As most of you who read my blog know, I am the mother of two young boys under the age of five and the creator of Little Pim, an educational DVD series that introduces babies, toddlers and preschoolers to a second language. Although I have mixed feelings about the Disney refund that was reported in the NYTimes on October 23rd, I believe the ban-TV-for-tots frenzy that has ensued is misguided.

I am the mother of two young boys under the age of five, and for full disclosure, the creator of an educational DVD series for tots, Little Pim, which introduces babies, toddlers and preschoolers to a second language. Although I have mixed feelings about the Disney refund, I believe the ban-TV-for-tots frenzy that has ensued is misguided.

Let us contemplate the following:

1. Studies show that 74% of all kids in the U.S. under two watch SOME videos or DVDs*. So either nearly 3/4 of the parents in this country are bad people, or letting your child watch a show while you make dinner isn’t as big a deal as some advocacy groups would have you believe.
2. There is a BIG difference between a baby or toddler watching a few minutes of an educational DVD and the 2-3 hours of viewing per day that the American Academy of Pediatrics found to be potentially unsound for young minds and prompted them to issue a warning against ANY screen time kids under the age of two.
3. We are now living in a digital era of You Tube, 500 cable channels, and videos on our cell phones. Our kids will be surrounded by media from their earliest days, whether we like it or not. The question we should be considering is “what” and “how much” screen time is right for our them? Parents need to make their own decisions about when the right time is to expose their kids to media, and then be encouraged to make thoughtful decisions about what that media is. Media literacy should be the issue of the day, not media abstinence.
4. Most parents engage with their young children in a variety of ways – reading to them, talking, singing, playing, dancing AND allowing them watch a DVD from time to time. Most of us do it all. I have yet to read a study that shows there are negative side effects of limited screen time, when it’s part of a verbally rich environment and healthy family interactions.

So even if the secret is “out” that we sometimes use DVDs as a babysitter, we also know that sometimes we watch WITH our children. We share in their delight at making new puppet friends, learning new words in English, Spanish and Chinese, and acquiring social skills by imitating kids or animated characters on screen. These are moments we can celebrate and cherish; the watching may not make them smarter, but it may help them learn about making healthy viewing choices that will carry over when they are old enough to control the clicker.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and keep this conversation going.

^{* source: http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/article-faq.html#p…}

Our world is becoming more and more crowded with media.  Whether in our living rooms, on our commutes or in our classrooms, every waking moment can be occupied by consuming media. Whether it’s looking up “what causes earthquakes” on Google with my eldest son Emmett and finding a video to explain it, or the news feeds in stores and in elevators, media is here to stay, and will only get more ever-present. So how do we address this as parents?

I attended a presentation about Media Literacy for Kids at a National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) teacher’s conference this past year and wanted to share a few important lessons I learned, along with some of my own thoughts as a mom who has been making media for more than 20 years.

1. Media is not inside you. Make efforts to teach your child from an early age that media is “outside of their bodies.” That may sound obvious, but research shows that young children often think that what they are watching is not only real, it is inside their heads. I told my four year old last year that what he sees on TV is on the screen, which is different from what is inside his mind. We went over it several times. I wasn’t sure he understood, but a few months later (kids are amazing how they store information, like nuts for the winter) he told his friend, “What you see in the movies is not inside your head!” and really seemed to have taken in the message. He went on to assure his friend that scary movies (we were talking about Avatar) are not that scary, because they are only on the screen, not inside your head.
2. Watch “good media” with your kids. Make a point of watching some educational media with your children, especially if you let them watch both pure entertainment media and educational media. If you watch the educational media with them, you’ll be sending a message that it’s more important (i.e. worth your time, which is precious to them) and help them create healthy viewing habits. I watch Little Pim about twice a week with my two year-old, and he can see that this is something I make time for and enjoy with him, unlike the “Sing Yourself Silly” videos he watches, which I don’t usually sit down for. I also watch nature and science programs with my five year-old.
3. Talk about the media they have seen. Whenever possible, ask your children to comment on the media they watched. This way you can make sure they aren’t taking away distorted messages (and help to correct it if they are) and can establish a dialog with your kids about what they have seen. This will become even more important as your kids grow older and see more and more challenging and sometimes disturbing media. When they are young, you can ask them to look for certain things in a show, like “see if you can find all the ducks” or “who is the kindest character?”. This teaches them active viewing skills, which is one of the most important cornerstones of media literacy.

This is especially important for girls, who will be bombarded with messages from the media about how they should look and act.

