What’s your parenting style when it comes to kids and TV ? It’s so much more simple when your kids are really young isn’t it? When you can turn on Sesame Street every once in a while and they’re happy?
Can’t we just stay in this place forever? According to our parenting contributor, Jessica, no- no we cannot. But that doesn’t mean we’re without power.
Here she is with her take on the dreaded “Tween TV”. She’s got some pretty strong feelings on the subject. I’m curious, what’s your take? Is she absolutely right or is it really not that big of a deal?
When I was in sixth and seventh grade, I palled around with a group of girls who had older sisters – eighth and nine graders, and the height of sophistication and maturity to us – and we did our damnedest to copy every little thing they did.
So when they started watching Beverly Hills 90210 and going on about Brenda and Kelly and Dylan, well, we couldn’t get on board fast enough.
I raced home to tell my mom all about this amazing show with these super cool high school kids who lived in California and drove convertibles and had bad-boy boyfriends. The more secondhand details I excitedly laid out, the less impressed she looked.
“It sounds a little inappropriate to me,” she said, but she agreed to check it out herself before making a final decision.
Fast forward to that final decision, which came a few days later and pretty much amounted to a hell no.
I don’t remember exactly what she said, but the gist was that Brenda and Dylan and Kelly acted like a bunch of entitled, spoiled brats, and no eleven or twelve year old should think it’s cool to behave that way.
I probably stomped my feet and rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, alternating between begging/pleading/negotiating and whining/pouting. But my mom didn’t play – there would be no 90210-watching in our house, and that was that.
It was torture listening to my friends gushing weekly about the previous night’s show. They talked about the boy drama, and the make-out scenes, and all the stuff that seemed so desperately grown-up to twelve year old me, and I would get resentful of my mom all over again.
But guess what. She was totally right.
And that’s what I think about when I find myself on the receiving end of those eye-rolling, foot-stomping antics. Because I refuse to let my almost seven year old daughter watch any of those horrendous tween shows and movies from Nickelodeon and Disney.
It began when she came home from a friend’s house parroting some sarcastic line, complete with a little head bob. My husband caught my eye, and while my first impulse was to laugh, he had the wherewithal to ask where she had picked that up.
“Oh, it’s from Teen Beach 2!” she gushed.
Hmm.
It happened again, this hair-flinging sassiness that seemed contrived and bizarre. She was putting on a show, clearly, and I was putting it together, fast.
The no-crappy-tween-shows thing really cemented when we were all watching TV together and one of them came on. Just a few minutes was enough to confirm my hunch that these dumb shows glorify sarcasm and reinforce that tired story line of mouthy kids and dopey parents.
But it’s worse than that – the popular kid/dork dichotomy is alive and well on Nickelodeon and Disney, and these perfect princesses with their straight, glossy hair and blinding teeth are setting a pretty ridiculous standard.
True, there are no plot lines centering on teen sex or drunk driving, which 90210 had in spades, but my foot is down anyway because it pisses me right off.
I just don’t want my daughter thinking it’s cute or funny to act like a brat. Mouthing off to your parents or your friends or at someone’s expense isn’t behavior that’s worthy of emulating, and that’s the least of what’s being shown on the shows I’ve forced myself to sit through.
Basically, I’ve become my mother. But she was right to say no to that crappy show then, and I think I’m right to say no to these ones now.
More Parenting Styles Posts from MPMK
Parenting Styles: One Stay-at-Home Dad’s Take on Self-Care
Parenting Styles: Technology Makes Me a Hypocrite, and How I’m Changing That
What I’m Reading: The “Me, Me, Me” Epidemic
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