Hi Reina, Jonah, and Baby Anda,
Welcome to BrillKids.
Nakakatuwa naman maka-meet ng ibang Pinay dito. Pinoy rin ako, and part of the development team dito sa BrillKids.
For those of you who are asking about whether or not you should expose your children to screens: that's an excellent question, and a frequently asked one. There are several angles or issues involved and this has been a concern of many parents too - we did a bit of research on the issue and talked to several pediatricians and electronics experts about it, and this is what we understand:
DO WE GET RADIATION FROM A COMPUTER SCREEN?Radiation coming from computers is negligible. If it is harmful to a baby, then it's also harmful to you and you would find many people telling YOU to stay away from computers, not just your baby. One point that isn't mentioned much though relates to 'positive ions.' Unlike what it sounds like, POSITIVE ions are actually bad, and NEGATIVE ions are good. (Do a search on negative ions and you will see the difference.) Now, the old CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors, you know, those big bulky ones, do emit a lot of positive ions. People who are particularly sensitive to positive/negative ions (estimated to be about 20% of population) tend to get certain ill effects from prolonged exposure to it, like lower immune systems, moodiness, etc. Thankfully, more and more people nowadays use LCD monitors, which do not have this problem. And as for TV, where there are still many CRT TVs in use, the important thing to do is to keep a distance from it, and minimize the time spent in front of it.
WHAT ABOUT EYE STRAIN?This is a common cause of complaint, for children and adults alike. I think the seriousness of the problem here depends on the monitor, and in particular, on its refresh rate. Old monitors (especially the CRT ones) have very low refresh rates - if you look closely at these old monitors, you will see the screen flickering. Over time, this tends to cause eye strain. Again, thankfully, modern monitors have very high refresh rates and this problem has been reduced considerably. Many people who used to have eye strain problems with old CRT screens no longer have problems with modern-day LCD/plasma screens.
One final note here is glare - make sure the lighting is adequate!
IS TV IS HARMFUL TO BABIES?Actually, when most people talk about the problems with watching TV, they are actually referring more to the content aspect of it. This question is so important that we wrote an article on it, which you can read here:
http://www.brillbaby.com/early-learning/related-topics/babies-and-television.phpIn a nutshell - make sure you accompany your baby as much as you can for all TV/computer-watching so that you have stimulation coming from you and not just the TV, and try your best to make the entire process interactive - encourage your baby to respond, ask your baby/child questions (even if they can't talk yet), etc., instead of letting it be purely a one-way process where your baby just stares at the screen for long periods without needing to think or respond.
With our programs, we've created your daily lessons to last for approximately 5-10 minutes each day - this is far less the time it would take for you to watch one television show, and these lessons require interaction from the parent or caregiver while it is being presented, and not a purely sit-and-watch kind of lesson.
But of course, only
YOU can decide what you think is best for your baby.
The reason why we provide you with a free LITE version for our programs is so that you can see if these are programs which you think will work for you and if it's something you can fit in your daily routine.
I hope that you feel free to download the LITE version. We do not ever ask for you to purchase our products without trying them first, and we don't even ask you for any billing details when you download it. Our aim is to make it easier for you to see what the program can do for yourself so you can make an informed decision on whether or not you want to continue teaching with our programs.
Hope that helps, even just a little bit! And salamat sa pagjoin niyo dito sa online community namin sa BrillKids - feel free to ask any questions about early education, and we'll be more than happy to share what we know.
Digg
