Peppa Pig Is Badly Behaved

THERE have been complaints about kids programme Peppa Pig on parenting website Mumsnet.  Apparently the little pig called Peppa and her younger brother George are a bad influence on children and some parents have even banned their kids from watching the programme altogether.

Parents have said the characters' naughty behaviour, such as jumping in puddles - Peppa's favourite pastime and shouting 'chocolate cake' - like George does when asked what he wants for breakfast, has encouraged children to copy their actions.

'The more I see, the more alarmed I am by the choice of behaviour put into this 'cartoon',' wrote one mother on the parenting website.
'George Pig, who my son loves, says 'Yuck' at vegetables and only wants to eat chocolate cake.

'A day after watching that episode, my son wouldn't eat his cucumber and tomatoes.'

 Another mum wrote: 'My daughter keeps saying 'No' and 'Yuk' in a really high and mighty way, just like Peppa does, and generally answering back when I ask her to do something.  Shall I ban Peppa Pig, or is that being totally unreasonable?'

Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman told one newspaper: "There's nothing special about Peppa Pig - the same applies to all programmes. Some 80 per cent of brain development is between birth and three years old, so if they spend lots of time watching the TV, they'll copy the forms of behaviours that they see on the TV.

"You can't distinguish to children what is real and pretend."

He added that in recent years there had been a increase in children using "adversarial, snide, questioning, confrontational and disrespectful behaviour", which he blamed on cartoons.

We asked a couple of parents from Manchester what they thought. 

Maria a mum of two living in Sale said  "I can't really see a problem with it, it's just harmless fun.  I think we parents read far too much into everything these days and it's got out of hand.  They are kids, they can relate to the characters in the cartoon because they do similar things themselves at home. Perhaps parents are just looking for someone or something to blame for their kids behaviour".

Steph from Whalley Range said "I can see where they are coming from.  My little boy is three and he copies loads of things he see's on TV. He repeats lines from characters and pretends to be them.  But if I started to ban him from watching kids programmes like Peppa Pig because of its influence, I'd have to stop him watching TV full stop. That wouldn't go down well."

Do you think that this programme is a bad influence or do you think parents are over reacting?  Is it just harmless fun or is it teaching kids the wrong things?

Whatever your view, let us know and leave your rant below.