Now that I am the father of a young child, I've noticed that there are many more quasi-educational childrens' shows on televsion today than there were when I grew up in the 1970s.
My daughter already has a few favorite shows, one of which is called "Yo Gabba Gabba." The half-hour program itself is a little bizarre and hard to describe. But each episode features at least one song-and-dance number. Many of these songs, I've come to appreciate, actually contain positive, aspirational messages (like "Keep trying/Keep trying/Don't give up/Never give up"). Why is it that these sorts of things stop being reinforced so abruptly when children hit a certain age? Is it that, once they've reach school age, they're assumed to have already become too cynical? If so, what does that say about our society?
In any event, some of the other songs contain very straightforward, practical advice, that's actually good for people of any age. Like "Don't bite your friends," embedded below, advice that Chris Brown might have benefitted from a few months ago:
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