Unhealthy images used in Little Math

[berniejean]

Hi - just wondering how others feel about the use of hamburgers, fried chicken and fries in the imagery of Little Math (trial version)? I am Australian, and the fries are ones that you buy from the frozen food section. Very unhealthy.

It has actually turned me off buying the program.

Lost credibility for me. We all know that healthy food equals healthy mind, and I thought BrillKids would promote healthy imagery in their programs.

What do others think? Does the actual program have such terrible imagery?

[CVMomma]

It is very easy to choose which icons you use or don't want to use.  And there are lots of free downloadable icons in the LM library. I am sure you can find something that your child will enjoy!  The program is too wonderful to discount it because of a few icons!  My oldest daughter learned a lot from it and we are starting my youngest on it now! She is really enjoying it!

[Skylark]

With my children I used just dots as per Doman   It is very easy to customize with just a few clicks of the mouse.

[berniejean]

Great! Thanks so much for letting me know.

I will investigate now.

I really liked the program, but the imagery was terrible! They should get rid of the burgers and fries.

ps I posted on the Facebook page on 5 February, and yet to receive a reply. Totally bugs me when companies use Facebook as a one-way newsletter but don't answer people who ask qs.

[Mandabplus3]

Your Facebook post was probably just a case of bad timing. It  was recently Chinese New Year holiday and everyone had a couple of weeks off
You do get good service from Brillkids. When I have had some tech issues in the past they went well above the  call of duty to get my computer going again. Fixing things that were NO problem with their software to get it all going again.
Now I also like a healthy lifestyle and encourage it in my kids also. I believe the fries were added as a high interest attention grabber in children ( well they DO like fries don't they?) but yes they possible should be reconsidered in the trial version as parents can't alter the trial icons.
Once you have the entire program you can choose from hundreds and hundreds of icons you are bound to find some you just love ( my kids loved the strawberries and mangos and bob the builder). You can easily delete any you don't love and if you child has a favourite you can even make your own icons to suit their taste ( or yours  )
I am sure you will love it.

[berniejean]

Thanks for the info. Really helpful.

Yep, images of fries, burgers and fried chicken should be removed from the trial. It screams unhealthiness and really turns you off - well, for Australians although we aren't much healthier than Americans!

Re: Chinese New Year - they should have posted something on their Facebook page about not being available to answer customer qs. But that said, Facebook is 24/7. Must be resourced effectively to use it as a communications channel. (yep, I am in communications so I am a bit of a stickler about using avenues that you can actually handle).

[Skylark]

Berniejean,

I am glad it was a help!

In our household we do not eat any fast food, and cook everything from scratch, kids even learn to grow their own vegetables and herbs    So I feel your concern about unhealthy choices many people make. But it never even came to my mind that some images on the trial version might be offensive to anyone. Since it is highly customizable and it is just a demo. But I see your point. Sorry that it caused you a trial, I am sure it was not in anyone's intention!

I do agree that I skip some math worksheets or books, simple because they use candy as their addition/subtraction model. But that happens with non customizable books when this demo model used in excess. I would not care about few here and there. But in Little Math you can even use your own icons! And for us dots and geometrical figures ( and no images) actually worked the best 

(Just my personal opinion though ( and it is not expressed here as by the member of BK team    I think it is important for the kids to know about things, my kids do not eat junk food or store bought candy, BUT if they see something and would like to know what it is, I would not just hide it from them as if it does not exists!  They tried fries and hamburger ( did not like it, haha) and candy, and all kind of things  , we do not just forbid it, we talk about it, and provide them awesome delicious healthy choices, but we also dont keep them in a bubble. They LOVE pop corn ( but we get organic one made with olive oil) Now that is my personal opinion and... wait how come we are talking about healthy vs junk food in discussion of a math program    But I invite you to open discussion on health food and early learning on General Chat Forum Board for example, I am all for discussing those things!!  And I always learn something new from others too. Healthy discussion is amazing tool that all of us can benefit from., Anyways those were just my personal thoughts on the side)

Regarding Chinese New Years, there was an announcement here --  http://forum.brillkids.com/announcements/happy-chinese-new-year!-bk-hq-will-be-closed-from-jan-31-to-feb-3/

You are always welcome to post your questions and inquiries on the Forum as well, and even when BK office is on the holidays, there are always others here on the Forum who are more then happy to lend a helping hand! 

