During the last five years, parents hoping to give their kids a competitive edge in the great race to become the brightest (and ostensibly the most elite) did something many child psychologists considered a bit daft: they plopped their kids down in front of a television screen. Now comes the wake-up call as potentially millions of parents who paid as much as $19.99 per "Baby Einstein" DVD didn't get the results they hoped for. Little Johnny is C-average, addicted to video games and wants to know when he's going to Disneyland.

Indeed, it seems, few geniuses have emerged. As a Harvard Medical School study indicated -- such videos don't promote brain development. Nothing yet, experts say, can replace person-to-baby interaction, leaving the Baby Einstein Co., a subsidiary of Disney, once more backpedaling.

More than two years ago, the word "educational" was dropped from the "Baby Einstein" videos, and now, facing a possible lawsuit from the nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in Boston, Mass., Baby Einstein Co. will be doling out refunds to the parents of kids in the United States who didn't become geniuses. Actually, it won't be that easy to get a refund. Parents will have to show they had confidence in the product, but were dissatisfied with it. And parents can only return up to four DVDs.

The campaign for children had complained to the Federal Trade Commission in 2006 that the DVDs made false and deceptive claims about the education value of the series. The FTC decided not to act against the company after it promised to “take appropriate steps to ensure that any future advertising claims of educational and/or developmental benefit for children are adequately substantiated.”

In the wake of that action, the campaign noted: "Gone are claims such as the description of Baby Wordsworth as a 'rich and interactive learning experience that … fosters the development of your toddler’s speech and language skills,' or that Numbers Nursery will 'help develop your baby’s understanding of what numbers mean.'”

The refund movement may spread to other countries, including Britain, where children also have turned out no smarter as a result of the videos and, in some cases, a bit behind their peers.

Maybe parents should go back to reading to their children at night. They can start with the old Winnie-the-Pooh books. No, not the ones by Disney -- the originals, smartly written by A.A. Milne in the pre-TV age, an era apparently worth revisiting.