Can my kid watch that TV show?

Do you check what your kids watch at their friends' house?

Today, my wife and I entered a new phase of parenthood; for the first time we had to address the question of whether a T.V. show that the neighbours' kids were watching was appropriate for our 4-year-old son.  Ever since infancy, we had been selective about what he watched, and time has always been limited (he doesn't watch T.V. or movies every day, and the ones he does, it's max. one movie or the equivalent.)

But today, the neighbor's kids (who deserve a few blog posts of their own, and from now on are getting a special label on this blog) showed up at the door and asked if our son could go to their house to watch a certain T.V. show.  Their mother pays almost no attention to what they do. (Today, for example, she left them playing outside, and went to visit a friend, locking the door to keep the house safe.  The kids were out on the front lawn, outside of the safely locked house.  This was after the T.V. incident.)  So now the question wasn't just about what we select, but also about evaluating what other people select and approve of.

To be honest, when my wife shouted the question up the stairs, it caught me off guard, and I realized that I had forgotten that as a parents we would not only have to guide our son in the process of choosing his own movies and T.V. shows, but also in the process of deciding whether his friends' shows were acceptable or not.  Knowing how the neighbour family worked, my first reaction was to assume it probably wasn't a good idea.  But since I was working at my computer I took a minute to look up the T.V. show in question.  (It's a pretty common show which I recognize from quite some time ago, but I couldn't remember much about it.  I'm not going to mention the name of it here, because this post isn't about that show in particular, but the idea in general.)

The general consensus (from internet reviews) seems to be that the show is moderately violent, promotes some airy-fairy moral values and is generally low quality (some pre-teens called it "cheesy.")  For this reason it got high ratings from "parents and educators" (I didn't waste my time to check who these "parents and educators" were.)  Presumable, since the violence isn't severe that and some commentator can cut and paste some moral values out of the plot, that makes a crappy T.V. show good for kids.

If you haven't already guessed, I find this criteria less than compelling.  First of all, it is STILL VIOLENT, even if it is "acceptable" violence. Secondly, lower violence is NOT the only criteria that makes a kids show good (this erroneous way of thinking is why Barney has made it so far in the world.) Yes, part of the criteria my wife and I use for T.V. shows is that they're not violent.  But we also count positive criteria.  We also consider whether it teaches anything positive either in terms of morals or education ("teamwork" because the heroes work together to rip the bad guy to shreds doesn't count)  and entertainment value.  If you exclude entertainment value, there's no reason whatsoever for T.V. or movies; even "educational" kids programs are made to entertain to some degree - if not, you could just use a book and pictures and probably get better results.

Back to the main story, after a quick review, I said no, not only because the show seemed poor both in terms of values and quality, but also because I remembered that my son had already watched a movie today.


So, we have now begun our role of teaching our son how to evaluate the shows and movies his friends choose, helping him to develop strong values, but avoid vast tyrannical prohibitions at the same time.  The good thing is that now, at 4-years-old, it's fairly cut and dry - we just say "yes" or "no" according to what we know is better. I know the hard part will come later.

[This idea is actually closely related to that of the 3 posts ago: A Trip to the Library – Educational or Entertaining?]