Word: linn
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with the toy-movie connection, say child development experts, is that it's helping to speed a gloomy trend that has been developing for decades?the creative death of playtime. "The most imaginative play takes place when children have gaps in information that need to be filled," says Susan Linn, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. A generic babydoll, for example, needs a child to give her a personality, a family, what a screenwriter would call a backstory. A teddy bear needs something to do, a plot...
...putting sole responsibility on parents, says Linn, doesn't address the increasing relentlessness of the marketing they face. Consider Disney's Princesses, a lucrative brand built on sub-par, straight-to-DVD sequels to animated Disney classics like Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Even the "parenting advice" section of Disney's Princesses website entreats mom and dad to "Cuddle up with your little princess and her favorite Disney Princess doll ... as you read her her favorite story." Nowhere does it say what to do if your little princess is throwing a temper tantrum cause...
...development, never mind the DVDs, which bring some creativity-crushing side-effects of their own. "It used to be that kids went to the movies once and saw a film and then if they wanted to revisit the film and enter that world again, they played about it," says Linn. Now, instead of recreating Snow White's world in their heads, kids pop in the DVD and mouth along to "Magic Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" over and over again. Media-linked toys aren't just making it hard for kids to learn...
Silky (Lab mix), WEST LINN...
...Pizza Hut-sponsored program that rewards reading with free slices of pizza for students in kindergarten through sixth grade has recently been the target of criticism from a Harvard Medical School (HMS) instructor. Susan E. Linn, the associate director of the Media Center at the Judge Baker Children’s Center and an instructor in Psychiatry at HMS, criticized the fast-food giant last week, charging that its reading program amounted to corporate sponsorship and encouraged unhealthy eating habits. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood–an organization that Linn co-founded—has begun...