With a new PAW Patrol movie hitting theaters this weekend alongside a new game, it felt appropriate to ask: "Hey, so, what's up with all these dog cops?"
One of the biggest entertainment lines we've drawn is unmonitored YouTube watching. For the longest time this was easy to avoid; we just didn't have the app on their iPads. But my boys are 7 now, and many of their friends are watching YouTube as their screen time, then talking about what they've watched. (One of my kids keeps talking about a video his friend watched where two people were dancing with towels one, then one of the towels came off, and they had to walk back around naked...which my boy finds hilarious, but what??? What is the actual video this friend watched?? The unreliable narrators that are 7 year olds can often be wildly entertaining.) Anyhow, they sometimes ask to watch YouTube for their screentime now, and we generally say now, or say we can watch them all together on the TV if they can tell us specific videos they want to watch (Mark Rober, etc.) This is maybe an area where I'm very old fashioned, but I'll take a random Saturday Morning cartoon over YouTube any day. The algorithm just takes you so quickly to garbage content so quickly...going to postpone that for as long as I can.
Godspeed. We gave up on that awhile ago, but I'm also closely monitoring what they're watching, and they are restricted into the YouTube Kidz zone for the moment. Whenever my kid wants to escape into wider YouTube, we'll have to have some strict rules in place.
They've done this weird thing with the movies where they finally try to give the world emotional heft, and each dog gets a backstory with each new movie. The last movie, it was Chase, and this time, it's Skye...the Skye one kinda worked on me, though, ngl
I really appreciate this article. My son is still only 6 months old and just as entertained by his foot as any toy, but my wife and I do have these forward looking conversations. This article provides more fodder to for the talks!
“I don't allow police play or toys in my house at all, same with military,” said Crossplay reader Amelia, who has a three-year-old son in Seattle. “My son, however, loves to play-fight stormtroopers, which, at least he's against the fascists there, but I still don't love him ‘fighting.’”
In my anecdotal experience, many boys raised like this end up finding more dangerous and less socially acceptable ways of channeling their natural impulses towards physical play.
My 1st grade son recently expressed amazement that a friend’s dad who is an Army vet is still alive. I let him know that most people who serve in the military never need to fight, and tried to explain the idea of deterrence to him.
When he and his cousins were play fighting and it looked like things might get out of hand, I pulled up a video of Olympic wrestlers and explained that there were rules against punching, kicking, and other things that can cause serious injury. They spent the rest of the afternoon grappling with each other like the wrestlers, testing their limits in a much more controlled way.
Other people can raise their kids however they want, but I’ve always felt you’re better off working with and channeling a boy’s instincts rather than trying to suppress them.
My five year old and to some extend the three year old come yelling from time to time, that they want to watch Paw Patrol, but so far I could just turn them down and steer them to other stuff to watch. I hate these generic heartless Cartoons. Luckily there are enough good alternatives
One of the biggest entertainment lines we've drawn is unmonitored YouTube watching. For the longest time this was easy to avoid; we just didn't have the app on their iPads. But my boys are 7 now, and many of their friends are watching YouTube as their screen time, then talking about what they've watched. (One of my kids keeps talking about a video his friend watched where two people were dancing with towels one, then one of the towels came off, and they had to walk back around naked...which my boy finds hilarious, but what??? What is the actual video this friend watched?? The unreliable narrators that are 7 year olds can often be wildly entertaining.) Anyhow, they sometimes ask to watch YouTube for their screentime now, and we generally say now, or say we can watch them all together on the TV if they can tell us specific videos they want to watch (Mark Rober, etc.) This is maybe an area where I'm very old fashioned, but I'll take a random Saturday Morning cartoon over YouTube any day. The algorithm just takes you so quickly to garbage content so quickly...going to postpone that for as long as I can.
Godspeed. We gave up on that awhile ago, but I'm also closely monitoring what they're watching, and they are restricted into the YouTube Kidz zone for the moment. Whenever my kid wants to escape into wider YouTube, we'll have to have some strict rules in place.
"Chase, Marshall, Skye, Rocky, Rubble, Zuma"
Damnit Patrick, this Tracker and Everest erasure will not stand!
They've done this weird thing with the movies where they finally try to give the world emotional heft, and each dog gets a backstory with each new movie. The last movie, it was Chase, and this time, it's Skye...the Skye one kinda worked on me, though, ngl
For real? Should I watch them to really get into the deep lore of the PPCU? My in-laws have been taking that bullet for me so far, but ..
I really appreciate this article. My son is still only 6 months old and just as entertained by his foot as any toy, but my wife and I do have these forward looking conversations. This article provides more fodder to for the talks!
Every kid is different, context is different...good luck to you!
“I don't allow police play or toys in my house at all, same with military,” said Crossplay reader Amelia, who has a three-year-old son in Seattle. “My son, however, loves to play-fight stormtroopers, which, at least he's against the fascists there, but I still don't love him ‘fighting.’”
Poor kid. Sounds like a no-fun house.
Please be careful about how we talk about other people's parenting here.
In my anecdotal experience, many boys raised like this end up finding more dangerous and less socially acceptable ways of channeling their natural impulses towards physical play.
My 1st grade son recently expressed amazement that a friend’s dad who is an Army vet is still alive. I let him know that most people who serve in the military never need to fight, and tried to explain the idea of deterrence to him.
When he and his cousins were play fighting and it looked like things might get out of hand, I pulled up a video of Olympic wrestlers and explained that there were rules against punching, kicking, and other things that can cause serious injury. They spent the rest of the afternoon grappling with each other like the wrestlers, testing their limits in a much more controlled way.
Other people can raise their kids however they want, but I’ve always felt you’re better off working with and channeling a boy’s instincts rather than trying to suppress them.
My five year old and to some extend the three year old come yelling from time to time, that they want to watch Paw Patrol, but so far I could just turn them down and steer them to other stuff to watch. I hate these generic heartless Cartoons. Luckily there are enough good alternatives
That's awesome. Misdirection works surprisingly well at young ages!