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Disney, which had to drop the word "educational" from its marketing of Baby Einstein DVDs following complaints from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), has now had to back down further and offer a refund.

The New York Times reports that the $200 million a year business, which is predicated on the idea that DVD-watching is beneficial to infants even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time of any kind, television, DVDs, or computers, before age 2, is so pervasive that as many as a third of all American babies have seen at least one of these DVDs. In what the company is calling an "enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee" and the CCFC is characterizing as capitulation, the company will refund $15.99 for up to four "Baby Einstein" DVDs per household, bought between June 5, 2004, and Sept. 5, 2009, and returned to the company.

I have been a furious opponent of Baby Einstein and the other DVDs for infants since I published the one of the first exposes of them as a racket in the mainstream media, a 2005 article in the Chicago Tribune. When I was working on the article, a company representative's absurd response to my question about academic studies showing no benefits in learning from their products that their DVDs were "not research-based." The New York Times story reports that even though they had to remove the word "educational" from their literature following CCFC complaints and a Federal Trade Commission investigation, the website still promises "number recognition" and introduction of shapes. And, of course, the name itself implies that the products increase knowledge or intellectual capacity.

The academic studies show that what infants learn from watching a family member once takes them four times as long to absorb in a DVD. And the very act of watching a DVD with the pulsing refresh rate of the screen can be at the same time soporific and stimulating, making it more difficult for them to get restful sleep. The only thing they learn from these DVDs is how to watch television. Susan Linn of the CCFC was a terrific resource for me in my work on this issue and I am delighted to see her success in bringing to parents' attention how useless these DVDs are.

My good friend and fellow critic Tim Gordon and I went to hear hip-hop artist/actor/philanthropist Ludacris speak at the National Press Club on Friday. He was there to talk about his foundation and the work it does in Atlanta and around the world to help provide opportunities, guidance, and inspiration for young people. His opening remarks were impressive as he described programs that provided 20 cars to people who needed them in order to do their jobs and take care of their families and described his goal: "Not so much to see what nobody has seen as to think what nobody has thought about what everybody sees." He spoke about his family's "deep-rooted tradition of service that underscores the responsibility we all have." He was grateful that his own commitment to giving back was underscored is his first job, working for Radio One. Boss Cathy Hughes insisted on community service from her employees each week, establishing a precedent for what Ludacris would do after he became a successful recording artist.

The best part was his responses to the questions from the audience, which included local teenagers and fans as well as seasoned reporters. He told the audience not to attribute violence to hip-hop but to ignorance. And he spoke of the way the hip-hop community came together in a matter of hours to help him when one of his projects needed support. My favorite moment was his answer to a question about the most important lessons he learned from his mother, Roberta Shields, who now serves as president of the foundation. He said he could not count the important lessons he learned from her but he would tell us one. He always did well in school, especially in math, but she would give him extra work to do and he did not like it, especially one annual assignment to write down his expectations and goals. He hated it at the time, but Ludacris (born Chris Bridges) attributes his success to her insistence that he be specific and concrete and accountable for his aspirations. He learned from that to "stop quitting." If he did not achieve the previous year's goals, he had to think about why he did not and how to do better next time. I looked over at her and saw her beaming with pride.

The New York Times has an excellent article about the way children today are watching as much programming online as they do on television and DVDs, giving them an unprecedented bounty of choices and giving their parents an unprecedented range of challenges. It begins with an astonishing statistic -- in the time it takes to read the article, ten more hours of content will be uploaded to YouTube.

For parents who grew up with only a few television channels, the idea of turning a curious child loose with such a vast amount of content can produce a fair amount of anxiety. YouTube has a policy banning children under 13 in its fine print. "YouTube is for teens and adults, not children." said Scott Rubin, a YouTube spokesman.

Yet, according to Nielsen VideoCensus, more children under 13 watched videos in August on YouTube than on Disney.com, Nick.com and Cartoon Network combined.

YouTube has instructional videos on every possible skill from math to pumpkin-carving and wonderfully creative animated shorts from all over the world. It has videos made by other kids, with FlipVideos and iPhones and the popular Webkinz But it also has a lot of very inappropriate material both in the videos themselves and in the comments, which are often profane and offensive.

