Tutorial work - term 2 - summary on current hot housing debate and it\'s effect on children\'s development. PDF

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Summary on current hot housing debate and it's effect on children's development. ...

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Hothousing and its effect on children’s development A child’s learning being aided by their parents has been noted as a major influencer of the child’s development (Hyson, Hirsh-Pasek, Rescorla, Cone, & Martell-Boinske, 1991). Recently there has been an increase in the type of developmentally inappropriate involvement parents have with their children. These activities include imposing children with ‘baby media’: adult directed lessons, specialized toys, flash cards, books, educational and computer programs. These activities are marketed claiming that they boost cognitive development and language learning (Kenny, 2001). Such practices are referred to as hothousing. The reason for this increase is parents understandably wanting the best for their child, giving them a head start for in their education and the best opportunities in life (Kenny, 2001). However, engaging kids in these activities may lead to less time in parent-child play (that may leave the child feeling inadequate) (Gallagher & Coché, 1987), unnecessary pressure, superficial acquisition of rote knowledge (usually without a firm basis in actual direct experience), worse eye sight (Marriner, 2015), anxiety, a less positive views towards learning and perhaps most importantly less time the child engages in play (Hyson, HirshPasek, Rescorla, Cone, & Martell-Boinske, 1991). Play has been declared a human right, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights claiming that it is essential for optimal child development (Kenny, 2001). As stated before, hothousing can lead to a decrease in play and quality family time. Play is essential for children to develop their emotional, social and physical skill (Tullis, 2011). A study by DeLoache et al. (2010) assessed the effect of a baby DVD that was designed to speed up the vocabulary learning of 72 infants aged between 12 to 18 months. Four conditions were utilized: parents simply presented the video to their infants, parents interacted with their child during the viewing of the video, parents teach the same words from the video to the infant without the child watching the video and finally a control group who

were the baseline for natural vocabulary development over the duration of the study. It was found that the parent-only teaching group scored better than the other three conditions in regards to the amount of target words learnt and neither video group showed a significant difference from the control group. It was also found that parents who liked the video rated their child’s progress more than what it actually was. The overwhelming research shows that infants are not designed to participate in focused and goal oriented behavior that us adults and parents think of as being appropriate for older children, adolescents and even adults (Tullis, 2011), as children do not learn very well from symbolic media (DVDs, pictures) because they are not able to make the distinction between symbol and reality. There is not enough evidence to justify the time, effort, money and opportunity cost of housing infants (Kenny, 2011). Young children learn best from the people and manipulating the environment around them rather than watching screens (Tullis, 2011).

References DeLoache, J., Chiong, C., Sherman, K., Islam, N., Vanderborght, M., & Troseth, G. et al. (2010). Do Babies Learn From Baby Media?. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1570-1574. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797610384145 Gallagher, J. & Coché, J. (1987). Hothousing: The clinical and educational concerns over pressuring young children concerns over pressuring young children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2(3), 203-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0885-2006(87)90030-5 Hyson, M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Rescorla, L., Cone, J., & Martell-Boinske, L. (1991). Ingredients of parental “pressure” in early childhood. Journal Of Applied Developmental Psychology, 12(3), 347-365. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(91)90005-o Kenny, D. (2011). Let babies learn in their own good time. The Age. Retrieved 12 May 2016, from http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/let-babies-learn-in-their-own-good-time20110328-1cddk.html Marriner, C. (2015). How hothousing kids is ruining their eyesight. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 11 May 2016, from http://www.smh.com.au/national/howhothousing-kids-is-ruining-their-eyesight-20150821-gj4i32.html Tullis, P. (2011). The Death of Preschool. Scientific American Mind, 22(5), 36-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/scientificamericanmind1111-36...