Best Children’s Shows

 

Scoring Process

Jerrica created The TV Rubric using a combination of current screen-time research along with her extensive background in child development and early childhood education.

 
 
  • Upon scoring nearly 100 children’s TV shows by popular request, it became obvious that the vast majority of shows for young children, especially those advertised as “educational”, are fast-paced and attention-grabbing with high-stress scenes and developmentally inappropriate modeling of negative behavior.

    Only a handful of children’s shows have passed the rubric. These shows are slow-paced with natural color tones. They do not use unnatural visual effects such as dancing letters, swirling shapes, flashing colors, or high-contrast backgrounds to hold the child’s attention. They speak in normal voices and use rich vocabulary within character conversations. The high-quality storylines provide context for the vocabulary and they are careful not to distract from character conversations with loud music and/or distracting sound effects.

    Most importantly, they model kindness, empathy, friendship, prosocial skills, and emotional intelligence.

    Of course, this rubric and the overall scoring process is highly subjective. However, many parents have reported a dramatic improvement in their young child’s sleep, play, mood regulation and behavior simply by replacing their typical shows with better ones.

  • The following shows score 69/100 or lower on the rubric, meaning these shows are most likely to lead to challenges with sleep, mood, behavior & attention.

    Animal Planet

    Animanimals

    Arthur

    Baby Einstein

    Backyardigans

    Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures

    Barney and Friends

    Beat Bugs

    Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom

    Blippi

    Blues Clues

    Bo on the Go

    Buster the Bus

    Carl's Carwash

    Chip and Potato

    Clifford

    Cocomelon

    Cory Carson

    Daniel Tiger

    Franklin

    Gabby's Dollhouse

    Hey Bear Sensory TV

    If I Were an Animal

    Little Baby Bum

    Max and Ruby

    Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

    Numberblocks

    Octonauts

    Paw Patrol

    Peppa Pig

    PJ Masks

    Pocoyo

    Shaun the Sheep

    Simon

    Songs for Littles (Ms. Rachel)

    Spirit Riding Free

    Super Why

    Super Wings

    Teletubbies

    The Wiggles

    Waffles & Mochi

 
Llama Llama
Jerrica Sannes Jerrica Sannes

Llama Llama

Review of Children’s TV Show: Llama Llama

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Bug Diaries
Jerrica Sannes Jerrica Sannes

Bug Diaries

Review of Children’s TV Show: Bug Diaries

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Please note that all scores will vary slightly depending on episode, and that all children will have varying tolerance levels for screen-time. Positive behavior is not guaranteed. Always use your child’s behavior as a guide.