In short, help your children learn to be active and critical media consumers. Visual media has a strong sway on young children and can be much more mesmerizing than print and audio. If you teach your children to make healthy media choices, they will gravitate toward fun, educational shows when they get old enough to make their own choices. Media is here to stay, so let’s get smart about teaching media literacy to our kids. It’s likely they will be teaching us how to use the media of the future, but right now there is still a lot we can teach them.

With the arrival of summer you may be planning a family trip by car, plane, train, or in this economy, bicycle! When you have your little ones captive during travel time, it’s a great opportunity to play language games that reinforce their budding skills. And most importantly, it is something fun to do together. By initiating these games you will be showing your child that foreign language matters to you. That will make it much more likely it will matter to them too… You don’t have to speak the language yourself to play most of these games!

Fun things to do in the car:

1. Play a game where every child gets a point for naming an object you see out the window in another language. Whoever gets the most points gets a treat at the next rest stop or on arrival. you can help out by naming objects the first time (a tree = “un arbre” or a car = “une voiture”) and your kids can call them out the next time.
2. Print out the Little Pim coloring pages from our web site and have kids color them in the back seat (you’ll need crayons and a lap desk or a hard cover book to lean). Go to GAMES on the web site and print out up to 10 pictures of Little Pim to color in, with vocabulary included.
3. Play music in a foreign language and encourage your kids to sing a long
4. Bring flash cards and award prizes for the child who gets the most right, or with one child, a small treat if they can get 5 right in a row.
5. Play “I spy” in the language they are learning. Point out things in the car, in other cars, or in the scenery.

Fun stuff to do on an airplane:

1. Play with flash cards (home made or store bought)
2. Color in Little Pim coloring pages (see above)
3. Get some snacks and put them on the fold out table (i.e. peanuts, pretzels) and count them in the foreign language
4. Write a letter to a member of the family with some foreign language words included (or pictures your child draws, labeled in French/Spanish/Chinese, etc.). Make a big production of mailing it when you arrive at your destination.

Fun stuff to do on a bicycle (you thought I was kidding!):

1. Shout out all the parts of the body in the foreign language
2. Sing verses from simple foreign language songs you both know together
3. Play a made up game where each time you stop, point out an object and if your child can name it in the foreign language (i.e. bus, ice cream, car) then they get a point. When they get to 5 points they get a special treat at home!

Last week the New York Times reported on the unfortunate rate at which foreign language education programs in schools in the northeast are being cut to help balance budgets. If you’ve been following my blog, you probably share in my belief that speaking a foreign language is no longer an expendable luxury but an important twenty-first century skill.

The article quotes Marty Abbott, the director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages as saying, “In many cultures, a lot of business does not get done around the business table, it gets done in side conversations and social situations. If you can’t participate in those discussions, you get left out.”

I’d add to that, that not only is speaking several languages good for business, it is equally important for early childhood brain development and social skills. It has been so exciting creating Little Pim and finding out that many parents out there share my conviction that kids should have access to language lessons as young as possible. We want kids to be introduced to languages at home or in preschool, and to then continue with language classes in elementary school.

If your school is eliminating its language programs, make sure the principal and the district know your views. I’m contacting mine today. I’ve also written a letter to the editor of the NY Times. Read it below:

Click here to read the NY Times article.

I am always looking for ways to introduce my children to new languages, and also to the idea that we live in a world with many different cultures, traditions, foods and lifestyles.

A friend recently shared an idea her mom used to help her brother and her learn about the wide world from their home in Maryland. Once a month they had a “French night” or “Spanish night” or “Chinese night” where they would eat the foods of that country (imagine crepes, burritos or dumplings) and learn about the places the food came from. They would cook together, look at maps, browse through guide books, play music from the country in question, and talk about what they knew about that country. Sometimes they had a guest at dinner from the chosen country or watched a movie in that language.

She and her brother loved these festive, themed evenings, and they are among her happiest family memories. I thought that seemed like a pretty easy and fun way to bring the world to your dinner table, without having to wait on any long lines for check-in!

If you want to try “country night” at home, here are some web sites that can help you fill in the gaps. I suggest you plan three nights at once so you can stock up on ingredients, music and images. It’s also a really fun thing to do with other families. Your kids will get even more excited about country night if they see that other kids are also participating. And remember, kids will only sometimes do as you say, but they will *always* do as you do! By making this a regular event and spending time on it, they will learn from you how important it is to know about, respect and enjoy other cultures. If your kids are very young, you can still do this activity to broaden their palate and introduce them to the sounds and rhythms of other languages. You might find you have a pint-sized flamenco music enthusiast or sesame noodles-lover in your family… Bonne chance!

