Five Ways The Disney Channel Is Undoing Your Good Parenting

Dillan DiGiovanni thinks the Disney Channel preteen lineup shows room for improvement.

I have some issues with the pre-teen/teen Disney Channel shows.

Truth be told, I haven’t spent more than ten minutes watching any single of them but, from those brief encounters, I’ve formed an opinion that they are undoing good parenting and I don’t think kids should watch them. Here are five reasons why:

1) They promote normative gender roles almost exclusively.

Pick up any magazine, newspaper or take a scroll through Facebook and you will see the many, many faces of gender-fluid kids and teens. Fitting out is the new normal. Many parents of non-gender-confirming kids will tell you it can be a challenge to swim against the tide and affirm and promote your child’s preferred identity. These Disney Channel televisions shows, from what I’ve seen, do not reflect back positive images to kids who identify outside the binary of male and female. Kids watching these shows are fed the same message and mainstream media on other television stations: be a boy or a girl, those are your options. Some shows that have a character that strays a bit from the norm play up generalized and dated stereotypes: the tomboy girl wears a crooked ponytail and a baseball jersey.  The outcast or rejected boy is often overweight or wears glasses and is scrawny. The most popular boys look like models. Some shows on larger networks like Modern Family and The Fosters are actually breaking the mold with this and making “unconventional families” the main storyline. As far as the Mickey crew is concerned, I guess I expect more from shows designed so exclusively for kids and child/teen identity development.

2) Overacting and bad behavior is the norm.

Whoa. WHOA. The overacting. The yelling. The failing hands. The sighing. The eye-rolling. The sticking out of tongues.  It is too darn much and it’s reinforcing the worst about stereotypical youth behavior. I’ve worked with folks aged 10-20 for most of my life and they don’t act like this on a regular basis. They do have their difficult moments, yes, but so do most adults I know. These shows are just one scene after another of kids acting off the charts without evidence of healthy, calm or mature responses. It can send a message to kids that being overly dramatic and entitled is the way to win arguments and get laughs.

3) Parents are dumb and objects to be dodged, ignored or disrespected.

Watch closely. Many of the plots of these television shows focus on the young characters trying to deceive, avoid or outsmart their parents. Again, I’ve worked with youth. The ones I’ve known seem to be more concerned with their appearance and the opinions of their peers (all parts of normal psychological development) than trying to make their parents look like idiots. These shows often paint the adults/parents as bumbling idiots who don’t have a clue how to parent their teen, no idea what cool is and definitely NOT someone to turn to in times of distress. Not at all like the televisions shows I grew up with. Even Saved By The Bell, the teen shows of all teen shows, showed adults as people to be respected. What does this new trend say about modern society? What message is being sent via these dialogues?

4) New clothes and impeccably-decorated rooms make you cool and popular.

The sets and costumes. Oh man. One thing I loved about the show Roseanne was how real her damn house looked. Messes on the steps. Dishes in the sink. Crap on the floor. Well-worn couches. I actually enjoyed seeing Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights wear the same shirt in several episodes. These Disney shows definitely hold up an upper-middle to high-class expectation and reinforce the social norms of having new clothes of the latest fashion that fit perfectly with perfectly groomed haircuts and makeup at all times. Everything is bright and loud and artificial and can cause kids to think that materialism is connected to self-worth.

5) Causing mischief and breaking rules trumps reading, playing outside and building relationships.

Ok, ok. Yes, we tried to break some rules when I was young. But most of the time we spent sitting around playing games, walking around town and enjoying each others’ company. I get this is television but I am curious if youth get tired of watching episode after episode of these characters getting into messes or trying to one-up someone or something instead of learning how to accept themselves, treat people better and develop their character and physical fitness. In fact, something like eating healthy or working out is usually shown as part of a montage when a character is trying to meet some goal quickly, instead of just being part of normal life. Instead of being a better person, being bad and not getting caught is more…interesting?

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I get it. It’s television, not reality. But for something that’s making billions of dollars annually (that’s my rough estimate, but someone can fact-check me), and for the amount of time that kids are spending in front of television sets these days, I just think they could be provided entertainment that’s a little more diverse, a little more realistic and a little less normative. After watching five minutes of these shows, I feel like i’m having an anxiety attack because the pacing, music and overacting is just so much. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I wonder the effects on the teen psyche and emotional/mental wellness. Has anyone studied that?

My advice? Encourage your kids to get outside and learn about life as it really is, not as it’s depicted in loud technicolor by the Disney teen television shows.

photo courtesy of Canon Brownell at flikr

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