to not get the emphasis on friends in children's TV?

It’s one of favourite feel-good shows but I did grow up and realise how highly unrealistic it is for a group of friends to give that much of a shit about your welfare.

My experience is that usually only the most socially-powerful in the group will get that treatment - the rallying around for one person stuff. But the good treatment isn’t out of a deep feeling of connection, it’s about self-preservation of each members’ place in the group.

I would like to believe there are friend groups out there that are just groups of nice people that genuinely look out for each other.

But when I read posts of people that have that, I cant help thinking they’re just lucky to be in the place where nothing has happened yet. For example, one member losing weight, coming into money, or even going through a shit time. The thing that upsets the balance, causes one or two members to start talking crap said group member privately and there starts the segregation of the group.

On TV if a usually nice person acts like a dick their friends are “concerned” and set out to find out what’s wrong or collectively do something nice to cheer them up. In real life, if a usually nice person acts like a dick, we think they were a dick the whole time and all their previous nice acts are forgotten, we put up our barriers and harden up and get angry, tell everyone we know what they did, avoid, ignore or block.

Even in a playground setting, if a child does something bad the whole school can turn on them. If a child is alone, other children don’t feel sorry for them and invite them to join in, they just wonder why they’re on their own out of curiosity or think they’re weird and different. (The CBeebies friendship stuff isn’t sticking, perhaps?)

Then there are the rare people who will give you the clothes of their back and teach their children to do the same. These people are never celebrated, they are used.

Which was a bit misleading as it was more like "A woman, her brother and all the people they knew because they shared an apartment at one point". Plus Phoebe. And I think she actually lived with Monica before Rachel come to think of it.

I mean, didn’t we all have formative years with the biggest TV show in the world (and still the most streamed) being entirely focused on FRIENDS?

They focus on friends but in a young child context that simply means being kind and friendly to the people you are put in a room with whether at nursery, the playground, toddler group or the children of your parents friends - you don't make friends in a true sense until you are older than the age these are aimed at!

I used the word friends with my dd where in reality it was simply the offspring of those I managed to cajole into bringing to my home (I'm a decent cook and I hope friendly myself because my dd being autistic didn't make friends)

Interesting thread! I have an adult child and when he was young the popular kids shows were pretty balanced when it came to portraying friendships. One of his favorites (Arthur) had a diverse group of "friends" who regularly argued or drifted away. The emphasis was more on accepting other people's quirks and foibles rather than "be nice and you'll have a huge group of true friends".

Many studies point to friendship/social interaction as being one of the pillars of healthy aging and maintaining cognitive health. Isolation and loneliness are tied to mental decline in older people. The "I hate people/my " little family" is enough/I've gone no contact with everyone" contingent on MN may be vocal but they're likely in the minority (as well as in denial).

I think you might be onto something.
Bluey is the only show I really enjoy watching with my LO. I greatly prefer the episodes set within the family, the only time it feels idealised and unrealistic to me is episodes set at Bluey's school.

I completely agree with you. My daughter is at nursery and my DHs family constantly ask her whether she made any friends. Every day. The term 'friend' means so little to these little people, yet we constantly impose it upon them! It's always said with such desperation, mainly because our daughter is quite shy. I prefer to ask more open questions - who did you do that with? Did you enjoy that? Etc and just take it from there.

I've been thinking of this friendship thing recently.
I agree with you and it's also a big thing in social media/ tv/ films etc. for adults too.
I'm ( I think!) a good, kind and chatty person who will do favours for people, chat away to people etc. and seem to know most of our village to pass the time of day with.
But, apart from my husband I have no one I would call a friend but I am very happy with that. I used to have friends when i was much younger to go out with tec. but we just drifted apart and I'm happier with just my husband, children and small interactions with neighbours and school mums.
I get thoroughly fed up of having no friends as being seen as a character flaw; even on this thread one person has said "Isn't that what they're doing with the majority of the story lines anyway? They are kind and because they're kind, they have friends?" How about all the people who are kind and have no friends either through circumstance or choice?

This is such a shame. Of course kindness and acceptance should be taught and encouraged. But kids learn quickly and can see with their own eyes it's often the most unkind children who have others falling over themselves to be their friends. Being nice and kind is no guarantee if friendship at that age, if anything their experiences with others actively disincentivises it. I wish it weren't so.

The media in general is like this with adult friendships too. Lots of "partners come and go, friends are for life" when actually for me the reality is "friends also go and get their own partners/demanding jobs/have kids or adopt/look after their elderly parents but it's nice to occasionally catch up".

DS (ASD) is an adult now and has always found friends a bit over rated - he loves alone time. I grew up watching the show 'Friends' and was absolutely desperate to have what they had (never happened). I was also desperate for ds to have lots of friends and really pushed my own agenda.

