We have been watching a lot of hotel TV these past couple of weeks.
At home, we really only watch stuff on streaming services; the kids have never had live TV before, so there have been some new enthralling things to watch and some old favorites.
I remain convinced that Bluey is genuinely in a league of its own. I could write a five page paper (maybe more of a love letter) about each and every episode.
There’s a trend in children’s media (shows, movies, books) to be REALLY heavy-handed in moralizing. There’s a trend in parenting circles to go to books to read or shows/videos to watch to try to teach kids things that would otherwise come naturally from age, maturity, and child development. Like reading a book to learn not to hit people, or singing a little song from a show to learn to take deep breaths when you’re mad or whatever.
I am not against those things. (They may or may not mean anything to a child: no 2yo whose toy was just snatched stops and thinks about a book some adult read to them three days ago before deciding on their next course of action.) I have written before about how I love and admire and respect the societal trend toward recognizing the importance of social/emotional learning in children as at least equally important to well-being as academics (I’d say maybe even more important but that’s a different topic). It’s just that the way we’re currently implementing it is brand-new so it’s still super duper clunky.
But Bluey is once again lightyears ahead. It’s a beautiful examination of the way that children already, naturally develop social-emotional skills. Like the episode where Bluey tries to learn to ride a bike, gets frustrated, storms off to sulk. She observes three friends also at the park, also getting frustrated with their inability to master challenges right away.
Bingo is grappling with the injustice of a world made for adult sized people: she can’t reach the water fountain.
Bentley is struggling to reach monkey bars that are too high, exploring what her own body is capable of in frustrating new locomotor play.
Muffin is developing bilateral coordination and motor planning skills as she tries to move both arms to successfully get a backpack on both sides.
All three of them tenaciously try, fail, try again, fail again. All three of them collapse at some point or another in frustration and sadness. Curling up into a ball, crying, “throwing a fit”, yelling. And then all three of them try again, and find a way to do it that works, as an instrumental “Ode to Joy” swells in the background.
I tear up and get goosebumps watching it. I have goosebumps now writing this. The show writers get it, they GET IT.
Nobody goes up to the kids and moralizes about how if you fail you should try again, or that mistakes are just steps on the path to learning. Are those things sometimes helpful? Sometimes. Are those things sometimes unhelpful? Sometimes. Especially if paired with trying to stamp out crying and yelling and collapsing in frustration, calling it “behavior”, making it not allowed. Making it clear that those are feelings to run away from at all costs, to do everything not to feel.
Anyway, I don’t have an end for this post. I love Bluey. It’s magnificent utterly.
(Also I hate a particular ad for a particular learning website for kids that keeps saying that good parents set up their kids with this website so they’ll learn to read and write before kindergarten because giving your kid a “head start” is the best thing you can do. Gross. The advertising subtle fearmongering is insidious and it is everywhere. Your kids are developing at the rate that kids develop and they, like Bluey, are magnificent utterly. If they want to read early, cool. Nobody will have to sell you anything to get that to happen.)