The article is must reading for parents of 4-12-year olds, especially its very sensible suggestions for navigating this often-rewarding but sometimes-treacherous world of online video content.

As I noted last week in my discussion of the recent outbreak of rudeness, courtesy is a neglected virtue, often dismissed as tangential or even hypocritical. But courtesy is sincere, based on a recognition of the dignity deserved by all people, and it is crucially important, requiring us to be sensitive to the feelings of others, and to show respect for them and for ourselves. Some movies teach us that being treated with courtesy can be a transforming experience, a lesson well worth family discussion. And this is particularly important because so many of today's movies seem to depict lack of courtesy as somehow brave, honest, or funny.

In "To Sir With Love," it is not being treated courteously by the teacher that changes the way the students think about themselves and each other as much as it is being required to change their behavior and treat each other with courtesy. In the delightful "Babe," our porcine hero becomes the greatest shepherd of all time by asking the sheep to move politely instead of nipping at their heels. "My Fair Lady" has one of the most famous exchanges on the subject of courtesy in all of literature, when Eliza explains that Colonel Pickering treats a flower girl like a duchess, and Professor Higgins treats a duchess like a flower girl. As Americans, we are inclined to agree when Higgins says that the great thing is to have one manner for all people, but we also agree with Eliza when she says she learned more from Pickering's courteous manners than from Higgins elocution lessons.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a movie that resonates on many levels and has much to teach us about many subjects. But I recommend watching it at least once with attention to its emphasis on courtesy, which serves as a beacon in the most troubled and unsettling circumstances.

Babe "This is a tale about an unprejudiced heart, and how it changed our valley forever." So begins this lovely story about a pig who lives his dream (and saves his life) by learning to herd sheep. Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) wins the little pig at a fair. Back at his farm, Babe is adopted by Fly, the sheepdog, who treats him like one of her puppies. Babe learns the ways of the farm and the barnyard, and is very distressed to hear from Maa the sheep that she thinks Fly is cruel, and even more distressed to learn from Ferdinand the duck that humans eat animals. Hoggett enters Babe into competition at the fair, submitting him as the best sheepdog. At first, the sheep at the fair won't listen to Babe, but when Rex finds out the sheep password (by promising to be kind and respectful to sheep in the future), Babe uses it, along with his unique style of courteous friendliness, to manage the sheep so brilliantly that he wins the competition.

This movie is a delight for the eye, heart, and spirit. And it deals very well with many important issues. The movie is really a tale of two "unprejudiced hearts." And one of its themes is the importance of kindness--Hoggett's to Babe, Fly's to Babe, Babe's to the sheep, and ultimately Rex's to Babe, and how it transforms both the giver and the recipient.

My Fair Lady On a rainy night in Covent Garden, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) meets Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White), a fellow linguistics scholar, as he is correctly identifying accents of all those around him. Offhandedly commenting that in England people are defined by their accents, he says that he could even teach a poor Cockney flower girl to speak like a lady. The next day, the flower girl (Audrey Hepburn) comes to see him, to offer to pay Higgins for language lessons. She wants to be "a lady in a flower shop," and that requires a more bourgeois accent and manner. Higgins proposes to teach her to talk like a society lady and bets Pickering that he can pass her off. This musical was based on "Pygmalion," written in 1912 by George Bernard Shaw. In this era, and in this country, it is hard to imagine how genuinely revolutionary it was for Shaw to say that the only difference between the classes was accent and demeanor. It is worth discussing the way that language and accent defined people in this era, and asking children about the conclusions people draw from accents today.

This story has its parallels to Cinderella; it has its climax at a ball, which our heroine attends in borrowed finery. But Higgins and Pickering are far from fairy godfathers. Their interest is not in rewarding Eliza for a virtuous life; they want to show off their own achievement, and play something of a joke on high society. And Higgins is not a prince. In a way he reveals the princess inside of Eliza, though he never intended to, or even took the time to imagine it to be possible.

