How Kids' TV Got Way Too Normal
slate.com
slate.com
I wonder if in 30 years people will say the same about their kids and social media.
"My son Levi, much to my frustration, has never been a big TikTok kid"
Sounds strange, doesn't it. It is also strange how fast we forget. Forget how TV used to be demonized in a similar fashion than social media is today.
I would suspect even Tumble Leaf would captivate her kid.
It is also very odd to see Spongebob in the 'normal' category. It descends from Loony Toons, Ren & Stimpy, and Rockos Modern Life; and does a great job of capturing what made those shows weird. The Amazing World of Gumball isn't all that obscure. It is also 15 years old.
A better thesis would be that most television uses lowest common denominator technique to be attention consuming. Bright lights, rapid edits, shouting voices, hyperactive music, chaotic plot. Most TV isnt Mr Rogers.
There is a probably a second thesis about how the volume of content leads to less shared experiences in the long run. In 30 years Levi won’t be bonding with people over watching as much of the same stuff, because there is so much choice.
First line: "My son Levi..."
That is a pseudonym, hopefully.
Oh you mean the jeans company. Levi is a common boy's name of Hebrew origin (so is Elissa for girls), and apparently rising in popularity in recent years.
> 12th most popular boy's name in the U.S. as of 2024
But now I realize that's shallow.
So yes, let McDonalds name their sons Ronald, Bonds name their sons James, and Crockers name their daughters Betty.
Now we just have to convince the other eight billion people these children might encounter in life that there's nothing silly about it.
A couple years ago I introduced my daughter to Bill Nye’s show. She knew of Bill Nye but didn’t know why he was famous. I always told her “he had a show on TV” but we never bothered to go hunt down an episode until she was 17.
We watched it together.
And oh my god is that the most ADD show of all time. Every 5 seconds was a bang/whiz/fact/cut/weird thing. How on earth did I watch this and actually keep track of it? Was I high on sugar? Was my brain just rapid firing that all of this was perceived as a single episode with masterful writing as would make a soap opera cry? From the outside looking in 30 years later, I’m convinced I was just hyper and a nerd and this show just somehow made sense to me.
Unfathomable. Yet it seems to be quite common to watch something on television and faff around with that stupid black rectangle at the same time.
But in the end she praises that the weirdness of peewee relieves her of her 'explainer role':
> it was beautifully lesson-proof content, emotionally salient while also, like our minds, a bit ridiculous. As such, it relieved me of my explainer role, permitting me to just lie on the couch.
Then she tries to make a point about "current education practices are bad" based on this observation, her instagram influencers (yes really) and a personal anecdote of a 'feelings chart' in her kids' classroom.
> My Instagram feed is filled with influencers encouraging me to explain everything to my children, addressing even their external and internal realities. “Levi, are you feeling jealous that Augie has a playdate and you don’t?”
> Of course there is value to talking about feelings, and before you start worrying (Feeling No. 14 on the chart!), do know that I talk about feelings all the time with my kids—mine, theirs, and others’. But there is a difference between exploring feelings with our kids and feeling pressured by the broader culture to rationalize, contextualize, and hierarchize each and every one for them
Then she hedges her bets, by saying she's not anti- talking about feelings, but just anti this teaching method that she barely knows anything about.
Just to be clear; learning your kids how to recognize their emotions, how to talk about them, that emotions make us do things we otherwise wouldn't, and that emotions come and go is a good thing.
It's not a good thing to tell them “Levi, are you feeling jealous that Augie has a playdate and you don’t?”. This actually learns your kid that that would be 'valid' behavior, and even if they don't feel jealous now, the next time they might. It's better to ask them what they're feeling and have them describe it in their own words. The chart exists because it's likely that kids start out being unable to put into words how they specifically feel, but they can point at the chart to pick the feeling that's closest to how they feel.
I think the author could be better served by listening to her child instead of the 'influencers' she just so happened to be subscribed to. If the child doesn't like watching television, the solution is not to rotate different tv-shows until something works, it's to turn off the television and go for a walk together.
It really kind of feels like this mom wants her kid to be distracted by the box, with an occasional check-in vs. actually watching or otherwise engaging.
As to feelings, and how to handle them, good old Mr. Rogers did that over half a century ago, and I only wish the show were more broadly available today.
then, as they say, gumball, but also adventure time, gravity falls, spongebob, courage the dog, bare bears, teen titans, ..., there's plenty of engaging content if one let's kids explore and watch what their friends are watching instead of only parent-approved safeware.
Wilder’s Wonka was great. But psychedelic weirdness was never the norm. Children’s shows have pretty much always been largely moralized.
The TV of today has a lot more content that is genuinely good and not just a constant ad for sugar and toys.
This line also bothered me
> Many experts believe that one of the causes of the mental health crisis among children stems from their lack of comfort with having dark or complicated feelings. When they do experience this, they often jump to believing that something is wrong with them and may go on to identify with a clinical diagnosis, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of believing themselves to be sad or scared because life is a hot mess and hard and dark feelings are to be expected, they see themselves as having depression or anxiety and begin to filter all of their experiences through that lens.
I struggle to see the nuance between this and telling kids to suck it up. We are not in the 80s anymore where the general social narrative is rapid growth. Being a kid has a much more dismal perspective than the 80s provided.
"skibidi toilet" would like a word