Dora the explorer
By Maya2008
@Maya2008 (37)
Egypt
March 10, 2009 7:46am CST
Cartoon have a huge influence on our kids, it plants ideas and behaviors in their minds and no matter how hard we try to modify those ideas they are fixed with glue. the kid can relate and identify with cartoon characters more than he does with us, the parents. It’s very important that we choose the type of cartoon our children see and make sure that it suits their age. Kids can become so attached to those characters, they can spend all day watching cartoons without being bored and that’s more parenting than we could ever do. We can’t compete with those characters but at least we can choose our battles.
As a single mother I went through a lot of cartoon buddies, went through different phases with all of them ,the initial love and satisfaction, the rising doubts and the most difficult phase hating and banning.It could save you a lot of time and a lot of pain if you could just watch about 10 episodes of any cartoon before exposing your child to it.through those episodes you can form a very good idea about the characters and what type of influence they represent.
two of the worst cartoon characters you can show your kids are spongepop squarepants and Mr. Whiskers from " Brandy & Mr. Whiskers". Both cartoons depend on the assumption that being funny justify any behavior no matter how discuting or repulsive it is. Just because it makes your kid laugh,it doesn't mean it's a good influence.Both characters are very stupid,very vulgar,all they do is annoy other characters around them and they get away with a lot of bad behavior like picking their nose and setting traps for their friends. the characters around them are not at all better with a greedy restaurant owner and a very mean neighbour in spongepop and a very arrogant,spoiled,selfish mean dog in Mr. Whiskers.they teach your child bad habits,bad language and bad behvior and you can't explain that what they are doing is bad cause your kid will just answer back and say "then why are they doing it?"
one of my favorite characters is "Dora the explorer" she is a sweet,polite girl who is very well behaved and takes your kid every episode in an adventure where he learns a lot of things in addition to a second language. the whole show is well executed with all the characters meeting your standards as a mom. Nothing is going wrong on that show it teaches you kid all the good manners in a fun sweet way.
I could review all the cartoon characters on all the available channels believe me I've seen a lot but I just settled with the worst and best characters and what's in between is left for you to decide.
3 responses
@mammamuh (582)
• Sweden
11 Mar 09
We love Dora here as well (I to hate Spongebob!) ! We have Dora in English at our home on DVD - we think it's even better that our kids learn both English and a bit of Spanish since Swedish is their first language.
Postman Pat is another favourite we have - we have it both in English and Swedish.
My childrens top favourites has been all Astrid Lindgren caracters - like Pippi Longstocking and Emil, but these are not cartoons - almost all her caracters are independant and strong minded children that does a lot of things wrong and they are sertanly not well behaved - but you still have to love them!
@Maya2008 (37)
• Egypt
12 Mar 09
although i have seen lots of cartoon since my daughter was born she is now nearly 3 most of the characters you mentioned i know nothing about! but don't worry i already started the online search on them. seems to me that your daughter will be strong minded herself so good luck
@melanie1208 (133)
• United States
11 Mar 09
You are very right. My daughter LOVES Dora a lot !! Sometimes I am even surprised when she speaks Spanish ! LOL. It does not hurt for her to be bilingual, right ? Just like you I used to watch all the TV programs that my daughter watch. Thats gives me an idea what kind of program she watched, time for us to bond together at the same time I could easily relate to what she is talking most of the time. I would say, when she first starting to talk, she learns a lot of words from the TV programs that she is watching. She watched Dora, Mickey Mouse, Little Einstien, Blues Clues and a lot more of Nick JR programs. Another thing I could recommend is Blues Clues. This is very educational, she would learn a lot from it. You could not find any foul language, bad behavior and like in this program. This is really designed for kids to teach good values, education and improved their imagination.
@Maya2008 (37)
• Egypt
12 Mar 09
we seem to be similar in a lot of things reading your response was like reading about me. i was shocked the first time i heard my daughter counting in Spanish and calling a star strellia but i was happy she could easily learn a second language at this age so why not at least we are using the time in a good way right? i can understand my daughter talks than her dad cause as you said she picks a lot from the cartoon she watches. all the programs you mentioned we are already watching except for blues clues i have nickelodeon and i watch nick jr shows but i never saw blues clues may be they don't show it here i will try search for it online thank you for your response and your recommendation
@cher913 (25782)
• Canada
10 Mar 09
my nieces used to love dora and when my kids were little, my oldest loved barney and as she grew a little, she watched arthur, my youngest's favourite was blues clue.
when picking a tv show for your kids to watch (like spongebob) its important to either watch it before you allow your kids to watch it, or at the very least, watch it with them.
