Thursday, August 18, 2011

Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer...



Okay, so I am not even going to begin to touch on the controversial subject of toddlers and television, but let it be known, we let our 21 month old son watch TV. Now, it's certainly not a babysitter for him, but heck, the kid's been obsessed with Winnie-the-Pooh since he was 8-months old, and that obsession didn't just emerge from the books we read to him...although, we did read Winnie books to him quite often...

His latest TV infatuation is with Dora the Explorer. Okay, harmless enough, right? One of my friend's little girls, who's one very smart cookie with an extremely advanced vocabulary took a liking to Dora at an early age, so I figured what's the harm? She was identifying leather-backed turtles and jaguars by age 2, so something about this show must trigger even the youngest and hungriest of minds.

What I didn't expect was a new insecurity directly inspired from the show...If you're familiar with the program at all, you'll know that there is a pretty rigid formula for all episodes. One component of the show is that Swiper, the fox, "loves swiping," and often, will swipe whatever tool is necessary for Dora to complete her mission. Now, Swiper is not exactly evil, but he doesn't usually help Dora or Boots, her pet monkey, accomplish their goals.



All of a sudden, two nights ago, Joaquin became obsessed with the idea that Swiper is going to "swipe" his choo choos, his "B" (AKA blanket), or even worse, Mama! At nap time, he says, "Mama, Swiper going to get my choo choo trains?"

I assure him, "No, sweetie. Swiper is not going to get your choo choos."

Then he persists, "Mama, Swiper going to take Mama from me?"

It's both sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. How can I explain to him that it's just a show and that Swiper is not really bad? More importantly, he is way too young to understand the fourth wall. But all I want to do is not let him watch anymore for fear that the insecurity will get worse.

Is it because we are away from home, thus his insecurities are peaking because of unfamiliar surroundings? Or is it because he is really attached to certain things? I am no child-psychologist, but I definitely thought I had a few years before movies or TV started to scare him. Watch a horror film when you're older, or even a Harry Potter movie when you're 10, and then you and Mama can talk about being afraid...but now! Ack! What do I do?

(Of course, the worst idea I had was to play on his insecurities to get him to give up his pacifier. Since Kiko left for JASOC in July, he's been especially keen on his "paci." He even will ask for them by color, i.e. "Mama, I want my orange paci..peez!" It's the "please/peez" that puts me over the edge. We figure he'll outgrow it in time, but the thought did cross our minds...Would we be setting him up for a lifetime of insecurities if we told him "Swiper must have swiped all your pacis...." Ha, I think we'll opt out of that parenting trick for now, and just focus on making him comfortable with his boundaries with fictional characters.)

2 comments:

Shoezen said...

I was relieved to learn I am not alone in parenting a child with a Swiper-phobia...

http://commadotcomma.net/blog/2011/06/26/swiper-call-of-the-dark-side/

cromero said...

I have grumpy old troll anxiety.