If, as some toy-makes claim there is so much to be learned from a simple toy, why don’t we have some kind of standard label — something like the nutrition label on the side of a food package — to help parents decide which are the best toys for their kids? I’m sure any skeptical parent’s first reaction to this statement is fairly obvious: because these kinds of claims have a bad track record of turning up as bunk. The thing is, the real value in any product claim comes not from the claims themselves, but from the collective standardization of claims that give them context and meaning. But what does that mean?

I vividly recall the first time I encountered a bloated set of learning objectives tagged to the side of a baby toy. I wish it were something more glamorous, one of those Mozart music-for-babies discs or some infant flash card set, for example. Instead it came to me in the form of a mere yellow rubber duck. But then I shouldn’t be so surprised; Perhaps I would have been more willing to accept the claims had the toy been something far less mundane. Who can say? I wrote about the experience a couple years back on the blog, the tag I then quoted (but long since having tossed) reading: “[the brand name] Toys are specifically designed to stimulate development of your baby. Because the toys are designed intelligently, using colour, sound, and feel as key stimulation aids, your child will quickly discover that learning is fun!”^[1] This claim, strung from the neck of the yellow plastic bath toy by a small elastic band, may not have gone to the lengths of some more ambitious learning objectives I’ve since seen, but ultimately played a big role in sparking my interest in debunking the value of such claims as a skeptical parent.

I have doubts that as parents we fall for this stuff as easily as the toy companies believe. In some ways I’d suggest it’s a game of don’t-ask-don’t-tell; We buy the toys because we think they are good toys. Or — more likely — we buy the toys because our kids think they are good toys. Sure, we read the product claims on the side, maybe react somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and approving nod, thinking ‘well, what could it hurt…’ Sure. But then like every other aspect of skeptical bunk-busting, there ARE true believers, particularly when said claims go beyond vague promises of infant development. “The baby-educating industry has found a receptive audience of parents eager to enrich their offspring. One survey shows that 65 percent of parents believe that flash cards are ‘very effective’ in helping two-year-olds develop their intellectual capacity. And more than a third of the parents surveyed believe that playing Mozart to their infants enhances brain development.” ^[2]

Then, maybe it IS just the more skeptical among us who are laughing at the boxes. Or, maybe it’s the depth of the claim that decides who falls for it? Perhaps we are pressured into belief by our existing preconceptions of what products should be able to do for our kids? Or maybe… well, the list could go on.

As Skeptics we tend to be notoriously strong critics of these sorts of claims on foods or drugs. But why is that? True, those claims have the capacity to do real harm and are arguably more immediately dangerous to the suckers who fall for them. But then, not-so-life-threatening bunk has earned its share of skeptical ink, too.

This isn’t an article about bad claims or a need to debunk them. (That’s a topic for another article.) This is more of an exploration beyond the learning objectives — vague value propositions — slapped to the sides of kid’s products and why those products will likely never — arguably, should never — have something akin to nutrition-type or medical-type labels on their boxes.

So, let’s take a look at nutrition labels. Here in Canada (similar to other places in the world) nutrition information is mandated and regulated by the government to appear in a little black and white box on the side of every salable food product. “Canadian regulation tightly controls the manner in which the nutrition fact table (NFT) data is laid out. There is a wide variety of possible formats for use on a given food package. A selection hierarchy is used to select among the many formats (28 main formats, and 2-7 subformats for each).” ^[3] Why is this? I suppose, having seen the food industry from the inside, it has little to do with directly selling the product. Getting accurate information this box for any given food product is an extra cost for the manufacturer. Labeling is far from free. And as a public cost, we pay both indirectly (trickle down) and directly (government regulation and enforcement) for this service. Presumably we’ve come to a consensus as a society that this is a cost we are willing to pay and that it has value, particularly since the information is both (a) applicable to our interaction with the product and (b) based in evidence. This information has context. It has meaning. These are not just claims for the sake of claims, or to entice us to buy the product. In fact, sometimes those same claims help us decide NOT to buy the product. These claims (and I call them claims because their format — white panel on the side versus bright font with exclamation marks on the front — is irrelevant and merely akin to a definition) help us make choices about safety and diet in the form of calories, salt, fat, and fiber.

Again: context.

Is that then the obvious answer with regard to labeling other products, such as the numerous claims slapped across the boxes of children’s toys, furniture, clothing, diapers, and media? Is it about context?

