With streaming platforms, we have more options for viewing television than ever before. Binge-watching television has become the norm. But how do we know what is good for our kids to watch? Bluey is a show for all ages, even adults. It first came out in Australia in 2018. Then Disney picked it up and aired it in the United States in 2019. Bluey revolves around a husband and father (Bandit), his wife (Chilli), and their two daughters (Bluey and Bingo). There are elements to the program that help with parenting and problem-solving, which we at GetKidsInternetSafe support. Our GetKidsInternetSafe courses are designed to help families connect with cooperative dialogue about screen safety. For families with young kids, our Connected Family Course helps open the lines of communication and set up your home with optimum screen safety. For tweens and teens, we recommend our Social Media Readiness Course. The Readiness Course offers information to help teens better problem-solve independently and recognize the red flags of digital injury. Today’s GKIS article covers the benefits of Bluey and the drama that surrounds the program on social media.

Bluey Portrays Engaged, Playful Parents

Dads on television are too often portrayed to be oafish, heavy-set men who act foolish. We can all think of lazy father characters married to an attractive wives they take for granted but win her over with bumbling charm. Bluey represents fatherhood in a more accurate, positive light. Bandit, the father in Bluey, can occasionally be goofy. But generally, he is a loving, caring father and husband.

Chilli is a loving wife and mother. She is also shown in an independent manner. She is unafraid to ask for some time when she needs a break and is seen going out to play field hockey with a friend. She is strong and loving to her family.

The first child of Bandit and Chili is the title character Bluey. Often children’s shows have the children trying to connive their parents. A refreshing part of the show is Bluey is not trying to get away with anything. She is an energetic child that enjoys playing and using her imagination. Like many children, she has her moments, but with the guidance of her parents, she understands her mistakes.

Bingo is the youngest of the Family. She, like many, looks up to her older sibling but is often involved in the activities. She is not a pest or an antagonist, she feels down sometimes because she may not be able to keep up, but the family often acknowledges her voice.

The Bluey set typically involves kids having playtime using their imagination and involving their parents. We often see them playing make-believe where they may be at a pizzeria or playing with their mom pretending to drive a car. The parents are caring, loving, and look out for each other. This positive portrayal of playtime as an opportunity for coaching and learning is excellent parent and child training. Like the ground-breaking work of Mr. Rogers, Bluey offers useful instruction in the form of family entertainment.

With the pressures of modern life, parenting can be challenging. Although technology makes us more efficient, it also adds a lot of distractions that can get in the way of healthy family relationships. In her book Screen Time in the Mean Time, Dr. Bennett reports that psychology research demonstrates that there has been a 25% decrease in child empathy. She states that parental distraction and outsourcing parenting to screen time may be major contributors to this unwanted change. She elaborates that empathy is not innate, meaning we aren’t born with it. Instead, devoted parents model empathy for their children and instruct them verbally as their kids follow along with them day to day. She proposes that Bluey models the teaching of empathy between parent and child through imaginary play. That benefits not only the kids watching Bluey but their parents too!

Bluey Tackles Challenging Topics

Like Mr. Rogers, Bluey often brings in complex and challenging topics such as coping with death and loss, working through troubling feelings, and much more.

For example, the Bluey episode Whale Watching implies the parents drank too much at a party the night before. The parents try to avoid playing with their kids but ultimately realize how vital their engagement is, resulting in them pushing through their discomfort.

In another episode titled Stumpfest, Chilli teaches Bluey how parents also need space and adults need time with friends. The kids think the dad was mean when digging up a stump with his friends. Taking away something Bluey and her friends wanted to keep and use for themselves. Chilli explains to Bluey that Bandit’s yardwork with his friends was his playtime and bonding with his pals.

Another Bluey episode, Born Yesterday, shows Bandit acting like he was just introduced to the world. The kids enjoy showing him his new surroundings and how to perform in social settings. This episode helps viewers see how much we take social norms for granted and how to explain norms to the younger generation. It also encourages us to slow down, think simply, and enjoy the little things.

Other topics that have been addressed in Bluey include

Depression
Fear of abandonment
Divorce
Taking care of your parents
Death
Work Ethic

Teaching essential concepts like these to kids can be challenging. A great product GKIS offers to help bring the family together is our Screen Safety Essentials Course. Our Essentials Course promotes screen safety and a cooperative and positive parent-child alliance.

