kids loved them. Score one for the classics. When it's her turn my daughter will probabley choose some cheesey Harry Potter wannabe fantasy book, but then my wife will come back with some Mark Twain.

[monolith94]

Mark Twain is great for kids: my parents read the Innocents Abroad and Roughing It to me as a kid and look how I turned out!!!

[MattyBoy]

Here's a more recent one. Isn't she beautiful? Today she told me, for the first time "I love you". Actually, she said "I wu you", but close enough!

She's really gorgeous, John.
How old is she now?

I have two daughters. The younger is 2.5 and she's saying "I love you" a lot now too.

Dr S, I love the reading idea.

I guess one thing that we found was that reading to kids is an excellent, intimate, activity, even when you'd think they were much too young. It's just really nice attention that they get and you are trying to get inside each other's heads. Nothing cuter than finding my 2.5 year old reading to my 4.5 year old to pass the time before we get up.

You're right about the kid's health as a caveat. There is no hell like having a sick child. I always find myself saying "why did we sign up for this?" when one of them is really sick. If I'm sick, it's an inconvenience, but when they are sick enough, the worry is just incapacitating.

Last two nights, my younger has been keeping us awake with some terrible throat thing. We lie there arguing over whether it's SARS or croup and wonder what is her chance of surviving the night. Each morning, she has jumped out of bed, running around as if there is nothing wrong (besides the sore throat and over-tired parents).

Like Ming, I say that marriage makes a lot less difference to anything than does parenthood.

[JohnT]

"And to suggest that proper social behavior can be taught by such an antisocial medium as TV strikes me as ridiculous."

Elok, the fact is that TV is a horrible medium to dispense factual information... to claim that one show is better at stimulating intellectual development than another really shows a profound misunderstanding of the medium. At best, it dispenses information that is readily kept in short-term memory (like the day's weather forecast), but for long-term memory? 'Tis to laugh.

Otoh, social mores and modes of behavior are far more readily communicated and learned through the boob tube. TV teaches what is "cool", what's hot and what's in. It doesn't teach math well at all, at best it teaches that math can be fun.

[anecdotal evidence]

A few years ago, my wife and I were watching some show (History Channel? Discovery?) on the Pyramids. Having had the "TV can or can't teach" debate with her a few days earlier, I lay in wait, preparing to prove my point once and for all.

We both noted that it was a pretty good show... didn't go into any mystical stuff at all, rather dealing with the construction of the pyramids as well as biographical information of the few names that have come down through the millennia... Cheops, Imhotep, etc.

One hour after the show ended, I asked my wife if I could ask her a few questions. Not knowing what I was up to, she said "sure." So I started:

When were the Pyramids built?

Under which Egyptian dynasty was the Pyramid of Cheops built?

How tall is it?

How many blocks were used in the construction?

Who is usually given credit for the design and construction of the pyramids?

And so on, for about 10 questions.

She answered 3 of the questions correctly, but noted that she knew the answers to two of them before the show, meaning that we spent an hour watching TV show so she could learn the name Imhotep.

And before you assume that my wife is stupid, let me note that she has a 129 IQ (tested) and graduated with honors from UGA.
[/anecdotal evidence]

I reiterate my point: TV is horrible at stimulating intellectual development. If your niece repeats words that she hears on TV, that is not "learning" that is "repeating." Children are far, far smarter than adults give them credit for, and it is very likely that she already knew the words to begin with.

[JohnT]

Matty: "I guess one thing that we found was that reading to kids is an excellent, intimate, activity, even when you'd think they were much too young. It's just really nice attention that they get and you are trying to get inside each other's heads. Nothing cuter than finding my 2.5 year old reading to my 4.5 year old to pass the time before we get up."

Thanks for the compliment!

We've been reading to Sophie since before she left the hospital. Now that she's walking, every day she will go to her room, grab a couple of books, and bring them out for her mother to read (she prefers the sound of her mother's reading voice to mine, so Mommy is the big "reader" in the family.)

It is amazing how much they know at this age. At 13 months, Sophie was in the kitchen playing around the dishwasher, pretty much getting in my way as I was cleaning.

I told her "Sophie, I need for you to please leave the kitchen." She then turned around, started leaving, but she decided to start crying, so I then told her "Sophie, if you do not stop that crying, I will put you in your playpen."

She stopped! Huffed a few times in that "I'm trying not to cry" mode they have, but she got a hold of her emotions and started playing with her toys.

She'll also put away specific objects in specific places: "Sophie, I need for you to pick up your socks and put them where they belong." And she will! This one really impresses the strangers, especially when we are in stores - she'll grab something, run off, and then I'll say (in my best DAD voice) "Sophie, you put that back where you got it!" whereupon she will (to much love, praise, and affection, of course - we make a big happy fuss out of "good" behaviours).

Sophie has never been seriously sick, thank God. She had a mild case of the chicken pox a few months ago, but the (bumps?) were only on her chest and belly, with none on her face or neck. She didn't act much different, other than a little slower, a little more tired.

[FrustratedPoet]

JohnT, true to an extent (edit: cross-post, I'm referring to the post before you replied to mattyboy), but different individuals learn in different ways. Some people have a great response to visual images, others to audio cues and others to what they read, although of course everyone is a bit of a mixture. I fall into the 'reading' group primarily, as I believe most people do, but that doesn't mean that TV can't be a valuable educational tool (and by that I mean the learning of factual information) - just that it very rarely is.

If (when) I have kids I'd rather they read a trashy book than saw a trashy TV show ... but they'll probably do both anyway.
Like you say, kids are far more intelligent than most adults realise. I don't have kids myself, but I've worked in a few schools and was shocked at the speed at which kids learn - compared to most adults they are lightning fast at absorbing new information. How can I have ever been like that and yet have grown up so dumb?