Let’s ignore for the moment that few toys could be standardized and quantified in the same way as we do with food. We might suppose that we could label the box with quantifiable things like plastic, metal, wood, or fibre content, decibel level, durability, weight, dimensions, and even the systems used in manufacture and delivery and their possible by-products. That would give us a fairly good definition of the product, but then the million dollar question: does it provide us with context? And, more importantly, does it provide us with a context that we could link to a perceived value for us to pay as a society and consumers (because… remember all those direct and indirect costs?)

Now, readers are likely thinking but, wait a minute… what happened to those other claims like “using colour, sound, and feel as key stimulation aids” or that listening to Mozart makes babies smarter? The thing is, those who have been following along get the obvious assertion here: their value is actually relatively meaningless. The meaning — if they could derive any at all — is not in the claims themselves, but the fact that claims with such meaning get that meaning from the context upon which they’ve been built.

And in the case of all these gleaming products to help us raise our kids, that context simply doesn’t exist.

References

[1] Words from the tag of a toy duck, previously referenced: http://www.skepdad.ca/2007/over-educated-toys/

[2] Kathy Hirsh-Pasek Ph.D., Roberta Michnick Golinkoff Ph.D., Diane Eyer Ph.D., Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn — And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, 2004

[3] Wikipedia, January 31, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_facts_label

While I gladly accept comments on the general blog areas of skepdad.ca, in keeping with the magazine-style of this bimonthly publication article, comment here are closed and feedback can be submitted in the form of letters to the editor using the contact form. The best letters and responses will be published in an upcoming issue.

What is the Question

Babies suck. And before you pounce on that assertion, rest easy in the knowledge that I mean this literally. But, while some infants come into the world with a paw in their jaw, others (like our daughter) have earned their titles gradually. In fact, with our little one it was months before she habitually put objects in her mouth, a source of (so I’ve read) comfort, entertainment, and exploration:

• “It satisfies a baby’s normal sucking reflex.
• “Sucking creates a soothing effect, which helps lull a child to sleep, or calms her when she’s upset.
• “Using their mouths is the primary way infants learn about the world.”^[1]

This spectacle has left us, as a society and parents, with a dichotomy of sorts; Since babies are probably going to suck something, do we as parents allow our kids to go natural and gnaw their fingers (the thumb sucking camp) or do we invest in (and promote the use of) an array of manufactured soothers and pacifiers, designed honed by years of research to be an improvement to the convenient, fleshy variety provided to nearly every child upon birth.

The Argument

Having been the beneficiary of all kinds of unsolicited advice on the topic, one would think I’d hardly need to do the reading myself. But I thought (if for no other reason than an exercise in critical thinking and thoroughness) I would compile a short list of the negatives connected to each side of the debate as derived from reading a score of the top sites in Google. I chose randomly from a search for the words “pacifier versus thumb.” Such a search generated a fairly consistent set of ‘wisdom’ from both camps, occasionally promoting or discouraging. The list is not long (and I doubt it is complete), but should provide readers of this blog a basic understanding of the pros and cons of the decision to be made. That said please don’t assume that a negative for one side means a ‘positive’ for the other side. As will become clear, not much of this advice seems to be research-based, and is rather purely observational or anecdotal. And much of the reading suggests that those observations, and the “cons” are simply positive or negative to a greater (or lesser as the case may be) extent.

Skeptical Parents Ask Critical Questions

Of course, this winding path to understanding a seemingly minor topic has brought us back to the question faced by parents around the world: The kid is going to suck something, so what route should we be encouraging?

I’m not going to provide an answer to that question. The more I write in this blog, the more I become a firm believer in making decisions that are right for the individual situation based on sound evidence and critical reasoning.

Also, I am not going to back out of this problem by claiming that ‘babies will make up their own minds.’ True, some argue that parents don’t get much of a choice. Much of the information I read suggested that the kid will ultimately decide, pacifier or thumb. There are plenty of stubborn kids out there, but I tend to believe that parents are the ones who should ultimately make those decisions, even if it means more work. I hope that I promote strong, responsible parenting through this blog, so putting the responsibility of the decision on chance or the child’s so-called choice is not an option.

What I am hoping is that parents start thinking about the factors that come into play around why choices exist. I also hope there is understanding about issues (this one and others) involving mounds of conflicting observations, evidence, and (occasionally) formal research — and particularly why this means that we as parents need to take a step back from the claims and think clearly about what we are trying to accomplish.

So, as a skeptical parent, where does one start? My advice is understanding; That is to say, parents should know their child-rearing goals, and should balance their values with the evidence — and the source of the evidence. Ask three questions: where is this information coming from, what is this information promoting, and does this information support my goals as a parent? If the information is reliable, unbiased, and in-line with personal parenting objectives then its credibility is worth much more. Some of the the ‘evidence’ I was able to collect follows below, and skeptical parents should turn on their critical minds as well.

