Time was I could tell you how to get to Sesame Street – or at least tell you what channel it was on and when. Because anyone who was a child in the 1980s or 1990s knew exactly when their favourite TV programmes were on.
We knew nothing of the endless streaming possibilities and ad-free options that today’s clearly indulged toddlers take for granted. But we knew how to get through Bosco’s magic door, we got excited about Wanderly Wagons and men with Forty Coats, and we knew something serious was going down when the Power of Grayskull was summonsed.
And largely we just got on with watching and enjoying our programmes, without any major opinion on the content being offered by the adults in our lives.
These days adults can often have lots to say about the programmes their children watch. From badly behaved pigs to adorable Australian dogs – all is changed, changed utterly when it comes to kids’ TV and how they consume it. But are parents making a big deal over nothing, or should we be more concerned about the cartoons and kids programmes our children watch?
Michelle Whelan, has three children aged four and under. She tries to limit the amount of television her children watch, but makes an exception when they’re sick. After a child’s recent procedure in hospital, and a resultingly more permissive approach taken to the amount of TV her children consumed, she noticed a change in their behaviour.
“They were just getting cranky the whole time. Their tolerance and attention span was low, and they were just getting irritable. So I said, ‘Right, no telly tomorrow, and no telly the next day’ and they just went off playing. And they were in much better form.”
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Michelle says it’s about what they watch too. “If they watch something like Cocomelon, it drives them mental altogether. They just end up getting very ratty, and cranky, and if anyone even looked at them, or talked to them, they’d nearly be fighting and swiping at them. When they watch no telly they just play away together.”
Michelle doesn’t allow her children to watch Cocomelon any more. They have seen it once or twice in the past because her husband “thought it might be educational”. “It really draws them in,” she says.
‘In her heyday, Peppa Pig was amazing. We saw a female being the centre of a TV show’
— Mother of two Sarina Bellissimo
She prefers her children to watch “something that makes them think”. They watch a lot of Planet Earth, she says. “They don’t watch Peppa Pig at all. I just heard [about] the way the daddy and things are portrayed, and that the children are very naughty. There’s no point in letting them see children misbehaving.” Michelle doesn’t allow her children to watch Bing any more either, although they like it. “He’s quite naughty as well. At the end it’s all a lesson about what he did wrong and how he learned from it, but he’s still a little bit of a spoiled brat.”
Michelle says her children can go days without TV, and have in the past even gone months without TV. She says her husband is also of the opinion that they shouldn’t be watching TV, “and that it’s not good for them”.
Deirdre O’Shea is a specialist teacher, educational consultant and a mum of two children aged three and seven. She says she’s quite open-minded and flexible about children’s programmes, but tries to be intentional about what her children watch. One children’s programme she had particular difficulty with is Peppa Pig.
“The interesting thing about Peppa is, while it’s a very repetitive, harmless show from the outset, you see these continuous themes being displayed to kids. Daddy Pig is lazy and he gets jeered at for being overweight, Mammy Pig is no good at the DIY. Mrs Rabbit is always working. We have these gender stereotypes that are being shown through these programmes.
“I think representation really matters and how we speak about things really matters. I know some people will read what I’m saying and say ‘sure [the kids] don’t really understand, and they don’t know’. But it starts when they’re small.”
Deirdre works with families from many different kinds of backgrounds and worries about the effect some of these programmes have on more vulnerable families. Although she herself enjoys dancing with her own child to the music in Cocomelon, she says, “We see these big houses, families that appear quite wealthy in terms of all of the stuff they have. And very regulated adults. I’m looking at this and thinking, ‘I’m working in family homes where nobody may ever step foot in a house like that. There’s no representation of their life on the TV. It can give off this message ‘Well the TV only portrays what is right’, so when you’re not represented on the TV it can impact or ingrain that unconscious belief [in you] that ‘I don’t belong’.”
