And the Results are In! Video Games and Children

I am a Waldorf parent through and through. And part of this means that my children do not watch television. They also do not play video games, rarely listen to recorded music, and in general - live a battery free life. There are a few exceptions.

1. If necessary, I would be willing to let them watch videos on a plane. I know Connor did this once. Typically, if we need to resort to media entertainment, we show them photos that have been stored on the computer or videos of them.

2. When we are not at our house. Both of the kids have seen parts of the Super Bowl while at a friend's house, both saw some of the Olympics on our ski vacation last year, both have seen a very limited amount of kids' TV when they visit Ed's parents and their cousins have it on, and Connor has watched a Thomas movie while getting his hair cut and while getting an MRI for a study he's in at the NIH.

3. I believe that my sister's children introduced them briefly to the Wii bowling game, though I know they didn't play much, and they might not have played at all.

4. Helen was also in a study (sponsored by Georgetown) where she watched about 5 minutes of television, two or three times, which is what I want to write about.

The goal of the study was to see if children could perform a task better if a human showed them how to do it, if a video of an unrecognized character showed them how to do it, or if a recognizable character showed them how to do it. I received the results a couple of weeks ago.

At 18 months, Helen was in the group that had the human show her how to do the task. She aced it. At 21 months, Elmo was her task leader, and to say the least, she did not respond by doing the hoped for task. However, she did perform similarly to kids who were shown a video with the unrecognizable character, and since Helen would not actually recognize Elmo, Helen's results seem to agree with the results of the study in general.

I think the results are pretty fascinating. And I want to put them into context with a recent experience I had viewing a new video game from Sesame Street.

Here is an excerpt of the summary I received from Georgetown.

"As you may know, nearly 80% of toddlers under age 2 view television or video programs, with toddlers exposed to an average of 2 hours of screen time per day." Wow. No, I did not know that. In fact, I'm surprised, given that the rather conservative American Academy of Pediatrics advises against television for the under 2 crowd. But, whatever. It's not as if I haven't disagreed with the AAP before. I guess others do, too.

"We asked whether toddlers could learn conceptual information from a video, and if so, what conditions improved their learning."... "One of our most exciting findings was that 1) toddlers in both the Live and Elmo demonstration groups [performed the activity] better than toddlers who did not see a demonstration, and 2) toddlers who saw a video of Elmo nesting the cups learned a cognitively challenging task from video equally well as a child who saw a live adult [perform the task]." The study notes that this is contrary to what most people believe. It also goes on to note that toddlers in the unfamiliar character demonstration performed worse than both of the other groups (thus excusing Helen's inability - which was actually just unwillingness - to stack the cups in response to the video).

This report landed in my inbox shortly after I'd seen a demonstration of a new Sesame Street video games.

I went to this event out of curiosity, because I really am not exposed to children's programs and honestly had no idea there were video games for kids.

Let me lead by saying I was really impressed with the game developers. They didn't just try and make an adult game with kid characters. Instead, they spent time with a Child Psychologist (educated at Kansas University, no less) and they devoted a lot of thought to children's motor skills. Guess what? Young children move remotes differently than adults! The developers considered whether there should be a multi-player option (there is not) and they created parental controls, to allow the parent and child to work through the game together. They developed the game based on known education principles (scaffolding, reinforcement techniques), and they're clearly focusing on the over 2 crowd, so not in conflict with the AAP recommendation. They're also responding to what I consider to be a very strong vibe in this country to encourage reading and math skills earlier and earlier. And they're doing it on a platform that kids are interested in, because they see it all the time.

Now, if the Georgetown results can be generalized to slightly older children - and I don't think there's a big leap of faith there - then I suspect these new Sesame Street games are going to go a long way in encouraging early letter recognition, simple spelling and math skills. And frankly, if I concede the fact that most kids are exposed anyway, I'm a lot happier about age appropriate exposure than some of the other video game stuff I hear.

Am I disadvantaging my children in some way by not giving them this tool? I doubt it. Time will tell, I suppose.

I realize that my choices are in the minority. If video games are part of your child's world by all means, go grab these games (there's a coupon code in the disclosure at the bottom). But I wholeheartedly would welcome a conversation about what our school systems are trying to accomplish.

I think we owe it to our kids.

Disclosure: I was invited to go the Newseum to have lunch and hear game developers discuss two Sesame Street video games. I was able to test the games, and also saw them demonstrated. I received two passes to return to the Newseum at a later date, an Abby Cadabby mug and video, and a small stuffed Big Bird. I was not required to write about the event. After attending the event, I was given a discount code to share with others. You will receive 10 percent off the purchase of any Sesame Street video game if you use this link, combined with the discount code "MOMMY". Enjoy! I came as a skeptic, but I was impressed. I know that Helen and Connor would get a big kick out these games.