Online Conspiracy Theories About Bluey

Typical of the internet, there is social media drama surrounding Bluey. For example, there is online speculation about hidden adult topics within the show. TikToker conspiracy theories about Bluey include speculation that Bluey is a rainbow baby. A rainbow baby is a child born after a miscarriage. There is also speculation that one of the grandparent characters has Alzheimer’s disease and Bingo has celiac disease. An episode was temporarily banned because Bandit passed gas in Bluey’s face, referred to as a fluffy in the show. This episode got pushback, but the real lesson was about being honest and not trying to be sneaky. After viewers and parents realized this, the episode was placed back into the show’s streaming library.

If you find it difficult to play with your kids or integrate challenging topics into play, get your friends together and schedule an online parenting workshop with Dr. Bennett.

Thanks to CSUCI intern Keith Ferries for researching and writing this family-friendly article.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Photo Credits

[1] August de Richelieu https://www.pexels.com/@augsst-de-richelieu/

[2] Cottonbro Studio https://www.pexels.com/photo/girl-in-red-dress-playing-a-wooden-blocks-3662667/

[3] RODNAE Productions https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-family-talking-to-their-parents-6148875/

Raising kids in the digital age is tough. Not only are kids going through baffling developmental stages and life crises, so are their parents. Plus, each family member has a unique personality, belief system, and behavioral history that lead to varying “fits” between members at varying times. Throw that in a blender and you have a family. To make it more complicated, divorce peaks during trying times, upending everything even more. Divorce conflict, shared custody, and blended family issues can lead to exploitative and manipulative opportunities, especially with powerful mobile devices in-hand. My clients have benefitted from both using our free CONNECTED FAMILY SCREEN AGREEMENT. This digital contract gives both households sensible rules and strategies so kids have consistency and cooperative guidance. To align on parenting strategies and get more confident with setting rules and adopting parental controls, our weekly parent and family coaching videos delivered on the GETKIDSINTERNETSAFE APP is for you. Quick 5-minute videos a week allow you to tweak screen safety and positive parenting in your home in doable chunks. Demonstrating that you are consistently addressing screen safety looks great in court! Another option to help your tweens and teens directly build knowledge and psychological wellness with our SOCIAL MEDIA READINESS COURSE FOR TWEENS & TEENS. It’s like driver’s training but for the Internet.

In my twenty-six+ years as a clinical psychologist with a specialty in family transitions, I have run across practically every family situation you can imagine. Not only can divorce strain parent-child alliances, but fear can muddy parent judgment as they jockey to win child favor and aim to achieve parenting perfection in less-than-perfect times. With everybody distracted by their own emotional processes, consistency, and communication too often slip leaving kids vulnerable for risk.

Here are three fictional family stories that resemble actual situations to illustrate the complex factors that divorced families face.

Safety, Parental Alienation, & Home Privacy

Sally and Joe were married for fourteen years. They have two daughters, 13-year-old Maggie and 10-year-old Jacqueline. The marriage dissolved when Joe was discovered having an affair with Pamela. Sally shared too much information with the girls during her heartbreak, blaming Pamela for the breakup and begging Joe to make the marriage work even after discovery. Pamela and Joe married six months after the divorce was final and were granted shared custody of Maggie and Jacqueline as well as Pamela’s son and daughter.

Sally didn’t trust Joe and Pamela to take good enough care of the girls. She constantly worried about Joe not checking the girls’ homework, believed Joe and Pam drank too much, thought Pamela favored her own children and became particularly angry if Joe socialized with old friends. The girls felt protective of their mom and felt guilty leaving her during dad’s custodial time. They also wondered if mom’s fears were true and they were being unfairly treated and not adequately attended to.

Sally bought both girls mobile phones outfitted with the social media they wanted and encouraged them to call, text, and send images frequently with the hopes of gathering evidence she could use in family law court. She also posted accusatory memes about Joe and Pamela on her Facebook. If Joe set limits with the mobile phones, Sally argued the restriction prevented the girls from seeking appropriate help in an emergency situation, which further demonstrated to the girls that Joe was not protecting them.

In her cloud of grief, fear, and anger, Sally was committing parental alienation. Parental alienation is a pattern of psychological abuse toward a child by creating fear, disrespect, or hostility toward the other parent with the ultimate goal of parent-child estrangement. Parental alienation has been demonstrated to be detrimental to child mental and physical health and parent-child attachment. When caught in the destructive dynamic, family members are nearly incapable of post-traumatic growth, spinning helplessly for sometimes years in the eye of the storm.