Deirdre’s eldest child is seven, meaning she can challenge some of the things he’s watching. “I make sure I stay in tune with it, so that if they’re consuming something, I’m going to consume it consciously as well.”
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She found her child became “highly dysregulated” while watching PJ Masks, and was also concerned about a number of its themes, such bullying, so she removed his access to the show through her streaming service. “It’s high-energy, and I suppose it was all the ninja moves. Maybe it doesn’t impact all kids, but it really did with my child. So, I suppose for me it’s [a case of] know your child.”
“There are loads of things out there that are really educational and they’re lovely and active and bring good discussions into the house and can be lovely for connection time. But not all of it.”
Deirdre says things have changed significantly from how we used to watch TV. “It was a lot more controlled. It came on at a set time. It was switched off. There was no pause, rewind, ‘move back, I want to hear that again’. It wasn’t as overstimulating. The TVs weren’t as big, weren’t as bright, weren’t as colourful. There’s just so much that kids are exposed to now.”
Ronan Fleet loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, The A Team and Airwolf growing up. But the father of four has found that not only has children’s TV changed enormously from when he was a child, it’s also changed a lot from when his 16-year-old son was the same age as his five-year-old daughter.
Peppa Pig has been one constant, but Ronan doesn’t think Peppa’s a brat. “A little bit cheeky towards her dad. Maybe a little bit annoying, but not a brat,” he says.
When Ronan’s son was younger, Handy Manny and Fireman Sam, were all the rage, he says. But his youngest child would spend more time watching YouTube than her brother did, and she also enjoys Bluey. “She finds it very funny. It’s a cute cartoon,” Ronan says. And the portrayal of dads is very different too, he observes.
“Bluey’s dad comes across as a normal fellow – a good dad. Whereas poor old Daddy Pig gets a hard doing. He’s a few pounds overweight and gets a hard time from his daughter. Bluey’s dad seems to be a more modern kind of dad, mixing it up, helping out a lot at home compared to years ago. Peppa’s dad goes out to work, a nine-to-five kind of man, while Bluey’s is there all the time and he’s a bit of craic as well.”
‘If you go back to Wanderly Wagon, Forty Coats – that was really weird stuff that we all watched and we were “fine”. I’m not sure it has as much an influence as is made out’
— Dr Colman Noctor
Cocomelon is very annoying, Ronan admits, but it “catches the children’s attention”. “Even the little song at the start is enough to give you nightmares and shivers down your spine.”
The biggest impact that modern-day children’s programmes have had on his children is their increased use of Americanisms, and adopting a slight American twang. It’s things like calling sweets “candy”, he explains. But he hasn’t noticed any of the programmes his children like to watch having any negative impact on their behaviour.
Entertainment journalist and mum of two Sarina Bellissimo grew up in Australia, the home of Bluey, where children’s programmes have always been “quite educational”, she says. “Sesame Street turns 55 this November and the fact that that’s still going shows you how it’s been able to adapt over time. Their ethos is helping children grow smarter, stronger and kinder.”
“The successful kids’ TV shows,” she adds, “are when you, as a kid, do not know you’re learning something. You’re being entertained but you’re also learning something.”
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Sarina is a huge fan of television. “I love TV,” she says. “And I don’t think TV is all bad for kids. I think it has to be monitored. My eight year old is having a TV day today, because I need to work and his dad’s not home.” Sarina’s not keen on YouTube Kids for her children, but Bluey, on the other hand, is a different story.
“My eight year old and I make sure we get a couple of episodes at night. I think it’s a great bonding opportunity for parents. Yes, we’ve all been guilty of using the TV as a babysitter, but we can also use it as bonding moments and learning moments.”
Sarina is quick to jump to the defence of Peppa too. “In her heyday, she was amazing, we saw a female being the centre of a TV show. And the female wasn’t just appealing to females, she was appealing to all children. It was important for little boys to be able to look up to a female character as well. I think that’s why we were all so enamoured with her at the start.
