Peppa Pig - Bad influence on children?

[PippaParry]

I am a stay at home mum to my 2 year old son, Dexter (Dex). He has loved Peppa Pig since I can remember and for his Christmas last year he received all the Peppa Pig toys available from ourselves (me & my partner) & out families.

He especially loves George, I am guessing he detects they are of similar age & relates to his love for Dinosaurs, Rockets & Trains. As apposed to Peppa who likes things like teddies, fairies etc. Up until recently we never had Sky so his only opportunities to watch Peppa Pig was through DVDs we had bought him and 2 (5 minute) episodes in the morning which we would often miss anyway. The episodes on the 3 DVDs we have seemed fine, there was nothing I noticed that would influence Dex into behaving badly or repeating words or actions I didn't approve of.

We have had sky for a short while now and I have Peppa Pig on series record so we have 100+ episodes readily available, he has (quickly) learned that Peppa Pig can be played at any time and also knows that the advertisements can be skipped by fast forwarding. This has resulted in him wanting Peppa on most of the time, the majority of that time I tell him it's not "TV" time yet and he will have to wait (I don't want him glued to the TV at the age of two so we play with his toys whilst learning, singing, reading, watching videos on youtube that helps him count past 10 etc) as I don't want him watching TV all day.


Peppa has been on quite a lot non the less and I am constantly seeing new episodes I haven't seen before. The more I see the more alarmed I am at the choice of behavior put into this "cartoon".

Firstly, George Pig (who my son loves and in a way, looks up to) does nothing but cry, he cries over silly things and this is always welcomed by Mummy & Daddy Pig. I do not want my son thinking it is acceptable to cry for something he wants and that adults retaliate by giving them the item they are crying for. Luckily, he hasn't seemed to pick up on this and knows that he ASKS for something and if he isn't allowed, he isn't allowed - crying will not change that.

George also says "YUCK" at vegetables and only wants to eat chocolate cake. He ends up eating the veg when they are manipulated to make a dinosaur shape. Again, my son is really good with his veg but a day after watching that episode wouldn't eat his Cucumber & Tomatoes. I didn't want to cut them up to make them into a Dinosaur just so he would eat them as I know he loves his veg.

Peppa is very, very cheeky & bratty. The adults never seem to have much of a say in the house. They both (P & G) blow raspberries in temper. There is an episode where it's a talent contest in school & Peppa grits her teeth and shouts at her friend, again - not something I want being picked up by my toddler. Dex is a lone child so this isn't a big worry for me but Peppa is nasty to her little brother and constantly reminds everyone of how he can't do things because he's only little.

There was an episode where they were baking Daddy Pig a cake for his birthday, they stir the mixture and George starts being very rough and flicking the mixture everywhere, not something I took notice of until we baked some cakes ourselves and Rex purposely started flicking the mixture on the cupboards etc. Before he watched that episode he had always mixed nicely, of course getting messy but not on purpose.

They go into Daddy Pigs work and basically cause havoc which is widely accepted by all, they hammer the buttons on the computer and print lots of paper out and everyone just laughs.

My biggest worry is the abuse given to Daddy pig about his weight. Peppa is constantly making rude remarks about "Daddys big fat belly". He wasn't allowed in her tree house because he was too fat. When these remarks are made, mummy pig also laughs. Myself or my partner are slim but I dread Dex calling somebody fat or the like.

I almost fell off my chair a year ago when I heard a friend had stopped her child from watching Peppa Pig as this show was the only one I sort of trusted my son to watch as it seemed cute, family orientated, morally good!

My dillemia is, my son totally loves Peppa Pig (& nothing else really) so it would be very harsh to not allow him to watch it. I haven't got the time to review all the episodes before he watches them. I do however sometimes mute the TV when I know a bad bit is coming up, specifically the ones about Daddy being fat. I'm going to look like a right snotty nosed mare but I've put 100% into bringing my son up the right way and demonstrating good morals for that to be thrown away by a silly childrens program.

[OhWhatAPalaver]

I notice that this thread has gone a bit wayward but just wanted let the op know that I stopped my eldest watching peppa as her behaviour became appalling after watching it for a while. The thing that pissed me off the most was that George basically just says no to everything, which she copied as she obviously saw it as acceptable. After a while of not watching it her behaviour improved again but it did cause problems for some time while I had to remind her what good behaviour was. Plus it's shit anyway , postman pat is much better 😄

[OhWhatAPalaver]

Christ.... didn't realise how old this thread is.... oh well. Had a good laugh though 😄