One of Shaw's most important insights in this story is of the role of courtesy, and the different characters' ideas of its importance provide an excellent opportunity for discussion. Pickering's treating Eliza like a lady has as much to do with her becoming one as all of the training about diction and appropriate topics for conversation. As she says, he treats a flower girl like a duchess. When she says that Higgins treats a duchess like a flower girl, Higgins says that "the great thing" is to treat everyone the same way. That may be, but Pickering is able to treat everyone (even Eliza at her Cockney-ist) with equal courtesy, instead of equal brusqueness. Mrs. Higgins is also courteous to everyone (with the exception of her son); her concern over having Eliza at Ascot is at least as much for Eliza's comfort as her own.

To Kill a Mockingbird The story is about prejudice and injustice, seen through the eyes of a little girl, the daughter of a lawyer who defends a black man against a trumped up rape charge in 1930s Georgia. The lawyer, Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), is the essence of quiet dignity, integrity, and courtesy. His efforts to teach his son and daughter the values he believes in, which the community they live in does not always honor, are moving and inspiring.

There is a great deal of emphasis in the movie on courtesy and sensitivity to the feelings of others. In the first scene, Atticus tells Scout not to embarrass a client named Walter Cunningham, when he comes by to drop off some food as payment for legal services. Later, when Scout brings Walter, Jr. home for lunch, she is told not to say anything when he pours syrup all over his food. Atticus treats mean old Mrs. Dubose with gallantry, disarming her. Atticus' courtesy in cross-examining Mayella Ewell is so unfamiliar to her that she assumes it is some new sort of insult. The black people in the courtroom balcony stand as a courtesy to Atticus. And Sheriff Heck Tate explains why the official record will show that Bob Ewell fell on his knife. He wants to protect Boo "with his shy ways" from the well-meaning gratitude (and curiosity) of the "good ladies" of the town.

To Sir, With Love Released the same year as "Up the Down Staircase" this is also the story of a new teacher in an inner-city school, although this time the city is London, and the teacher is Sidney Poitier. An outsider by virtue of his country (West Indies) more than his color, Poitier becomes impatient with the insolence and narrow-mindedness of his students and imposes his own set of rules, foremost of which is courtesy to him and to each other. At first, they are embarrassed and awkward, as though they don't want to believe that they could deserve such treatment. The other teachers make it quite clear that they don't think the students deserve it. But soon the exaggerated sarcasm of "Miss Dare" and "Sir" falls away, and we see a superb example of the transforming nature of being treated with -- and treating others with -- respect.

Ingredients:

1. Too many toddlers
2. Not enough preschools
3. Parents who will do anything for their children
4. Parents whose top priority is their children's education
5. Parents who recognize the substantial social and educational advantages of the few very top Manhattan preschools
6. New York City and its tendency to increase overall stress (meaning both emphasis and pressure)

Result: a sort of combustible insanity as on the day after Labor Day every year some of the most ambitious, aggressive, status-oriented, and very highly motivated people in the world rev up for one of the most cut-throat competitions in America, admission to preschool in Manhattan. You think I'm exaggerating? Then remember that just a few years ago a scandal that brought down some of the biggest names in Wall Street had a top securities analyst changing his recommendation on a company in exchange for a contribution that eased his twins' entry into a posh preschool. As he noted in his email on the subject, admission was statistically harder than getting into to Harvard. And yes, we are talking about 2 and 3-year olds. As the film-makers put it, "Cue the tears, hysterics and breakdowns--and that's just the parents."

"Nursery University" is a frank but not-unsympathetic look at what pretty much everyone agrees is the insanity of the process of applying to preschool in Manhattan, from the pricey consultants to the interviews of both parents and toddlers. The intricacies of pushing without being pushy, of conveying a family's ability to provide support without sounding like you are name-dropping or trying to buy your way in, the challenges for families who are not wealthy are all here. The focus is on five applicants and their parents, from the speed-dial madness that begins today just to get the privilege of being permitted to apply to those are-they-thick-or-thin envelopes that arrive in the spring.

Bonus features on the DVD include deleted scenes and interviews with the parents and admission experts and even some advice for parents who may be entering this process themselves.

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