Kids Shows - Where is Frank Merriwell when we need him?
I was watching the Grandkids last night and the TV was my assistant.. I got a full dose of Nick at Night as well as a series of cartoon shows that I can’t yet find the adjectives to describe. Stupid doesn’t touch the true descriptive button for these moronic presentations.
After this brief experience I can understand why someone with kids would want to throw the TV out of a window that was high enough to ensure serious and permanent damage. I have read reports of the adverse effects of TV on kids written by all kinds of child psychology experts. I have generally given it a ho-hum and moved on to the sports page.
Three hours of watching kids TV has explained a lot of things to me about our problems as a nation. It does not require advanced degrees in childhood studies to write a report. Those hours of watching the popular teen and younger age directed shows gave me enough credits to write the thesis
Nick at Night has one show after another with early teens as stars who show not one scintilla of sensible thought. I remember that as an early teen I was not yet structured into a particularly sensible thought mode nor were all of my friends. However the Nick at Night teens would likely have been sent by my generation of parents to Valley Forge Military Academy with a fervent prayer by those parents that some help could be found there. On Nick the parents are simply a more sizable version of the kids but a little dumber.
The cartoons were for the most part populated by violence, and extremely poor behavior that would be unacceptable in any civilized society. Sponge Bob Square Pants is popular for obvious reasons. Thoughtful behavior and friendship appears from time to time between a talking sponge and a squid like creature.
My several hour experience has by no means given me the total picture of kids TV but it sure explains a lot. I saw no hero that my g’kids could seek to emulate. A Frank Merriwell character didn’t appear anywhere I watched. Thinking about the main characters of my teens on the radio and on early television I am sure that they affected to some degree my thoughts on behavior and how to handle challenges. Frank Merriwell created by Gilbert Patton held my attention with the adventures that he and his brother encountered regularly. Frank as a freshman at Yale didn’t drink,smoke and was a good student. This was a clear picture woven into the story. The stories we listened to or read always had a hero who attacked the problem faced with a thoughtful, brave, approach. Maybe our lack of true public heroes these days is because the kids do not have such models to emulate.
The life examples that the kids witness these days comes from Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Michael Vick and for comic relief, Sponge Bob Square Pants with Nick at Night. Social networks are there to fill in computer time. I’ve looked at Twitter and even have an account. What thoughtful tale can be told in 140 characters? Maybe –“The house burned down” or some such note if you have a laptop after the house burned down with your PC in it.
I need to guard against becoming a total curmudgeon when describing current society and the things currently important to kids, but it is hard.
It does help in my understanding why Obama is our President. He was vigorously supported by a generation with Scooby Doo and a talking Sponge as heroes
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Buck,
Amen, Brother! Right now, my 3 year old watches great programs on Nick Jr. and Sprout that teach him manners, math, geometry, English, Spanish, and even Chinese. The programs are educational and entertaining.
My older son, who will be 14 next month, watches shows that boggle the mind. Even Disney shows like iCarly have no parents, as the kids manage themselves, and the Wizards of Waverly Place have parents who are useful idiots. Even when the parents are right in the end, it is rarely presented well.
After watching Spongebob Squarepants, I always feel like I have lost points off of my IQ. It is the younger kids version of Beavis and Butthead that was so popular on MTV many years ago.
Manytimes we forget that people of other countries judge us for what they see on TV. Not only are our children less prepared for life, but the rest of the world can see why.
Heath