Now I'm older again think he was right all along. Friends are nice but they come and go and have their own priorities, their own agendas and can often be pretty fickle and self absorbed. Then they move house/get a new job/meet someone they like better and you never see them again!
Now I'm good with friendships that are light and fun and probably not for long. I think kids tv is far too keen to portray friends as being the people that cure you of any and all unhappiness - or even the people who you rely on to save your life!

The idea of 'community' in many kids tv shows is also often incredibly unrealistic. Where everyone know the local postman/fireman/train driver/policeman/everyone who lives where they live. It's the same with adult tv if you think about the soaps for instance but obviously required for the plot and as others have said for kids/adults to get to know the characters.

And don't even start me on pets! Who (my age) didn't want a dog like Lassie and think their dog must be a be of a rubbish one? Then I graduated onto wanting a dolphin like Flipper......

The information that you are missing out on great friendships/communities/pets starts early on tv. And then kids graduate onto SM and have it even worse there!

I haven’t watched CBeebies for a few years now but it sounds like it hasn’t changed much and this was how I saw it.

The programmes are very inclusive and I found the overriding messages were basically about kindness and acceptance of differences. I think various kids tv shows across different channels did a ‘befriending a child who is new or struggling to fit in type of storyline’.

I think much of it is teaching children how to be a good friend and value people who are kind to you rather than how to get friends.

Oh and even the adventure shows like Dora the Explorer are ludicrously over-sugared with the friendship obsession!

(the film version is great though, when your kid is old enough to enjoy a spoof!)

I instinctively wanted to disagree with you OP but the more I think about it, the more I agree.

I am thinking of dd watching My Little Pony, so fixated on friendship and so saccharine it was almost unwatchable at times.

But then again we loved Charlie and Lola - a more balanced view of a sibling relationship with its own wobbles, but mostly about fun and creativity and the little dramas of childhood, not friendship. Fabulous. Much less likely to give you a toothache!

I am really enjoying this discussion! I wonder if it's just that there's a lot more choice, and in order to get us to watch stuff, creators have alwyas sold us an ideal. So to get us to watch their stuff over other stuff, everything ends up being focused on an ideal?

I think everyone is happier with friends, though?

And my nearly three year old is very sociable and very into friends, they're an important part of his life, and this is a key age for social skills. He recognises himself and his friends in what he sees on TV. I mean, it drives me mad, but Bing has episodes about friends falling out, name-calling, not getting to do the same thing that their friends do, etc.

I also think friends are important plot devices. Continous characters that the toddlers care about. DS can name all of the Octonauts, he talks about them, he wouldn't be as fussed about a random one he didn't know. He lost interest in Paw Patrol when they added a load more random dogs.

It's interesting that you specifically mention Mr Tumble, because the whole premise of that show is that anyone can be friends, and we should make sure everyone is included, and everyone can be kind. That seems like the messaging we should encourage?

But I'd also say that DS is really good at involving people and often plays with a non-verbal girl in the park, and it's probably through watching things like Mr Tumble that they both know the sort-of universal actions and gestures of friendship so they both know what they're trying to do. Because at 2, friends means that they play together and talk; not that they're going to be lifelong friends.

To be honest I think portraying friendship as a positive thing is important at the moment particularly. There’s so much propaganda at the moment from the introvert contingent (on here and elsewhere) around the idea that friendship is “too much drama” and people are better off living as hermits.

It’s true that some children struggle with it and can be sad and difficult and needs sensitivity but surely it’s better to model the idea that friendship is a) something that needs a bit of work and b) positive.

Part of learning social confidence comes from what parents model at home. If the parents are socially comfortable the children are likely to follow. If parents are freaked out by any social interaction and cocoon themselves in the family unit (as a lot of people seem to do these days) children are likelier to approach this from a place of fear.

If there’s a counter-narrative on tv underlining that friendship can be good for you that can only be a good thing.

Mm. I don't think the message is 'this is what you should expect from life' as much as 'this is how you should try to behave towards other people'. It's interesting that people read it as signalling something they should receive rather than give.

Its aimed at pre school children most of whom won't have friends aa such they will be learning to make friends at nursery, yes of course some children struggle with this and Cbeebies do try to be inclusive,even children with disabilities can make friends ,my son is severely autistic non verbal etc he's 14 whilst he doesn't have friends in the way that most people imagine, he gravitates to the people he likes most.

There certainly wasn't the same "friend" and emotional obsession in older kids tv from a couple of decades ago or longer.

The original Thomas the Tank Engine was brilliant for portraying "difficult" relationships, i.e. the almost hatred between steamies and diesels, the stroppy Cranky Crane, the Fat Controller who always had to restore order and make the engines behave and apologise for bad behaviour, etc. Real "education" about different character traits, different behaviours, etc.

Also far more purely "instructive/informative" stuff like Come Outside with Auntie Mabel and Pippin dog - no "emotional" stuff, just factual "how does this work" etc.