Illegal Surveillance

John is a twelve-year-old who’s divorced parents have conflicting views on-screen use. John’s father allows him to use his phone and
other screen devices as much as he likes with no filtering or monitoring. His mother, on the other hand, does not allow him to use ANY screen devices. What John does not know is that his father secretly installed spyware on his mother’s devices during their divorce in order to gain information against her and has a history of domestic violence and pornography addiction. John’s mother has a restraining order against her ex-husband. She does not feel safe having mobile devices in her house that her ex-husband has purchased in case of spyware. She also worries about the online content her son has access to for fear of him becoming addicted like his father. John prefers to be at his father’s house because of the more permissive screen access and accuses his mom of being too uptight and paranoid. His dad laughs with him and agrees.

Consequating Dangerous Child Behavior

Dave and Laura have been divorced for two months and have two sons, 16-year-old Chad and 14-year-old Ian. After the divorce, both boys were living with their mother with weekends and certain holidays spent with their father. Chad has AD/HD and an anxiety disorder; Ian is in independent study due to oppositionality and defiance.

After suspecting Chad was using drugs, Dave demanded to see Chad’s phone. When Chad refused, Dave grabbed the phone and found photos of Chad smoking marijuana at a house party. A screaming conflict resulted. Chad stormed out the house and walked several miles back to his mother’s house where she then called Child Protective Services. Dave insisted that Laura take Chad’s screen devices away as a form of punishment. Laura disagreed thinking it would isolate Chad from his friends at a time he needed them most and bought Chad a new phone with no filtering or monitoring. Chad has chosen to live full time with Laura and refuses to talk to Dave. Ian feels caught in the middle.

Co-Parenting Strategies

Co-parenting can be difficult in all family types, but shared custody poses particularly ripe opportunities for exploitation and manipulation during a time when parents need to be particularly astute about the prevention of digital injury due to unchecked screen use. To launch a healthy and safe relationship with screen media, kids need warm, encouraging guidance from their parents.

Parents who set standards and praise without being overly critical have well-adjusted kids. Theorists call this authoritative parenting. Evidence demonstrates it is better than uninvolved, permissive, (overly accepting), or authoritarian (overly controlling) parenting styles.

Authoritative parents are proactive rather than reactive. They set the stage for success and respond calmly rather than ignoring or being overly punishing in response to destructive child behaviors. Children from authoritative home environments not only achieve more in school, but they also demonstrate a stronger willingness to seek out and master challenges for personal satisfaction.

In the stories above, the parents let their divorce conflicts interfere with their parenting judgment and slipped into authoritarian or permissive styles. While authoritarian parenting promotes a form of structure for the child, the harshness and rigidity can lead to parent and child aggression and can cause the child to have low self-esteem and minimized self-worth (Paul, 2011).

On the other hand, permissive parents are kind and accepting but don’t implement safety measures or uphold rules. Thus, children can become entitled, depressed, or anxious (Paul, 2011). Even parents who were once authoritative will sometimes escalate their tendencies in order to counterbalance the strategies used in the other custodial home. This leaves kids ping-ponging between sometimes hostile perspectives and varying rules for conduct. They will often choose the more permissive parent due to their inability to recognize the long-term implications of their behaviors.

In response to these challenges, family law courts often refer or order parents to use educational resources like co-parenting classes, schedule sessions with supportive professionals like child psychologists, therapeutic and legal mediators; or even order minor’s counsel to represent the children’s best interests. Parents may also be ordered into individual or reunification therapy which can lead to positive change.

When working with co-parents, I strive to empathize with the very real challenges of single parents and working through issues that make kids hard to handle. I remind them the situation is usually temporary. In most circumstances, grudges heal and parents recognize that parenting must take priority over vindictiveness. Kids will eventually see manipulation, often resulting in delayed insight. Nobody wins. Patience, empathy, grace, and kindness help kids heal. Sometimes we all need lots of nudges and gentle reminders, whether it comes from family, friends, lawyers, judges, or mental health professionals. Kids come first.

Thank you to Ventura family law lawyer extraordinaire Joel Bryant for the valuable information he contributed to this GKIS article and to CSUCI intern Allie Mattina for her research. To best understand the complex developmental factors of family life and learn effective screen safety strategies, check out Screen Time in the Mean Time: A Parenting Guide to Get Kids and Teens Internet Safe. Full of developmental brain facts and helpful tips and information, setting structure and sensible teaching conversations is a great start to family safety and stability.