Misguidance of Dora the Explorer

I have a serious concern about the lessons being taught to kids these days from popular children's shows.  Dora the Explorer (almost rhymes) lives in a magical rain forest where her animal friends wear clothes and rainbows can talk.  My kids don't live in that world.  We live in Minnesota where animals are forced to wear clothes by their owners and the only rainbows we see are on the backs of Subarus. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of parent that expects TV to raise my kids.  But with that said, I don't have a problem with them watching these kinds of kid shows...most of the time.  In one episode, Dora encounters a bunch of snakes in the middle of the road.  So what does Dora do?  She gives them cookies.  She later meets up with an angry bear.  Hrm, I wonder what should be done about this bear.  Oh look, they're all singing a song together!

OK, that's fun right?  But then I started thinking about what would happen if my own kids found themselves in these same situations.  I sure as hell wouldn't want them to try and sing to a bear, or even worse, try to force feed a bunch of snakes some Oreos.  These are not the lessons I'd want my children taking with them the next time they are wandering the wilderness on their way to gumdrop mountain to return a missing hug to the Smiley Time Gang.

So let's recap.  Here's what Dora the Explorer suggests you do if you ever were to encounter an angry bear:

As an overprotective dad, I would not recommend this at all.  Instead, I would suggest the following option:

But since bear hunting in Minnesota is not year round (and the fact that M would kill me if I let our kids carry guns), we're going to have to get a little more creative.

One useful option would be to remain perfectly still and try to blend in with your natural surroundings:

If you have kids, you will know that asking them to stay perfectly still in a life or death situation would be like asking them to NOT eat that ice cream cone they just dropped on the kitchen floor.  Like it or not, it's just not going to happen.

So instead, I thought that kids should do what they do best - create a diversion and run like hell:

Granted the chances of having a blind fold and large stick on hand, plus the fact that dear old dad wouldn't see the bear in the first place is a long shot, but as I am constantly telling M during situations like this, "Point out your plot holes elsewhere!"

Hope this helps...

-Cheers!