“As the years went on, however, we realised, ‘Wow you can be a little mean. You can be a little bit annoying. You can be a little bit self-centred and not self-aware’. I think in order for us to achieve equality, we don’t need to denigrate men. And that’s what was happening with Peppa. The dad was just stupid and the amount of body shaming going on, it’s not okay. Just because it’s not a female, doesn’t mean it’s okay to body shame a male.”
But back to Bluey, the female pup who’s blue, catching often even the most progressive people out with inherent presumptions that a blue pup must be male. “From the beginning it was amazing, just the subliminal messaging, but it’s also about community. It’s even validating for parents”, she says, referencing a plot theme where Bluey’s mum doesn’t feel good enough.
Sarina says every generation thinks TV is bad. “But when we grew up, children’s TV was Looney Tunes, and how many different ways can Roadrunner kill Coyote? Everything we saw was violence. We thought it was hilarious, and we turned out okay – I think.”
Sarina feels parents are so focused on learning experiences that sometimes they forget the value of simple entertainment. “Sometimes a learning experience can just be, ‘Switch your mind off and be entertained. Find something that’s stupid. Have a laugh.’ We don’t need to learn from every TV show we watch.”
Dr Colman Noctor is a child-and-adolescent psychotherapist, and a dad of three children. He says he’s “always had an issue” with the way in which dads are portrayed in certain programmes.
“Peppa Pig being one, but also Homer Simpson,” he explains. “It’s always this bumbling buffoon who is clueless. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing for children to have a caricature of. Also there’s some thought that [children’s programmes] might feed into phobias. Many of the dogs in cartoons are growly, angry, locked-in-the-back-yard, scary things.
‘They were just getting cranky the whole time. Their tolerance and attention span was low, and they were just getting irritable. So I said, “Right, no telly tomorrow, and no telly the next day” and they just went off playing’
— Mother of three Michelle Whelan
“There’s no doubt at that very early toddler-into-preschool level, there’s a very impressionable brain that can be influenced, or shaped, by what they see on those TV shows. So, the messaging is really important,” he says.
However, he’s not convinced it necessarily has as big an impact as some people believe. “If you go back to Wanderly Wagon, Forty Coats – that was really weird stuff that we all watched and we were ‘fine’. I’m not sure it has as much an influence as is made out. Undoubtedly, with certain vulnerable children, it might shape their views of the world, and we’ve to be conscious of that.”
In his view, it depends on the “vulnerability of the individual and the volume of that TV that they watch”. “We learn through repetition, so the most regular watchers will be more affected than occasional watchers. Again, that’s maybe about managing how much time a child spends watching these TV shows.”
Colman also questions if children are getting “a counter narrative. A child who’s only seeing what a dad looks like through Peppa Pig or Homer Simpson and not having a counter experience of a real-life dad at home who’s not like that, then they’re more likely to believe that that has some value or merit.”
And so to YouTube where children lose hours watching other children play or unbox toys and surprise eggs. The impact of watching unboxing videos is unclear, Colman explains, because the phenomenon is comparatively new. He adds, however, that there’s a possibility that watching these videos may “raise expectations of young people that they’ll get loads of toys” and creates values around materialism.
“Because they’re real-life people rather than cartoons, then it becomes something that they see that’s closer to a possible reality. It’s a mind-numbing, not-very-educational use of their time – but I’m not entirely sure that it’s damaging.”
A last word? Overall, Colman Noctor believes that parents shouldn’t get “hysterical” about kids’ TV, but shouldn’t be “overly complacent” either. Moderation, as with so many things in life, may be the key.
How to manage your children’s consumption of television
1. Be intentional about what they’re viewing
2. Observe how particular programmes affect your children
3. Take the opportunity to challenge things they see, if they’re old enough to understand
4. Be balanced in your approach
5. Remember that all children are different and may be affected differently by what they watch.
