A sad Bingo snuggles Floppy in the Bluey episode, Sleepytime. Ludo Studio / BBC
I’m not sure who loves Bluey more: my kids or, well, me.
No, actually, I do. It’s me. I know the names of most of the characters; Sleepytime is flat-out my favourite episode (I cry every time I watch it); and when I heard there was a Bluey movie in production, I actually gasped.
The show is often praised for it’s progressive approach to parenting – and for being entertaining, even for adults.
And it turns out there’s yet another reason to tune in to the Australian children’s TV show…
While the parenting lessons are great (they’re often either highly amusing, or heart-wrenchingly relatable), so too are the lessons kids can take away from the show – in particular, the themes of resilience, according to a new study.
Why is resilience important?
Resilience is the ability to cope when something difficult or bad has happened – it’s important for kids to learn and build on throughout their lives.
With one in five young people (aged 8-25 years old) in England thought to have a mental health disorder, and a health service that’s struggling to cope with demand, a lot of talk in the UK has recently shifted to improving children’s resilience as a solution.
Experts believe that encouraging better resilience in children and young people would help equip those with low-level mental health problems with improved coping skills.
You can read more on building resilience in kids, here.
If you haven’t yet watched the cartoon series, it follows a blue dog called (yep, you guessed it) Bluey, her younger sister Bingo and their parents as they try to navigate life’s highs and lows.
Researchers had the enviable task of watching 150 episodes (all three seasons) and found almost half of the episodes (48.7%) featured resilience as either a primary or secondary theme.
Bluey, the main character, featured in 54.8% of resilience storylines. Parents were the main facilitators (64.4%), with Bluey’s mum Chilli being the most common (46.6%).
Researchers concluded that the popular TV show frequently portrays resilience-building behaviours, especially through family relationships and coping strategies.
“These findings highlight Bluey as a strong example of how children’s television can support emotional learning and model adaptive behaviours relevant to real-life challenges,” the researchers said.
In a linked piece for The Conversation, one of the study’s authors, Bradley Smith, senior lecturer in Psychology at CQUniversity Australia, pointed out that research shows “the earlier we support resilience-building, the better”. And that early interventions can help build healthy coping skills.
He added: “Storytelling in films, books and TV can show children how to navigate challenges – not through lectures, but by modelling behaviours like emotional regulation, problem-solving and empathy.”
While TV shows can’t replace parenting and real relationships, Smith encouraged parents to watch episodes with their kids and to use them as conversation starters to discuss themes of resilience.
For example, he suggested you could ask them: what do you think Bluey felt then? Or, what would you do in that situation? Or how would you feel if that happened to you?
“Talking about what kids see on screen can help them reflect, process, and build the skills they need to cope, adapt and grow,” he added.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com ’