The Stated Cons of the Artificial Pacifier

Various websites suggest that kids who use pacifiers:

- are more likely to get ear infections. The reason was unexplained in the list I discovered, but I suppose would have something to do with plastic as a ready vector for bacteria. A little more digging confirmed this, as well as some correlative data. In general, I weigh this bit of evidence on what it’s promoting. I’d still like to see more information and a source of the claim, but it seems to be looking out for my daughter’s health — though to be honest, I don’t know yet if she’s at risk for ear infections.

Verdict: Claim is vague, but tempting to believe because of the health claim. I ask myself is someone preying on my emotion here and overstating the actual risk — or is this real? For those reasons alone I probably should not let it influence my decision too much, if at all.

- are prone to nipple confusion, in that they tend to breastfeed shorter or have general trouble breastfeeding. The source of this kind of ‘evidence’ tends to be motherly observations and personal perceptions. There may be peer reviewed clinical research to back this up, but my limited search didn’t turn it up. That said, one statement from a medical doctor cited this as correlation over causation: “An excellent randomized, controlled clinical trial, published in the July 18, 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that pacifier use does not cause early weaning, it merely becomes more common among babies who are already weaning.”^[2]

Verdict: It’s in line with personal parenting goals, but the claim is rife with logical fallacy, likely arguing a correlation as a causation. Scrap it.

- have lower independence as they rely on an object to sooth and entertain that can be lost or become otherwise inaccessible. To clarify, I don’t think this is claiming that babies are less “independent” as adults because of this. I think it means that they are presently dependent on a physical object (whereas a hand would be readily available and tougher to lose track of.) While all sorts of gadgets have been invented to prevent the loss, there is no perfect solution. And, really, this is arguing from common sense. I’m always losing things, and I doubt this would be an exception.

Verdict: Not really so much as a claim as a practicality, this would be a real consideration for absent minded parents — or a consideration to the goals of parents with a goal of limiting clutter and physical dependence on stuff. Not much to refute here, and any parent should know how much to factor this into their own decision.

- can ultimately become dependent on both the pacifier and the thumb, or develop a dependence on the thumb despite parents efforts to eventually remove the pacifier. Before I had even started my own investigations I had asked this exact question to my wife: “What’s to say she won’t end up sucking both?”

Verdict: Another not-so-much-a-claim as a practicality. I highly doubt there is much research about dual dependence — and I didn’t find any. But, I would argue this comes down to parenting responsibility and control and should only factor into a decision of a parent who has neither.

- have parents who come to rely on the pacifier as parenting aid. That is to say, parents can more easily become the kinds of parents who just ‘stick it in’ as a way to quiet a screaming kid. My own objections to this aside, I might add that as the list goes on it seems we are getting further from claims and practicalities and deeper into conveniences.

Verdict: Yet one more (loose) practicality, and an active decision to be made as a parent. Mind, if a parent is the kind of person who would find themselves doing exactly that, it is definitely worth considering as part of the decision.

The Stated Cons of the Thumb (or fingers, theirs or mine)

Various websites suggest that kids who suck fingers and thumbs:

- are more likely to have dental problems later in life. This assertion is based on the apparent uncontrollable way that kids suck their thumbs, resulting in odd angles, peculiar positioning, and “unhealthy” pressure on young, developing gums. Shying away from the idea of some vast dental industry conspiracy theory (*shudder*), I would simply remind readers that careful consumers will think twice before reading the claims on any packages, including those which contain ‘orthodontic pacifiers.’ Additionally, some sage medical wisdom reminds us to put this claim into context: “According to the American Dental Association, thumb sucking does not cause permanent problems with the teeth or jaw line unless it is continued beyond 4 to 5 years of age. As it turns out, somewhere between 85% and 99% of children have finished thumb sucking spontaneously before this period.” ^[3]

Verdict: This seems like a claim with a bit of clever marketing behind it, and put it into the context of absolute risk and available research, it should barely register in the decision.

- tend to breastfeed longer, which can be a pro or a con depending on the parent’s goals. That is to say, parents hoping to wean, apparently aren’t doing themselves favors by avoiding a pacifier, and vice versa. Again, this is related to an earlier claim from the other side of the argument, debunked as correlation rather than causation.

Verdict: Again, it may be in line with personal parenting goals, but the claim is rife with logical fallacy, more likely arguing a correlation as a causation. This is not a relevant consideration in my books.

