What do you make of Tracey Beaker/The Dumping Ground?

[Devora]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times on MN before, but I"m really interested in hearing what this group of adopters make of Tracey Beaker. Do you let your children watch it? What impact does it have on them, if any?

Ds loves it (at least the more recent ones without tracey Beaker. It's OK for him he doesn't identify with it too closely and it gives us an opportunity to talk about how some parents aren't really capable of being parents and having children with them but how they aren;t necessarily all bad

I hate it! It gives my daughter completely wrong ideas about how she came to be a LAC and reinforces her feelings of low self-worth. It also brings a lot of attitude-y behaviour. I'm not unprepared for confrontation and I know it's a given as she gets older, but I loathe hearing something from a teenager in a tv programme coming out of my 8 year old's mouth.

So in the last week I have said she is not allowed to watch it anymore and explained why.

I really hate it as a programme.

Thanks, both. I feel torn about it. On the one hand, I think it's positive for dd to see representations of children in care, and I hope the storylines will help her to articulate her own story a bit. But but but... she is too young to be able to understand how the story is partly about where the arsey behaviour is coming from, and that it's not being applauded. And I do worry that she may be unable to process some of the painful feelings raised by the storylines - e.g. Tracy's idealisation of her absent mother. I think dd just accepts at face value Tracy's insistence that her mother is a fabulous being who is forced to be absent by the demands of her glamorous career.

Yes I do this your DD is a bit young for it - I don;t think DS started enjoying it (and being able to talk about the subtleties of how people aren't all bad or how people can make bad choices etc) until he was at least 8.

DS can also understand how TV is entertainment and it isn't necessarily realistic or at least not always.

I do THINK

But as as say it's easier for me as DS doesn;t really identify with it.

Yes, also, daughter doesn't get that they're actors. So she thinks that they 'understand' her and I have had to explain that they haven't had those experiences at all, they're acting a part that isn't real, the stories aren't real and even the writers haven't had those experiences.

She genuinely thought it was true.

Oh and that all the kids have been "dumped", little mention of being removed.

From experience especially in sibling situation's, Abuse can be physical and Emotional, the latter can be esteem , one child may attract physical abuse others none, but will feel guilty and apportion blame on them self's.
Some should say programmes like this do not accommodate the real damage and feeling of viewer's, who just do not need trigger's in their life which portray a fairy tale scenario.