131–140 of 221 posts
Bluey and Peppa Pig are so effective my children have started speaking with foreign accents D: It’s deeply disappointing the US can’t come up with anything comparable. Sesame Street is a shadow of what it once was — the kids won’t sit down for it at all. Daniel Tiger tests slightly better, but christ is the tone patronizing.
When I was a kid my favourite show was Mr Rogers. I get the sense that Bluey is the closest we have to that level of energy in a kids show these days. I don’t have children yet but I look after my niece after school and we watch Bluey now and again. Even Bluey completely absorbs her. I can wave my hands in front of her face and she doesn’t notice. I’d like to think that that wasn’t the case with me and Mr Rogers but…
Before he was born I put a lot of thought into what he would watch before he was born assuming it would be a huge necessity to address. I torrented Mr Rodgers and Reading Rainbow and Eureka (amazing old science cartoon if anyone's encountered it) and I even started writing a script that would randomly select from these and automatically turn off after 1-3 episodes.
Basically I am shocked at how wrong I was. He had no natural interest in TV beyond a few minutes, even if we were watching something. We didn't have a reason to push it, when he did see newer kids media like Bluey / Cocomelon etc he would zombie out exactly as you described and then have noticeably crappier behavior for a while after we would have to have a minor battle to turn it off. Felt like microwaving his brain and we had no reason to push it on him so we didn't. After a few days he would never miss it. We let him watch stuff at friend's houses and still pop on old stuff that I downloaded once every week or two. Same basic behavior / problems. We always back off for the same reasons.
I grew up on TV and I don't judge parents who legitimately love watching TV with their kids or need it as a babysitter because of demanding schedules or absent child care assistance. It is an incredible tool in a culture that often separates extended families and discourages grandparents from playing active daily supportive roles.
But yeah for whatever reason our kid started reading independently when he was two, got really interested in languages, got his basic operators down while he was 2-3 and has never had any serious behavioral or developmental problems and other parents are always asking us what we did to accelerate his development and make him such a genius.
We didn't do anything unnatural, we just didn't intentionally push him to watch a lot of TV. He still watches stuff, we still watch stuff. It's just on a laptop and ends when he starts turning into a zombie.
With that said Bluey seems fine to me, my kids the one with the weird zombie reaction. And disclaimers all kids are different, I'm incredibly lucky to work from home on a schedule where I get to hang out with him all the time and I'm pretty sure regardless of zombie Cocomelon watching his generations problems are not going to be rooted in them zonking out on TV but who knows.
Not an entertaining show to a parent, but Wonderoos is another kids show that has had a positive impact on my 2 children. In each episode a wonderoo identifies a choice has to be made, makes the choice that leads to a worse outcome, and then rewinds to make the right choice. While making the choice they always say, "let's chalk it out", and I've heard my kids say this and then state two choices in their own activitie…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art". Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
This is my understanding. Caveat: I am not a person who cries much, if at all.
When I was a kid my favourite show was Mr Rogers. I get the sense that Bluey is the closest we have to that level of energy in a kids show these days. I don’t have children yet but I look after my niece after school and we watch Bluey now and again. Even Bluey completely absorbs her. I can wave my hands in front of her face and she doesn’t notice. I’d like to think that that wasn’t the case with me and Mr Rogers but…
When I was a kid my favourite show was Mr Rogers. I get the sense that Bluey is the closest we have to that level of energy in a kids show these days. I don’t have children yet but I look after my niece after school and we watch Bluey now and again. Even Bluey completely absorbs her. I can wave my hands in front of her face and she doesn’t notice. I’d like to think that that wasn’t the case with me and Mr Rogers but…
This morning my daughter walked into the living room and started telling me about something that happened to her. She stopped talking mid-sentence when her eye fell on the television that I had forgotten to turn off. Only after calling her name three times and considerably raising my voice I got her attention again. The show that was on was... the cooking channel! So the bar for television completely absorbing a chil…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art". Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
Years later, when I watch a good movie that results in someone losing a parent figure, I'll often have quite a deep emotional reaction to it. But in the end I like these experiences. They help me look into those situations again and help me analyze the connection to losing my mom. Being in that state of emotion again helps me process it now that I'm in a very different stage in life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art". Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
Not an entertaining show to a parent, but Wonderoos is another kids show that has had a positive impact on my 2 children. In each episode a wonderoo identifies a choice has to be made, makes the choice that leads to a worse outcome, and then rewinds to make the right choice. While making the choice they always say, "let's chalk it out", and I've heard my kids say this and then state two choices in their own activitie…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bluey is easily the best children's TV. I mean I'd barely class it as children's TV; it's good by adult standards. It's a bit annoying really because there isn't anything else like it at all. I would say the closest things are Pixar films which manage to appeal to adults and children. I'm not aware of any TV like that though. Apart from Bluey we're stuck with trash like Paw Patrol, Bing, Blippi, etc. There are a smal…
When your kids are older there's "Phineas and Ferb" and "Gravity Falls" which are both good enough to be watched without kids.