Is THIS the Right Show?

(Editor’s note: The following is Part One of a two-part analysis of the effects of television watching on the American toddler. It has been divided into two segments with regards to research that suggests that the attention span of most Americans is on the decline, due mostly to excessive television watching. Because this first segment will be enjoyed by many readers on Independence Day, we saw fitting to use a particularly American toddler program to provide thematic anchor for our discussion, Dora the Explorer. Enjoy.)

One thing I miss about my life B.C. (before child) was my naive idealism. Just a couple years ago, a favorite pass time of mine was to go out to some major department store and roll my eyes at all the terrible parenting taking place. I was confident that when the day came, my child would know better than to whine for yet another useless, attic-destined toy, or to sneak that forbidden bag of candy into the shopping cart. I used to be a really, really good parent.

And then I had a kid.

The very first ideal lost to pragmatic reality was the pacifier issue. I had read somewhere or had heard from somebody that pacifiers were just no good. They were bad for the teeth, difficult to get rid of, annoying germ magnets, whatever. Regardless, my baby girl would not have a pacifier.

This lasted about five hours. She was born around five in the morning and I’d given up by ten mostly because I was holding her, she was crying, people were watching, and it worked. The pacifier worked. Now, sixteen months later she’s finally decided to grow some teeth and thus we are in the process of weaning her from the blessed little tool. How’s it going, one might ask. Let’s just say, it’s a process.

Another ideal I at least partially gave up on fairly early was television. The fact is, most American children watch too much television. They do. Volumes of academic research clearly demonstrate that the vast majority of TV is simply bad for developing minds and even the “good” TV—educational programming and the like—is less positive than pediatricians once assumed. After twelve years of teaching, my own unscientific observations point to a very clear evaluation: students who watch the least amount of TV almost always earn higher grades than their couch-potato counterparts. Surely there are other factors involved, but to pretend as though the excessive viewing of violent, sex-saturated, or simply vapid programming has no effect on the developing human mind is ignorant.

Having tooted that horn, then, why am I OK with Dora the Explorer, at least in small, moderately structured increments? Why have we already begun that wonderful descent into marketing bedlam that ties in the child’s favorite cartoon with all sorts of quality merchandise like toys, pajamas and, to add insult to injury, video games?

The answer to that is also very simple. She loves it. Dora the Explorer keeps my daughter engaged, and, particularly important at this stage, it keeps her in one place for fifteen minutes so I can find my socks.

Now, like any good parent, I’ve watched the program with her. Repeatedly. And what I’ve decided is that I’m OK with Dora the Explorer for a few good reasons.

Primarily, Dora talks to my daughter. This is a bit creepy for the uninitiated, but Dora and her talking monkey-pal Boots will stop what they are doing—usually going someplace fun—and ask the viewer a question. Granted, it will generally be an inane question, like, “Can you find the red box?” when the red box is like, right next to the monkey’s face, so it does get kind of annoying. To a toddler, though, I guess that’s a pretty good question. I’m fairly certain Big Bird used to ask us some questions, and look how great we all turned out.

Anyway, the point is, Dora the Explorer interacts with the viewer. The show is not mere passive viewing, which is more than I can say for many of the cartoons we used to watch growing up. For example, did Elmer Fudd ever ask us where Bugs Bunny was hiding? No. He would simply, after a series of unrealistic anecdotes, get shot in the face with his own gun. And we wonder why our emergency rooms get so crowded.

Secondly, Dora teaches children basic fundamentals, such as shapes and colors, along with elementary geographical terms, like mountain, river and forest. These forests often talk, however, but I can live with that as long as they don’t say things I assume a real forest might, such as “Please stop cutting me.”

Finally, Dora is bilingual. Nearly every character on the show, even the loopy grandmother, can speak both English and Spanish quite fluently. Believe it or not, my daughter can already count to three, after skipping numbers one and two, in both English and Spanish. Or maybe she’s saying tree. But you get the idea.

The language issue, however, brings us to the second segment of our Dora the Explorer themed analysis, which we will discuss in two weeks, entitled, “Is Dora the Explorer a Latin American Communist Witch?” Until next time, have a safe and enjoyable summer holiday season.