You know, your comment reminds me of something my wife and I were talking about. We have been starting to let our child have a little more screen time and choose what he wants to watch (within the parameters we set).
Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
Then we wonder why kids adopt those attitudes. It's simply because mimic what they see. And worse yet, when they see it in movie/show form, they think those attitudes are cool and relatable.
Try the PBS Kids app. The shows are consistently cast with good role-model children and adults, without being preachy. Many episodes show how to resolve mistakes, frustration, and conflict in beneficial ways.
In comparison, the behavior in the kids shows from other producers (Disney, Nickelodeon, etc.) sometimes presents nasty behavior and name-calling as either inevitable, or something that's "someone else's problem": the instigator, if they're punished at all, might suffer the wrath of an authority figure, or simply bad karma.
My intent when choosing shows is not to hide the existence of bad behavior from children, but to teach them how to deal with it.
(My children also read Calvin and Hobbes. And watch those less-wholesome shows. And binge-watch MrBeast when I'm not around...)
Great recommendation! I can definitely see the difference (e.g. Daniel Tiger). I agree with your philosophy about not hiding the existence of bad behavior, but teaching them how to deal with it. And I'm sure once my little guy grows, he'll gravitate towards Mr. Beast and all that, but at least I'll set a baseline so that that's not all he watches.
I watched Home Alone last year and the characters call each other names constantly. It's funny for sure, but no wonder me and my friends had such filthy mouths as kids. You grow up on that and sitcoms where the characters just rip on each other. It's so strange to watch as an adult.
I grew up in the seventies, we didn’t have the “filthy mouthed kids” media examples until Bad News Bears…however, prior to that, even without examples we still managed to be pretty filthy mouthed kids organically.
> Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
Although there are definitely a ton of kids shows that I find 100% garbage and would never let my kids watch under any circumstances, none of the 'name-brand' kids movies I've seen in the past 10 years struck me as unacceptably negative in the way you describe.
On the contrary, I get the impression that at least some of these movies are attempting to depict feelings and situations that some kids are feeling in a way that helps them understand 1) they're not alone and 2) their feelings or situations aren't wrong or abnormal.
Like, I took my kids to see Elio when it came out. BAM, right off the bat, dead parents. Anger. Frustration. Fear. Power struggles with parental figures.
This is all intentional—to the point that it's formulaic. A 2021 study found that slightly over 61% of the 155 animated kids features of the last ~80 years had no mention of the child protagonist's biological parents. There are a lot of reasons for this. The simplest are that it's way easier to come up with challenges and conflict for the protag(s) when their parents aren't around.
A more charitable reason is that there are all too many kids who, well, do have absent or fucked up parents. But it doesn't have to be that specific case either—any kid eventually has feelings of anger, fear and frustration, and seeing depictions of this in stories is important (for everyone, of any age, at any time).
I overall doubt that watching those stories causes kids to act angry and frustrated even when they're not angry and frustrated. I'm well aware of how profoundly mimetic human children are (and why that's important), but it doesn't happen with everything 100% of the time.
But this is also age-dependent in various ways. An 8-year-old can absorb a movie depiction of a fight between child and parent in a way that a 3-year-old can't. Are some toddlers going to act out because they watched that? Maybe? Probably?
Anyway, it's tricky to have these discussions because every child is different, even though there are broad anthropological patterns to humanity. But I've been more impressed than annoyed with lots of animated kids movies that I expected to loathe.
My mother used to call it the "Disney story," due to it's utter prevalence in their media. Be it death or divorce, seems like you cant throw a rock at the Disney catalog without hitting it
This is interesting; I always assumed that the Grimm's tales and all kinds of folklore throughout cultures and history were responding to anxieties about, say, super-high rates of infant death.
It would be, in a way, hilarious if it was all just lazy writing the entire time.
> Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
My kids are similar. Years ago I actually just unplugged the TV and put it behind some furniture for 3 months because I was so fed up. It calmed them down a lot (this was after Covid lockdowns, when we'd just given them too much TV) but still - it flares up.
