Destiny Baby

If you have purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, you should know that you can get a refund for any videos you’ve purchased. the AP is reporting that, “The Walt Disney Co. [which acquired the Baby Einstein company in 2001] is expanding a refund program for its Baby Einstein videos for toddlers in response to challenges about the legitimacy of its educational claims.” This follows the threat of a class-action lawsuit by an advocacy group, the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, which had complained to the FTC back in 2006 about Baby Einstein claims that videos could teach words to babies less than two, which is not supported by scientific research.The Director of the group said, “We see it as an acknowledgment by the leading baby video company that baby videos are not educational, and we hope other baby media companies will follow suit by offering refunds.”

We’ve mentioned on this site about the importance of unstructured play in terms of enhancing development for young children. Instead of more DVDs and gadgets and gizmos to teach lower level brain functions like letter recognition, young children need stimulation and creativity that comes from problem solving, discovering the world around them and how it  works, the building blocks of physics, math and a scientific understanding of the world. In an earlier post, we mentioned educational activities for toddlers and preschoolers around the home to stimulate your little scientist in training.

There is so much information on children and child development out there–each new study seems to say something different than the last. We can hardly keep up! One cool website that makes life a little easier by tracking breakthrough research on child development is the Children topic section at LiveScience.com. Here you can keep up with the latest scientific studies on how your little one’s mind works and what can best help her or him to succeed in life.

Now when it comes to choosing the best toys for toddler and young child development, you can take it a step further and have child development experts do it for you over at eBeanstalk.com. Each toy on their site is expert-selected and categorized by the child’s age. In fact if a child in your life has an upcoming birthday, you might consider ordering a gift series (with free shipping!) for them. Ebeanstalk.com will automatically send out a new toy every 3 months throughout the year, each tailored to your child’s mental development! Pretty cool, eh! We love the service and the customer service over at are extremely friendly and helpful.

These days you can both stay on top of the latest research on child development and have expert-recommended toddler toys and best-selling learning toys delivered to your doorstep!

From the experts over at eBeanstalk.com, this is another article on how to get your toddler to behave:

How Do I Get My Child to Say ‘Yes’?
By: Shari Harpaz, CCC-SLP (Speech-Language
Pathologist)

Does your child often respond ‘no’ when you ask them a question? When asked a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, most children will respond ‘no’ more often than ‘yes.’

Toddlers and pre-schoolers are at an age when they are egocentric and/or establishing independence (see all milestones). By saying ‘no’ they are making a clear statement that they don’t want to do something and now your hands are tied if you really needed them to do it. So what should a parent do?

Here are some tips to help get more of the response you’re looking for:

1. Try and ask questions in a “what”? Or “where”? Format instead of yes/no whenever possible. For example: if you’re child is pointing and you can’t determine what they want instead of saying “Do you want juice?” and having to go thru a list of items, ask “what do you want?”

2. Give your child a choice of 2-3 things you are willing to give them. (“Do you want to go to the park or to the book store”)? This way they feel empowered that they chose the activity, and you didn’t have to negotiate after a ‘no’ response.

3. Sometimes your best option is to simply TELL your child that this is what you are going to do/eat/have etc. Remember you’re the parent and know what’s best so don’t let your little negotiators always get their way!

For some activities that don’t involve ‘yes/no’ answers, check out…

You pick the game you want to play: Hand Picked Games at ebeanstalk.com

Which puzzle do you want to play with: Hand Picked Puzzles by the ebeanstalk.com Team of Mothers

Let’s “Pretend Play” and have some fun: Hand Picked Pretend Toys by the ebeanstalk.com Team of Experts

Check out additional discounts and deals from all of DestinyBaby.com merchants!

Hearthsong, the toy division of Madison Brands, is giving away $25,000 in scholarships to commemorate its 25th anniversary. It’s a sweepstakes entry, requiring you to give your contact information in exchange for a chance to win prizes. The contest runs from August 11, 2008 to December 31. The winner will be picked in January 2009. I actually came across this contest while reading about a survey the company commissioned that found over 60 percent of US parents play with their children less than an hour a day. Most of that time is spent with games or toys, followed by unstructured play and outdoor activities. Although most parents cite the benefits of play being that their child can learn to interact with others. Other, less frequently mentioned, reasons that play is good include its positive effects on child development, including improvement of motor skills, problem solving, creative thinking, imagination, and a sense of accomplishment.

According to Sally Head at Expert Village, picture books, repetitive books, sing-a-long books, classics are all great types of educational books for nurturing your preschool child’s curiosity.