Links:

Make your own burrito

Order frozen dumplings

Make the perfect French crepe

To order a GeoPuzzle, Travel Mania game or other Geo Toys

I was pleased to attend a talk at a local Barnes & Noble by Dr. Ellen Bialystok, who was speaking about the cognitive benefits of children being bilingual. She is a Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at York University in Canada. I have been following her work for a long time and have cited her research on bilingual children on our web site.

Dr. Bialytsok walked us through studies she did on groups of monolingual and bilingual kids, comparing their reading, writing and processing skills. Her studies showed that not only did the bilingual children have the same level of vocabulary and ability to read in English as the monolingual kids, but in addition there were many cognitive benefits to learning a second language. The main one is that it is a great workout for the front lobes of the brain, which are in charge of all of our “executive functions”. These functions include processing language, critical thinking and other intelligence related skills such as concentration and retention of information. She also shared evidence that showed that even limited exposure to a foreign language can modify how children think and enhance their cognitive skills. In other words, it’s not all or nothing and every bit counts.

After the talk I met Dr. Bialystok and learned that in 1981 she had been awarded the ACTFL-Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education; my father’s legacy! What a thrill. She is making such an important contribution to this field of study and helping parents like me to feel confident that we are doing the right thing for our children by introducing them to a second language.

Learn more about why starting early with a second language is key.

I recently spoke to a wonderful group of mothers at a Big City Mom’s lunch on the upper east side in New York. I have been speaking to moms groups in cities across the country, and one of the questions that has come up more than once is whether learning a second language causes speech delays.

As a mom, I am very sensitive to this issue – I know how eager I was for Emmett to speak once he began using a few words at age 18 months, and understand why mothers would be concerned about doing anything to delay speech in their children.

There is widespread scientific research that proves that learning and/or exposing your child to a second language at an early age will not cause your child to speak English later or less well; that on the contrary, it is a boon. Yet because people used to think that there could be negative side effects to learning two languages as once, some people continue to think so.

The fact is that babies, toddlers and preschoolers are actually able to learn up to three languages at once without confusion. Early foreign language exposure enhances a child’s primary language development, and his or her brain power. Experts have dismissed the idea that bilingualism can be confusing for a young child.

“This idea was dramatically reversed in a landmark study by Elizabeth Peal and Wallace Lambert at McGill University in Montreal that showed a general superiority of bilinguals over monolinguals in a wide range of intelligence tests and aspects of school achievement” (Dr. Ellen Bialystok, Professor of Psychology at York University, Canada). Dr. Bialystok has even done studies that show that young children who speak a second language have a cognitive edge over monolingual children.

So go ahead and teach your little one “j’ai soif” or “tengo hambre” with confidence! You will be helping them to achieve a better accent and fluency later on and enhance their social and verbal skills.

To read more about the scientific studies supporting learning two languages, click here.

Many parents write in and ask me questions about foreign language learning, and so occasionally the blog will feature a question/answer. Today’s question is “How do I decide what foreign language to teach my child?”

Maybe you are like many parents who know they want to start their child on a second language early but don’t know which to choose. The first thing you should know is that you can’t go wrong. Whatever language you choose, starting your young child on the path to learning a foreign language paves the way for your child to have a good accent, to have the chance of being fluent, and makes it easier for them to learn whatever language they choose to study later on in life. You are giving them the foundation, and they will reap the benefits for a lifetime. A book that is great for introducing your child to the idea that different languages are spoken around the world is Babar’s World Tour, where the French elephant Babar takes his family on a trip around the world and his children learn to say phrases in all the different languages.

To many people, the obvious answer to “which language?” in the U.S. is Spanish since it is spoken by over 34 million people in our country. However, this should not necessarily be the only determining factor in your choice. I find parents are more likely to reinforce the learning if they choose a second language to which at least one of the parents has some connection. If one of the parents is fluent in the language that is obviously an advantage, but is not necessary for the child to pick it up. Many moms write to tell me how fun it was for them to see that their high school Spanish or French came back to them while watching Little Pim (it beats singing “I love you” with Barney). Your child can always choose a different language later on; at this early phase, it’s most important to give them the framework and a sense that learning and speaking a second language can be fun.

For people who want more concrete answers, here are the “official” Little Pim guidelines for choosing a language:

1. Pick a language you like, perhaps have always wanted to speak (even if it’s not the most practical) and that you will enjoy hearing and practicing with your child.
2. Pick a language that you can reinforce easily through native speaking caretakers and or kids, local or international trips, live music and CDs or language classes.
3. Pick a language your partner/spouse/fellow caretakers agree(s) on and make a plan together for how to bring this language into your home through DVDs, music and in person speaking.
4. If your child is old enough (15 months +), try out the different languages and see which one he or she responds to most.