Bad Examples

There was something in the news a while back now about Peppa Pig not wearing a seatbelt & promoting a bad influence on children.

I got thinking about that again recently, and wondered how many more examples of bad practice you can find, without really looking, in children's tv & related products.  And the flipside, how many "subtle" acts of good practice can you spot?

Image from bbc.co.uk

Well, I'm watching Mister Maker right now.  He's got a telly screen in the front of the Maker Mobile, which transmits "live" pictures, so he can talk to Mini Makers.  Except that he's driving.  OK it's hands free, I'm not going to go off on a phones rant.  But.  It's illegal to have a tv (or similar) screen switched on in view of the driver while driving.  I learned that last week on Cops With Cameras.  So Mister Maker gets a slapped wrist from me, 3 points on his license & a £60 fine from the friendly police who give him a wave.

Image from amazon.com

And I was reading one of our Maisy books the other night, Maisy Makes Gingerbread, if you must know.  And Maisy uses eggs, butter, flour, sugar & ginger to make her gingerbread.  And then licks out the bowl, with a raw egg mixture in it.  Now I know we all did it, and it didn't do us any harm *twitch*, but in these enlightened, post-salmonella days, raw eggs = Big No-No.  Maisy gets a slap on the wrist from me, an upset tummy & a prescription for Dioralyte.

On the positives though, CBeebies is actually really quite good at that.  Every time the Pontipines & Wottingers ride the Ninky Nonk, they wear seat belts.  Sarah-Jane (ick) and the children on Mighty Mites wear assorted protective gear before doing anything risky, and even Grandad Tumble wears a helmet when he rides a bike.  Also, the fact that I haven't yet been able to rid the world of Justin, or Sarah-Jane suggests their safety is a consideration at CBeebies Central.

I know, the real answers to all this include the phrases "get out a bit more" and "it's only pretend", but pretend has just as big an impact on children as reality, more so sometimes.  It's not deliberate, I don't think that for a second, but unconscious errors can still have serious impact.