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Does Your Stroller Face Forward or Back?
Filed under: Opinions
Breast or bottle? Plastic or wooden toys? So many decisions. Now we can add a new one to the list: Forward- vs. toward-facing strollers. New research suggests that children who use strollers that face the person pushing them interact and laugh with them more. According to the study's author, M. Suzanne Zeedyk, a developmental psychologist, that may have a lot to do with how quickly he'll be saying "Mama."
"Vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them," writes Zeedyk in a recent article in the New York Times.
Her study of 2,700 families focused on caregiver interactions with their infants and toddlers while pushing them in both kinds of strollers, facing out and toward-facing (prediction: that term will never catch on). "Caregivers were less likely to speak to infants when the child was facing forward, compared with strollers where the baby faces the caregiver."
On the surface, this study is a bit like saying "the floor is down, the ceiling is up." Of course parents will interact more with their kids if they are facing them. That's true whether they are in a stroller or sitting in the living room watching television, which, we are now told, is neither good nor bad for their cognitive development.
Although I would love to think that my children find me endlessly fascinating, I know that they also might want to look at something other than my mug. Checking out the rest of the world and interacting with it, even in an imaginary way, can also be beneficial to a child's development, right? Plus, how is the little tyke going to nap if mom/dad/caregiver is yapping away the whole time?
Frankly, this study seems like much ado about nothing. As Zeedyk concludes, "Parents needn't feel worried...Talk to your baby whenever you get the chance -- and whichever direction your stroller faces." If a problem exists with parents interacting with their children, having a "toward-facing journey" is not going to solve it. More time together playing when not strapped to a set of wheels? That might help.
What do you think? Does the direction your child's stroller faces matter, or is this a lot of nonsense?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
3-09-2009 @ 4:27PM
seadragon said...As someone who researches language acquisition and has a one year old in a forward facing stroller, I think this study has a long way to go. I would be interested to see whether there is a relationship between babies in forward/backward facing-strollers and some measure of language development! How hard would be that be? At the very least, you can just get the parents to fill out the standard vocab questionnaire. And of course, it would be important to control for a whole bunch of other factors - socioeconomic status, amount of talking/interaction when not in the stroller, age, amount of time in the stroller, etc. Now THAT would be a useful study. But without that, yeah, this study is basically saying that they empirically verified that when parents are face-to-face with their babies they interact / talk with them more. Not exactly shocking. (What's weird to me is that the author admits that the study is just preliminary and can't be used to draw any conclusions. But then she draws all kinds of cautionary conclusions.)
Philly Roll: http://seadragon.typepad.com
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3-03-2009 @ 1:35PM
Joy said...I agree with you Brett. I took my kids for walks so they could see other things in the world besides me. Of course if the only time you see or spend time with your child is when they are in a stroller, then I think you have a more serious problem than which way the stroller faces.
What a dumb study. Where can I sign up to get paid for doing dumb studies like this one?
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3-03-2009 @ 4:05PM
SKL said...Our tax dollars at work! Yippee!!
Is this the same story PD reported on a couple months ago? It looks the same.
Bunch of nonsense.
I mean, obviously, if your kid has nothing to look at but your face, what are you going to do - look at something else the whole time? Obviously when ANYONE is sitting there staring at your face, you will find something to talk about rather than stare silently at each other.
But that doesn't mean mom's face is the only thing worth looking at, or her voice is the only thing worth hearing.
I agree with Joy, this study proposal must have had to pass a stupidity screen. Only a professional student with no children and no sense would have had to conduct a study to determine that parents and children interact when they are staring each other in the face.
Next thing you know, we'll have a tax hike to enable "low income people" to buy toward-facing strollers . . . I mean, there might as well be some purpose behind this study.
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3-04-2009 @ 4:02PM
CLM said...Actually, I believe it was Scotland's tax dollars at work.
This study is old news, isn't it? Like SKL, I'm pretty sure I saw this a couple of months ago on PD.
3-04-2009 @ 7:23AM
Jen said...Funny...while at the grocery store, I observe many a baby/young toddler sitting in the shopping carts FACING their mother. I also observe, more times than not unfortunately, the toddler/baby TRYING to interact with mom/dad (asking questions, pointing to objects) and the parent will either not respond or will be engaged with a more important conversation they are having on their cell phones!!
Language development and connection with the caregiver has nothing to do with whether a stroller is forward facing or not. It has to do with the nurturing of the parent--the desire to want to interact with the inquisitive and receptive little person they have chosen to create to become a part of their everyday life!
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