I have an almost two year old son. He loves Barney, Sesame Street,
Thomas, Disney Sing Alongs, etc. If he walks away with the "positive
mental attitude" from Barney -- Great! Kids today are exposed to a lot of
negativity -- I don't think Barney has the ability to lock out all other
experience and disconnect them from reality.
It also reminds me of a workshop I lead where we look at two lists:
#1/ anger, frustration, guilt, blame, judgement, hatred, insecurity, etc
#2/ acceptance, love, patience, forgiveness, understanding, joy, peaceful,
etc
Consistently people are more comfortable saying to a group of people that
I am angry and frustrated as opposed to saying I am feeling peaceful and
loving. Most advertising appeals to list # 1 above. Our culture is much
more comfortable saying that #1 is reality. I am glad we have both Barney
and Sesame Street. The #2 list above is a lot more peaceful and my
ability to influence, connect with others, and *DEAL* with reality is much
more enhanced by my internal state if it mirrors #2. Barney put in
perspective is a very powerful motivating force which many ADULTS could
learn from. My husband used to be in a direct sales business and he was
in an house where the children sang to him -- I love you - you love me and
it brought tears to his eyes. It is amazing to me that a show based on
positive mental imaging for children consistently creates such a strong
reaction and pushes so many buttons.
We lack the ability to really feel most emotions -- I differentiate
feeling from reacting. I tell people that life provides us with a
smorgasbord(forgive my mispelling) of emotions to CHOOSE from. So why not
have a show which shows choices that are totally positive -- it's the only
place they'll get it. There sure are enough that are totally negative but
I don't see a show like that listed in your example. By the way... what
IS reality?
Sherri
sherri@maloufinc.com
--sherri@maloufinc.com (Sherri Malouf)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>