Don’t Make Stupid Children Stupider

(Stupider really is a word? Go figure.)

Two shows have recently had episodes that really annoyed me.

On an episode of Hannah Montana, Miley fails her driving test and can’t take it again for a while, so she decides to go back and take it again as Hannah. Did it not occur to her that even if she manages to pass it this time—assuming that the instructor that caused her to fail just hours earlier would suddenly not be there to fail her again—that she would be getting a Hannah Montana license? Did it not occur to her that she would not be able to use it as Miley, and that she could not show it off at school as she was so anxious to do (remember the whole premise of the show is that she keeps her identity as Hannah a secret, even at school). Duh! (Of course her logical failure bit her in the butt that night when a cop pulled her over for forgetting to turn off her turn signal and requested to see her license.)

Soon after, Secret Life of the American Teenager did an episode where Amy and Ben decided to elope, but being minors, had to get fake IDs to do so. Did it not occur to them that their so-called marriage is nothing more than a frace, amounting to no more than a school play? The marriage is not legal in any way since 16-year-old Amy and Ben did not get married, but rather the 40+ year-old people named in their fake IDs did (why didn’t they at least use their own names when they had the IDs created?)

Yes, you can write these episodes because most younger kids are probably not going to realize how dumb it is, but that just makes it worse. By providing little kids with these sorts of scenarios, their logic and reasoning abilities will develop badly.

Don’t make dumb kids dumber.

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