So, a little bothered

[ellixis]

Caught the tail end of Dora the Explorer as I changed the channel last night. Normally, we don't watch the show; it's badly animated and the voices annoy me. But what surprised and bothered me was this - a little before the end, the show's villian character fell down a small cliff, and landed at the bottom saying "ouch" and rubbing his head. At

Comments

[ellixis]

The thing about that is that at that age, everyone's a role model. Little Small repeats everything and copies everything, because she's still developing her moral and value judgment system. She's still learning right and wrong. Kids are mean, and Boots can be mean, but on a show that's supposed to be educational? I find that pretty disappointing, honestly.

I would have been less bothered about the whole thing if Dora hadn't laughed and accepted the comment without question. It just felt off and raised my hackles as a parent. My kid is pretty good about sharing and empathizing. I don't want to be a helicopter parent, but neither do I really want her to be absorbing offhandedly mean comments as normal.

Augh, sorry to ramble at you. I worry too much.

[mamarabbit]

She'll run into all sorts of things, with or without you. If you're consistent and paying attention when you are with her, she'll learn what you would like her to learn, and since you ARE her world, her safe place, she'll put more weight on that. It's that old "teachable moment". At least, that's the way it's supposed to work in theory. It seems to have worked with you.

[ellixis]

It does indeed! I know I can teach her what's not right, but I am somewhat concerned about the more widespread effect. How much of childrens' TV is unintentionally teaching negative behavior? How many parents are watching with enough alertness to catch and counter these things, or how many just don't see it because it is indeed normal to them? And does this help to explain the surprising lack of empathy that some people seem to have?

My first unthinking impulse was to chuckle at the comment, but then my brain kicked in and said, "Hey, that's pretty mean." I worry that some children aren't learning that automatic conscience, and instead are learning othering and schadenfreude.

tl;dr THE MEDIA IS A MINEFIELD AND PARENTING IS HARD.

[mamarabbit]

Not only "surprising lack of empathy", but no awareness of how others may see them?