- cannot be easily controlled through the removal of the object of attention, without somehow removing the availability of the thumb. This is to say that parents don’t have much control over when and where a thumb goes into the mouth, short of restraint. (And, please, I would NEVER advocate that as an option.) But active discouragement of this kind of fixation does require a certain quantity of patience. And this is the practical argument from the thumb-sucking side — and like the other ‘practicalities’ of the debate, rests more on parenting skills and choices than, uncontrolled variables.

Verdict: This is not a claim, but a practicality that can be addressed through good parenting and should not be factored into the decision.

Conclusions and Such

Likely you’ve come to the end of this article with your head spinning and without the answers you were initially seeking. My goal here was not to provide a solution to the problem, but rather to point out a few of my own observations about skeptical parenting:

1. Those so-called ‘little decisions’ may seem trivial, but the advice surrounding them are often peppered with anecdotal evidence and claims. A simple Google search will result with heaps of advice pointing in numerous directions;

2. It’s very easy to let emotion become part of the decision, but not entirely possible to make the decision without it;

3. When parents are able to ‘step back’ and examine those claims, they often find the clearest arguments are not so much claims as they are practicalities around goals and values, roles and responsibilities as parents, and;

4. The only good ‘evidence’ for this kind of decision is whatever is compatible with the parent’s style of parenting.

In other words, in this example, skeptical parenting is about wading through the bunk claims. And I’ve tried to (in roundabout sort of way) examine the way that a decision like this can be dissected to reveal what is really important: So, how did our decision get made? Breaking down the so-called evidence it became clear quite quickly that the most reliable source of information for decision-making was through sweeping away the list unreliable claims, and instead weighing the practical advice against our parenting style. Correlation observations and health-haunts pushed aside, we were left with the practical question of reliance on a convenient object versus more active work as parents. We chose…

[1] Rebecca Geiger, http://www.parenthood.com/articles.html?article_id=6091
[2] Alan Greene, MD, FAAP, http://www.parents.com/parents/
[3] Alan Greene MD FAAP, http://www.drgreene.org/

For example, take the rubber duck. My daughter received a rubber duck of above average quality (to be quite fair and honest) whose tag read:

“[thebrandname] Toys are specifically designed to stimulate development of your baby. Because the toys are designed intelligently, using colour, sound, and feel as key stimulation aids, your child will quickly discover that learning is fun!”

I did something of a double-take when I read the tag, pocketed it for reference (as I was of course instantly mentally preparing to write this post), and had a second look at the miracle rubber duck. Apparently, modern rubber ducks are quite impressive. Hmmm?

The small tag goes on to emphasize that the duck has some sort of impact on imagination, touch and feel, learning about the properties of water, and dexterity — though it does not elaborate. I’ve held back on the company name because, quite frankly, the brand is not as important as the message it conveys about modern toy marketing. I mean I suppose that it’s fair for a company to talk about the educational benefits of a toy. And I suppose it would be really difficult to cite research to back up such claims on a tag that has a diameter of less than two inches. But, really — there should be some parity between said claim and reality. After all, it’s just a rubber duck.

My concern stems back to the “over-education” of toys. The idea that an item is being marketed with such vague and (to be fair) meaningless claims is troubling. Think to what other common and simple objects a description such as the quoted ones above could be applied. I’m sitting in my kitchen typing this and, for the sake of an example, an empty cottage cheese container is sitting on the counter. Let’s go through the list; Could an empty cottage cheese container stimulate the imagination? Check. Is it be something a baby could touch and feel? It seems safe enough. Would an empty cottage cheese container teach about the properties of water. Of course, in a bathtub. Would it build dexterity? Absolutely — fill, lift, and pour. Fill, lift, and pour.

(Wow! I might just have to hang some tags on them and sell my empty food dishes door to door.)

I suppose my thought on this kind of ploy is pretty simple: The educational value of a toy has more to do with how a parent applies the toy to the child’s environment. A cottage cheese dish is just a plastic bowl. A rubber duck is just a rubber duck. And it’s easy to have a little fun dissecting the marketing of simple toys that over-emphasize their own educational value. But this kind of marketing doesn’t stop with ducks. For example, as as I’ve mentioned before, too often this is applied to repackaged classical music sold as intelligence-boosting albums. And I’m almost certain that parents wandering the aisle of their local toy stores are bombarded with such claims.

My solution: ask the questions. How am I going to use this toy — be it a complex, interactive electronic teaching aid or a simple rubber duck — to teach my child something real and useful? And if you can’t answer that, don’t just look at the box.

