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Post date: Sep 17, 2015 4:39:02 AM
Raising-a-toddler-while-academic (and while-married-to-academic) is an interesting experience. All of a sudden, whole new worlds of relationship experience and cultural exposure open up. One of the best cases of this for me, so far, is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. I have two points to make about the show in this post. The first point is a bit of a rant. The second makes a connection between the show and the ancient Greek philosopher Epicirus—thereby confirming the t-shirt I own.
For those without toddlers, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a PBS series targeted at 2 to 5 year olds. It's the descendent of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. It's animated. The central protagonist is a minor character from Mister Rogers' Land of Make-Believe, a preschool-aged boy tiger named Daniel. The core format for a typical episode is fairly uniform: Daniel is doing an activity of some sort, usually with family or friends; Daniel gets a feeling that interferes with his enjoying the activity; an adult in Daniel's life talks to Daniel about his feeling and invents a song about how to manage the feeling; Daniel sings the song and the feeling gets better.
</Begin RANT>
Having grown up with Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (and having also enjoyed episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in the very near past [now available on Netflix!]), Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is nowhere near as good. It's not just the animation, or that it has a toddler giving life advice to viewers (and somehow talking down to them at the same time) rather than an adult, or that the songs are not very good, or that the episodes restrict themselves to a very narrow range of middle class experiences, or that the fixed character rotation robs viewers of the chance to encounter diversity (or race, of culture, of profession, of physical and mental capabilities), or that the situations that prompt Daniel's emotions tend to be those only privileged children would encounter, or … or … or …. (On that last point, I can't imagine an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood in which Daniel (or one of his friends) gets upset because, for the first time in his life, someone is treating him (or his friend) as a child of color, or someone is feeling jealous because the children with privilege don't have to behave themselves at the restaurant but he does. No: it's more like 'Equally privileged person won't let me play with one really nice toy among a selection of other very nice toys.' Moan.)
The thing that irritates me about Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, as a philosopher who has spent some time thinking about how different cultural and ethical traditions advise us on treating our emotions, and as a father who has more and more experience with a toddler getting strong feelings (the latest: having to wear pants), is that the show just gives such very bad advice. If your toddler is angry, I don't think it's at all realistic to expect her to have enough cognitive control to not only talk to you about her feelings while she is feeling them but also, and quite rapidly, use the lesson of the talk to right then and there bring her anger under her control. Grown adults don't even work like this. (You know what works for me? Not singing. Not talking. In the short term: Waiting; and if it's a lucky day, redirecting. In the long-term: No idea; my chips are on modeling and patience.)
And it's not just that the advice is bad. It's that it's so very very bad. The show has Daniel go from super-strong-bad-feels to happy-singing-dancing-feels in something like a minute. (OK, I haven't timed it. But it sure seems that way: there's a short song, and then Daniel is magically happy.) What I've learned about toddlers so far is that the strong emotions they have just don't last all that long, and they're prone to return to a good mood on their own or with some hugs and sympathetic understanding. (Disclaimer: Not a scientific result. N=1 and the subject is barely past the 2 year mark.) I'm not even going to mention my issue with the show giving this bad advice to parents.
</End RANT>
On to the philosophical connection. I was talking recently with my intro-to-ethics students about Epicureanism. This is an ancient Greek school of thought that recommended, among other things, that our ultimate goal in life ought to be tranquil minds and healthy bodies. We spent a day in class considering how this goal differs from others with which we might be familiar (salvation, maximizing pleasure, obeying laws). Then we spent a day reviewing some techniques the Epicureans recommended for achieving their goal. The technique that gave me an "a-ha!" moment is called parrhesia. Parrhesia involves frank discussion and criticism of one's faults with another. The technique, apparently, involved speaking with a peer (or peer group) about any disturbance of mental tranquility or bodily health, discerning through the discussion any internal decision or attitude from which the disturbance likely arose, admitting at least partial fault for the disturbance insofar as it turned out to be at least partly within one's control, discussing ways to avoid or prevent similar prompting conditions in the future, and then forgiving and forgetting.