I do think a lot of kids tv is either straight addictive (e.g. Cocomelon) or depicts how kids would like to behave, e.g. in how they talk to adults rudely (e.g. how they talk to the dad in Peppa Pig), or they're always right and the adults are wrong (too may examples to name). Bluey is the saving grace there, as it depicts healthy and respectful relationships, but it's very unusual.
The TL;DW is that Bluey is a kids show that not only recognizes that the parents will likely be in the room while the show is on and therefore will occasionally have lines that are meant for them, but will actually tackle tough topics that children and their families may be dealing with. For example, in one episode, Bluey's mom is despairing because Bluey isn't reaching development milestones when he should be, she's blaming herself, and another character comes to console her, and the character looks directly towards the viewer and says "You're doing great!"
I'm almost tempted to actually watch the show even though I don't have kids.
> Bluey isn't reaching development milestones when he should be
She should be. Bluey and Bingo are sisters.
The show is extremely good, and when my kids were around that age, we all watched together. Hard to explain to your 6 year old why you are bawling your eyes out, but it does lead to some important conversations. It’s also an inspiration to be a better parent, particularly for Dads. Thank you Bandit.
I don’t know if any of this stuff will hit if you aren’t a parent. It hits right into the heart of all those things people tell you “you can’t understand if you don’t have kids”.
It’s an objectively good show though, I found myself watching it even when the kids weren’t around. There are still some episodes I can’t watch; but you’d need to have had those experiences to understand.
Dr Angela Collier just did a video on children's tv. She has some good recommendations. Evidently before she became an astrophysicist she got a degree in education. Who knew?
Don't forget that in most shows where kids are the main-characters, adults in general (and particularly parents) are either absent or less mature than the kids. This is the easiest way to make the kids shine, but certainly communicates a particular message. I really respected Netflix's The Baby Sitters Club for not falling into that trap.
As always, the home model is what has greater influence than any tv show. If parents are also behaving as in the TV shows then the shows simply serve as confirmation bias to what the children observe.
I noticed that when I adopted a loving, quieter tone, and truly focused on do as i do vs do as i say attitudes, my children began to reject the "norms" shown on the tv shows. Today my children remark about how their friends act at their homes and towards their parents, and we have discussions about it.
That said, I definitely had the problem you describe, but it was resolved by focusing on consequences of actions and being ready to follow through on punishments (much like you did). Combined with the do as i do attitude, those punishments were ultimately punishments for me as well. You are being a terorrizing little bad ass? ok no TV. But then this means I can't watch TV because then they might watch TV while in the same room as me. Mutual pain.
Peppa Pig is at least funny. The one that pushed me over the edge wrt to behavior modeling was Caillou. My god people have some self respect as parents. You have to have to create some boundaries for children, not just knee-jerk syrupy-sweet coddling from dawn til dusk.
I find Peppa Pig has multiple layers and the stereotypes of the pig parents are actually targeted to entertain the human parents when they join watching.
I don't have kids so I never thought about it from that angle, but I really dislike how yell-y so many modern animated shows are. Couldn't make it through a single episode of Rick and Morty.
I'd never thought how it might impact kids, but now that you mention it, I can only dislike the trend more.
Jhonen Vasquez was previously best known for Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, an insanely dark graphic novel. I'm still stunned that the powers that be thought he should write an animated children's show. That said, I love Invader Zim. Taquitos!
Yes, sorry, I had a non-sequitur between my two sentences. The first was about modern animated shows. The second was about how dialog in shows (not necessarily Rick and Morty) could affect kids.
Regardless, I also highly doubt that Rick and Morty is only consumed by people who are no longer susceptible to getting cues on how to interact with others from media.
Human beings yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards each other, seems like a human universal, rather than something children would only learn to do from watching recent tv and movies.
One thing I always notice after trips abroad is the extent to which American newscasters are practically yelling at their audience. This is a stark contrast to many European countries, where the tone is calmer and more measured.
Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration, and hostility towards one another.
Then we wonder why kids adopt those attitudes. It's simply because mimic what they see. And worse yet, when they see it in movie/show form, they think those attitudes are cool and relatable.