The documentary followed the typical media side-show format. I hesitate to use that term, but in more casual conversation the ‘side-show’ reference is an easy way to refer to any documentary or talk-show that puts a unique individual in the spotlight and ponders why they are different. Most readers are probably familiar with the formula: Individual X is unique in some way (either positively or negatively from the accepted average) and their life history is laid out in the format du jour. Depending on the tone of the piece, the analysis of their particular uniqueness is discussed anywhere on the spectrum from scientific curiosity and speculation down to raw and emotional familial discourse. This piece opted for the former (probably a good choice for a science-based channel) and placed the young boy in the spotlight repeatedly asking the quasi-critical questions; Is he smart because he is musical or is he musical because he’s smart?

I touched on this topic in an earlier post when I pondered the value of kids listening to classical music. And my analysis of this question will likely resemble my answer to that one: how does one set a baseline of intelligence in kids against which to measure, how does one differentiate between causation and correlation (which I think is more likely the real answer), and what does the risk/benefit comparison have to say on the topic?

Now, I have a particular interest in music and how it relates to kids. Suggesting I am musical by trade would be such an off-target suggestion it is laughable. But that said, I love music (I’m listening to Bach right now) and I would not trade my twenty years of (admittedly rough) experience on the saxophone for the world. Both my wife and I had music thrust upon us at a very early age and have full intentions of supplying our kids with that same opportunity.

I should note a couple things first. (1) As I experiment to find a format for this blog, I’ve been thinking about previous entries that leaned more towards a crude meta-analysis of the research. Rather than cherry-pick from literature, I might try a few entries steering towards the more blog-like critical analysis format, avoiding a handful of supporting references in favour of just asking strong questions. And (2) if I am in fact off base with the following analysis, someone please comment and let me know. My thoughts on the topic are, as above, wrapped around a three-part question:how does one set a baseline of intelligence in kids against which to measure, how does one differentiate between causation and correlation, and what does the risk/benefit comparison have to say on the topic?

1) How does one set a baseline of intelligence in kids against which to measure?

I need to sit down and write a more thorough bit on this one, but for now I’m going to follow-up on my previous assertion that even on a very good day this kind of work is a soft-science, and that while this can be a valid field of study, work here is often starting on a slippery slope of over-simplification and needs to be extra careful about falling over the metaphorical edge of logical fallacy. What is intelligence in children anyhow? As I stated before, I’m sure there are statistical averages and baselines that are and could again be established. But when there are a multitude of variables needing tight control this quickly becomes one of those studies where it seems virtually impossible to (ethically) eliminate all external factors and prove a cause and effect relationship.

2) How does one differentiate between causation and correlation?

Confusing correlation with causation is one of those key fallacies that is oh-so-easy to make. Simplified, correlation is data that seems connected because it follows a similar trend, but has no provable connection in a cause and effect relationship. Causation is that same connection in the trend of data, but there is a scientifically provable connection between the two: one causes the other and that can be measured in a quantifiable way. The question here, then, becomes NOT is he smart because he is musical or is he musical because he’s smart? Rather, we should be asking is there a measurable connection between musical learning and intelligence in children?

I quickly dug up one article that points out a number of correlations: The Effect of Music on Children. The author’s points are well-meant and tempting to get excited about. But, this kind of list is still no proof of causation.

3) What does the risk/benefit comparison have to say on the topic?

By training I am a scientist. By trade I am a project manager. This means that risk/benefit analysis is a tool of my professional life as common and as valuable as a hammer would be for a carpenter. The application of knowledge to a problem, particularly in the problem of child-rearing (where some would argue that you get one shot at getting it right), can be further managed by the understanding of the risks (costs, losses, negative outcomes, and worst-case scenarios) and the benefits (gains, profits, positive outcomes, and best-case scenarios) involved in the problem itself. In some ways this can be the more practical side of the overall analysis, asking questions such as:

If a family spends thousands of dollars on a piano and lessons for a child and there is no cause-and-effect link between music and intelligence, what are the consequences of that choice? Social, economic, etc…?

If it turns out that there is a strong cause-and-effect link between musical education and intelligence, what risk are parents taking if they do not choose to supply an education in music to their children? Future opportunity, societal, etc…?

If the cause-and-effect link is for the long term an immeasurable quantity, what are the potential gains and losses for parents when making the decision to invest in early childhood musical training, or not?

Of course,we can always hope that there is more research done. Of course, we can always hope that science defines better tools for measuring absolute intelligence in children (despite the numerous ethical debates that would open). But for now, I think it simply comes down to the question of value and basing the decision on what you value as parents for the social outcome of your family and not on apparent claims of ‘miracle’ brain boosting by simple correlations. In other words, until this is better understood teach music to have music in your home, not because you are looking for genius kids.