Is Ms. Rachel Really Safe for Your Littles?
Movieguide® Staf
What started as a desire to help her son snowballed into a behemoth YouTube platform that is frequently name-dropped among parents as their favorite screen time activity for their babies and toddlers. Rachel Griffin Accurso launched Ms. Rachel – Learning Videos for Toddlers just five years ago and now boasts nearly 12 million subscribers and billions of views across her videos.
Toddler Learning Videos and Baby Learning Videos with a real teacher, Ms Rachel! Ms Rachel uses techniques recommended by speech therapists and early childhood experts to help children learn important milestones and preschool skills! You can trust Ms Rachel to provide interactive, high quality screen time
Ms Rachel also gets kids moving through fun nursery rhymes & kids songs videos! Her videos for toddlers are informed by research and are full of learning standards that will help preschoolers thrive! Ms Rachel loves teaching letters, numbers, colors, animal sounds and more! She also has learn to talk videos and incorporates sign language
Ms Rachel has a masters in music education from NYU and is almost finished a second masters in early childhood education. Parents and children can watch and learn together. Ms Rachel loves to teach and loves your wonderful family! Let’s learn, grow and thrive!
Background:
“Thomas is amazing,” Accurso told TODAY of her son. “He’s so bright. He’s the sweetest boy. He’s a cheerleader for everyone. He’ll be like, ‘Mommy, you took a shower! You washed your hair! You did it!’ He’s sunshine.”
But it wasn’t always that way. Thomas was diagnosed with a severe speech delay, and Accurso said he took more than two years to say, “Mama.”
“My son had a speech delay and I was looking for anything possible to help him. I thought it would be great if there was a show for toddlers that encouraged speech; something slow paced, very interactive, and taught by a real person. When I couldn’t find a show like that, I thought maybe we could create one,” Accurso said.
In 2019, Accurso put her degrees in early childhood development and music education to work, creating videos that show children proper speech development. Her iconic pink shirt, overalls and headband have become a staple among parents of toddlers, and the creator even launched her own line of toys and has clothing in retailers like Walmart.
Parents and children alike are drawn to her content for its music, games, fine motor skill development and easy-to-digest graphics. Compared to something like COCOMELON, Ms. Rachel videos are far less stimulating and allow children to consume content without overwhelming their brains. By watching Ms. Rachel, children learn animal sounds, counting, colors, sign language and more.
According to the New York Times:
Maura Moyle, an associate professor of speech pathology and audiology at Marquette University, said that the Ms. Rachel videos she saw incorporated key techniques that speech therapists use to help children, such as speaking slowly, saying simple sentences and repeating them.Research shows that young children are attracted to “parentese” or “motherese” — the kind of “baby talk” that the videos predominantly feature, in which the voice gets higher and facial expressions are exaggerated, Dr. Moyle said.
“She’s getting infants to pay attention to language and pay attention to speech sounds,” Dr. Moyle said. The videos are no substitute for speech therapy or children’s interactions with adults or caregivers, she said, but they can be “a great tool to use.”
Joseph Viramontez and his wife, Kristyl Parker, struggled to secure speech therapy and other treatment for their 2-year-old daughter, Aranea. Many nights, he went to bed feeling that he was failing because his daughter was having frequent temper tantrums, and he and his wife did not understand what she was trying to tell them, he said.
Mr. Viramontez, 29, tried to come to terms with the devastating thought that he’d never hear her say, “I love you.”
Even state programs in Texas, where they lived before a recent move to Pennsylvania, were booked more than a year out and insurance was denying additional testing for autism, he said. Mr. Viramontez said his wife learned about Ms. Rachel on TikTok.
Aranea’s parents noticed a change within a month of her watching Ms. Rachel’s videos. Instead of screaming when she was hungry, she would rub her belly and use words, “blossoming with her communication,” as he put it. She has even said those three words that Mr. Viramontez had longed to hear.
Worldview:
While the videos contain absolutely no violence, foul language, sexual content, nudity or drug use/abuse, some parents have put a halt to Ms. Rachel consumption due to the other creators who appear in her videos. Accruso often sings along with Jules Hoffman, who identifies as nonbinary. While Jules’ sexuality is never discussed in the videos, parents doing further research may be wary of introducing, even on the most surface level, a nonbiblical lifestyle to their children.
Furthermore, Accruso has come under fire for her political positions on social media. Conservative parents are wary of her broad support for Palestine/Gaza, as well as posts about pride. She met her husband, Aaron, who also frequently appears in the videos, at a Unitarian church. Despite the pushback from parents about her politics, Accurso was named one of the 50 Most Powerful Players in Kids Entertainment.
Final Thoughts:
While her videos may appear relatively safe on the outside, media-wise parents should be aware that there’s more than meets the eye for this content creator. MOVIEGUIDE® recommends children aged two and under have no screen time, while preschoolers aged three to five should have extremely limited and monitored screen time. Parental discretion is advised.
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