Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Danes consider healthy children’s television

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 200 posts

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#71

Post by DanBC »

david-given wrote: post #58
tclancy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

Go look up some old British children's television. It was made in an era when... um... let's just say that it wasn't focus grouped. Chorlton and the Wheelies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Ng7VMqet0 Noggin the Nog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bKAYH3Sl8s The Trapdoor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eEXyg1lsZc Bod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfFoj-gFP2M Bagpuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9beAp3TG…

I love Bagpus.

There's also Mister Ben (not sure this stands the test of time) and Ivor the Engine.

(And I have fond memories of Danger Mouse, but I'm not sure that's any good either).

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#72

Post by jwcooper »

lintiness wrote: post #19
tclancy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

read this and thought i was talking to myself! those marketing videos with kids opening toys or "acting" with barbie dolls make me want to puke. we're debating getting rid of youtube kids because of all the garbage. pbs kids is much better "educationally", meaning i guess the danes and the article author would hate it. the point of numbers and letters at an early age is not some parental obsession "achievement" but r…

I don't really have a problem with our kids having some screen time (without commercials, because it's so easy now), but we had to drop Youtube Kids because of this very reason as well.

Amazing that Google thinks that unboxing videos of products paid by the companies to the "entertainers" is good content for developing minds. I was under the assumption that app was curated, but it must not be.

Amazon's Freetime Unlimited with a Kindle and a soft case has been the best setup so far. Lots of educational stuff from PBS, but they can also mix in the Pokemon or super hero cartoons.

Surprisingly (or not), the kids sort of gravitate towards the more educational PBS shows.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#73

Post by Latty »

david-given wrote: post #58
tclancy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

Go look up some old British children's television. It was made in an era when... um... let's just say that it wasn't focus grouped. Chorlton and the Wheelies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Ng7VMqet0 Noggin the Nog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bKAYH3Sl8s The Trapdoor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eEXyg1lsZc Bod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfFoj-gFP2M Bagpuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9beAp3TG…

Also try Old Bear And Friends, a favourite from my own childhood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l683Fyr2RZc - lots of sweet little stories told in an endearing way.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#74

Post by CaptSpify »

skrebbel wrote: post #8

Kaj and Andreea is fantastic! I'm Dutch but my wife is Danish. She does her utmost best confronting our kids with Danish TV (we live in Holland), so I understand a bit of what the author is on about. I was initially surprised as well. Truth is, it _is_ entertaining! But most importantly, once you get past the absolutely amateuristic way things are shot (hey, the kids don't care, why should you?), there's a lot of dep…

> I'm not convinced that kids learn lessons like these better when it's spelled out for them.

I'm no child psychologist, but I'd even tentatively argue it could be damaging.

I remember being a kid and seeing both: shows that tried to teach me, and shows that were entertaining. I remember even young-me rolling my eyes at "educational" shows. Sure, some were great, but most of the time, I'd rather watch the entertaining ones, because I didn't feel like they were pushing something onto me.

Once I got into school, I realized "oh, it's more of this educational crap". I clearly remember being skeptical of whatever they taught me, because, once again, it felt like they were pushing something onto me.

The same thing with games (video and non). I hated games that tried to teach me things. There was a clear contrast of quality between entertainment games, and learning games.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#75

Post by kaybe »

benologist wrote: post #62
tclancy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

That sounds like my 4 year old, right down to the finger song she can sing along with in like 5 languages now lol. Those youtube videos of people with toys are nuts, some of them are like a modern form of story telling and really well made. Some shows I like of hers: - Miles from Tomorrowland, a family adventuring in space with bits of science and physics thrown in - Lost in Oz, it's decades later and Dorothy's daugh…

We recently started 'Barbie - Life in the dreamhouse' on netflix for giggles and found it to be an actually decent show. The plot is what happens if you give the barbie dolls and merch to a bunch of nerds and give them free reign.

You get Glados running the automated closet and plotting for world fashion domination, only to be stopped by the evil switch being turned off again, a large part of the first episode is modelled on an Indiana Jones temple exploration, they often handle things like batteries and glitter in the real size form (so the battery is about half the size of the people).. it's surprisingly funny.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#76

Post by geon »

benologist wrote: post #62
tclancy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

That sounds like my 4 year old, right down to the finger song she can sing along with in like 5 languages now lol. Those youtube videos of people with toys are nuts, some of them are like a modern form of story telling and really well made. Some shows I like of hers: - Miles from Tomorrowland, a family adventuring in space with bits of science and physics thrown in - Lost in Oz, it's decades later and Dorothy's daugh…

My kids are learning english from youtube. My 7 yo son like watching Sonic Adventure easteregg videos and try to replicate them on my Dreamcast. He is getting good.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#77

Post by benologist »

jwcooper wrote: post #72
lintiness wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

read this and thought i was talking to myself! those marketing videos with kids opening toys or "acting" with barbie dolls make me want to puke. we're debating getting rid of youtube kids because of all the garbage. pbs kids is much better "educationally", meaning i guess the danes and the article author would hate it. the point of numbers and letters at an early age is not some parental obsession "achievement" but r…

I don't really have a problem with our kids having some screen time (without commercials, because it's so easy now), but we had to drop Youtube Kids because of this very reason as well. Amazing that Google thinks that unboxing videos of products paid by the companies to the "entertainers" is good content for developing minds. I was under the assumption that app was curated, but it must not be. Amazon's Freetime Unlim…

Another huge perk on Amazon is there's tons of decent kids games for free on their Underground app store. Kids games are really expensive ... it still burns I paid $10 to unlock all the utensils in a Strawberry Shortcake cooking game!

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#78

Post by arethuza »

nsxwolf wrote: post #68
arethuza wrote: post #5

"Supreme Being is not only imaginary" I was immensely proud when my son at 4 years old decided to stand up in his pre-school class and point this out to everyone.

Can your 4 year old refute Aquinas? It's a little condescending to say he "pointed it out" to everyone, as though it's some trivial subject.

I was proud of him for stating his beliefs in a context where that would have been difficult to do. The fact that his own beliefs happened to coincide with my own even though I'd never explicitly communicated them to him was a secondary thing.

Re: What Danes consider healthy children’s television

#79

Post by Spooky23 »

tclancy wrote: post #14
skrebbel wrote: post #8

Kaj and Andreea is fantastic! I'm Dutch but my wife is Danish. She does her utmost best confronting our kids with Danish TV (we live in Holland), so I understand a bit of what the author is on about. I was initially surprised as well. Truth is, it _is_ entertaining! But most importantly, once you get past the absolutely amateuristic way things are shot (hey, the kids don't care, why should you?), there's a lot of dep…

I am old enough (40) with a daughter who is almost 3, to be a little horrified by kids' TV. It's not that there isn't a ton of "good" stuff for her, it's that there is only "good" stuff. There isn't anything not geared toward teaching her math, reading or morals. When I was a kid, that was PBS and a handful of other shows and the rest of it was people whacking the crap out of each other to make me bug my parents to b…

The decline of the non-cartoony shows on PBS is sad. I grew up on 3-2-1 Contact, the math show whose name I forgot and Reading Rainbow.
Post reply on HN