That's all quite abstract. More than a few eyes made like a donut and glazed over when I tried to describe the technique. But lightbulbs started clicking after I had my"a-ha!" moment. The moment was this: Daniel Tigers' Neighborhood recommends using a kind of sanitized parrhesia to deal with our emotions. When Daniel has a feeling that disturbs his tranquility, frank discussion and criticism follow. The goal is to help Daniel figure out what feeling he's having, maybe why he is having it, and how he can avoid having it. (Hint: It's not singing a song! </End RANT-ECHO>)
Here's the example I gave for illustration. The episode is called "Daniel is Jealous." Neighborhood Archive gives a nice episode summary:
Daniel Tiger is playing airplanes with Katerina Kittycat while Grandpere babysits. With Daniel as the pilot, Katerina and Grandpere are left to sit together in the passenger seats. This leaves Daniel feeling jealous. After "take-off", Daniel pretends that he is a real pilot flying an airplane through the air.When Grandpere shares a book about airplanes, Katerina sits next to him leaving no room for Daniel. Daniel's frustration and jealousy is clear as he tries to see the book and get closer to Grandpere. Grandpere reminds him to talk about his jealous feelings and moves over enough to allow room for Daniel to sit at his other side. Outside, Daniel and Katerina are flying paper airplanes when Katerina's plane is torn. Turning his attention towards Katerina, Grandpere leaves Daniel feeling jealous again. After talking about his feelings, Daniel joins Grandpere and Katerina as they use tape to repair her plane.
And here's a transcription of the relevant clip. D is Daniel, GP is his grandpere.
D: Grrr! My grandpere. Hmpf! I don't wanna look at airplanes anymore.
GP: Daniel, tell me what's wrong.
D: I'm upset because Katerina's sitting next to you. She's in my spot all the time.
[I kid you not, Daniel shifts instantly from strong feeling to dispassionate description back to moderate feeling. Grrr! Hmpf!]
GP: That sounds like you are feeling jealous.
D: Jealous?
GP: Jealous is the feeling when you want what someone else has.
D: Like how I want to sit next to you?
GP: Exactly.
D: Then…I do feel jealous.
GP: [Singing:] When you feel jealous, talk about it…and we'll figure something out.
D: [Singing:] When you feel jealous, talk about it…and we'll figure something out. I feel jealous because…you're my grandpere, not Katerina's.
GP: Oh, Daniel. I am your grandpere. I know it's hard to share the people you love,and you are my special Daniel. Nothing will ever change that.
D: Really?
GP: Really.
That's the end of Daniel's jealousy. Total time lapsed for the transcribed part of the episode: 1 minute and 10 seconds. Amazing!
One other jealousy-inducing scenario for Daniel arises in the episode: he doesn't want his grandpere helping his baby sister with her airplane instead of watching him fly his own paper airplane. (I won't even make the argument that if, in such a short time span, Daniel's jealousy gets the best of him all over again, probably the technique you gave him for dealing with it just wasn't effective.) I just want to observe the stages in the transcribed part of the episode: Daniel's mental tranquility is disturbed; someone intervenes to discuss his emotion with him; they discern the cause of the emotion; they devise a way to avoid the disturbance in the future. Those are the basic elements of parrhesia.
Don't think this makes me like Daniel Tigers' Neighborhood! Even if the show is teaching some variant of parrhesia (more likely: some variant of cognitive behavioral therapy inspired by parrhesia), it's teaching it to an inappropriate audience. Epicurean parrhesia occurs between people who have some measure of rational control over themselves. Disagree all you want about the rough age at which people tend to gain this kind of capacity. For sure it ain't toddler age.
Postscript.: Because I shouldn't say anything if I can't say something nice, here's the nice thing I have to say about Daniel Tigers' Neighborhood: it's nice that it gives viewers advice to not be scared of shots. I don't like the show, but that's not because I'm an anti-vax parent.
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