Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that BEGINNING TOGETHER is expressly designed for children as young as six months. Both Common Sense Media and the American Academy of Pediatrics advise against allowing children younger than 2 to watch television and other screen media. Studies have raised concerns that early exposure to television could be detrimental to attention span and cognitive development.
That issue aside, Beginning Together is a high quality production teaching positive skills to parents of young children while presenting engaging images and characters that young children will enjoy watching. As you'd expect from Sesame Street, the DVD portrays a variety of family situations and makes an effort to be culturally diverse.
Families who do choose to watch the DVD together can carry on the lessons modeled in the show, such as finding fun ways to carry out regular routines, like dressing and bathing. Caregivers can use the technique of adding songs and other imaginative communication to their normal interaction with their kids.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Sierra Filucci
Beginning Together is the first DVD in a series called "Sesame Beginnings" produced by Sesame Workshop in partnership with Zero to Three, an educational organization co-founded by famed pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton. The DVD is designed for babies 6 months and older.
With this series, Sesame Workshop and Zero to Three flout the American Academy of Pediatrics' (and Common Sense Media's) recommendation that children under 2 avoid all screen media (TV, computers, DVDs, videos). This decision has prompted outcry from some child development experts, including Brazelton himself.
The DVD features baby versions of familiar Sesame Street Muppets -- Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and Prairie Dawn -- along with their caregivers. While the DVDs are designed with youngsters in mind, much of the action is oriented toward teaching parents how to integrate learning into daily activities and also how to turn common parenting challenges into successful exchanges between caregiver and child.
In one scene, Elmo's father (who is immensely adorable with a scruffy mustache and bowling shirt) has trouble giving Elmo a bath because he's so squirmy. He begins to sing a song, "Wiggly Giggly" that asks Elmo to point to parts of his body as his dad washes them. Most of the lessons illustrated by the baby Muppets and their caregivers flow into scenes with real-life caregivers and their babies.
Each DVD features "Together Time Tips," which reiterate or add to the lessons carried out in the show. For example, the tip "Tune into your child's approach to the world" features Cookie Monster's grandmother using Cookie's energetic attitude to engage him in the diaper-changing process ("Let's see how fast you can find a diaper!"), and advises parents to read their child's cues to understand his individual temperament.
Overall, the material is up to the standards one would expect from Sesame Street -- great characters, educational lessons, fun music, and the occasional celebrity appearance. If you decide to hold off on this series until your child is 2, she will probably still find the material engaging, despite the emphasis on younger children and their routines. But since much of the material is designed for the caregiver of a baby, viewers with kids past 2 will find the lessons less useful.
Rate It!
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Social BehaviorPurpose of DVD is to model positive behavior for parents interacting with babies and young children. Shows a variety of caregiving arrangements -- father, grandmother, aunt, mother. Makes an effort to portray cultural and racial diversity. |
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CommercialismSome might consider Sesame Street characters themselves to be products, and in that sense, this DVD introduces these products to children at an extremely young age. |
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