It is wonderful to have you here and I hope to hear more about your learning journey, don't hesitate to ask questions and participate in discussions!
 

[berniejean]

Thanks! I posted on Facebook on 5 Feb, so the office was open.

(the link you sent me said it was closed from January 31 to February 3 and will resume operations again on February 4).

So, there is obviously an issue w/ Facebook. It is not being managed effectively. Is there any way of letting management know to look into the management of Facebook? If they can't handle it as a communications channel, then get rid of it.

On the program front - glad to hear that you also support healthy eating. :-)

Bernie

[MamaOfWill]

It is possible that your question was not answered because it was as ridiculous as this thread. 
(That, and the other reason could possibly be that our very much loved and admired, small BrillKids team were busy finishing Spanish curriculum especially for ME, so in the end it's all about priorities.)

Out of hundreds of Little Math icons, one set (which you can delete) contains junk food.  I don't get what the problem is here?

There's one reasoning surrounding healthy eating that says we SHOULD allow our children to explore unhealthy foods and teach them to eat in moderation.  Controlling our impulses is a skill that takes practice.  The theory goes on to say that never exposing them will never give them the opportunity to fine tune these impulses and self discipline in healthy eating, therefor putting them at risk of over eating as adults when they are no longer having all their meals supervised by you.  I know there's many ways of teaching your children about healthy eating which will not necessarily include allowing them to eat junk food ever, but if you are so stressed about it that you don't even want your children to see a mini image of junk food then you've got me curious about how you would teach them what's wrong then? 

[berniejean]

Whoa! Now you have become offensive. Who are you exactly? An official employee?

The icons cannot be deleted in the trial.

[MamaOfWill]

Nope!  Just a member of the forum (and a huge fan of BrillKids.)  If I was official anything I would have a butterfly thingy 
and then I would not have been allowed to say anything bad, but you had it coming, I think you were being a little bit offensive too.

[MamaOfWill]

You can delete the food icons with a trial! 

Media Library -> Icon Sets -> Food -> delete (red X)

Goodbye evil plates of greasy foods! 

[berniejean]

Thanks the info. I think you are a little too enthusiastic. To tell a stranger that they "had it coming" is concerning.

to expect a response on Facebook is quite normal!

[Lappy]

Hi BernieJean,

Thanks for the feedback. We'll take what you said into account, and we'll see about just removing the icons which offend you from the preinstalled ones. I am an official employee of BrillKids (VP), so please do know that I speak on behalf of everyone on the team when I say that we would like to formally apologize for the icons which offend you. We will include the changes in our latest version of the trial programs available as soon as the programmers repack the software with the new presets.

Thank you for your suggestion on just deleting Facebook if it's not something we can manage. We are very sorry for not being able to manage our Facebook page as well as you would like us to. I would like to apologize on behalf of our small team for that - we usually prioritize technical support issues, so it was an oversight on our part not to have replied.  With this, kindly understand that we do have a whole support ticketing system in place if you would like to write us directly about any issues: you can click on the HELP link on the top right corner of every page to visit our helpdesk.

Yes, it is true that you can delete an icon set even on the trial. For anyone who finds themselves not liking the other icons, please feel free to delete them from the library, so they will never bother you again. (Some people don't like the cars icons too, for reasons of their own.) However, if your trial has already expired, you won't be able to because the editing features will have been locked by that time.

Again, our thanks for the great feedback. Rest assured that we are taking these things into account and we will be discussing internally what we can do to improve our programs and support processes with these in mind.

Best regards,

Lappy

document.getElementById('recent_loading').style.display = 'none';document.getElementById('recent_page_box').style.display = '';

Page: 1/4  

Loading...

Members

• Total Members: 214769
• Latest: Meobi

Stats

• Total Posts: 110526
• Total Topics: 19136
• Online Today: 567
• Online Ever: 826
• (January 22, 2020, 12:09:49 AM)

Users Online

• Users: 0
• Guests: 419
• Total: 419