JDaniel doesn’t have trouble with  low self-esteem at this point in life. He is confident about what he knows, how he looks, and who he is. I am working hard to help him have a good and positive self esteem. His self image shouldn’t be filled with arrogance or cockiness but I would like for him to like who he is.

We try to control what he sees and reads. I strongly believe that children can take in ideas from everything they are exposed to and those ideas can lead them to fears, misbelieves and confusing concepts. (JDaniel is only four. I know I won’t be able to always do this.)

Guess what I ended up exposing him to? A horrible cartoon with a terrible message. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was too late to stop it. I guess I could have stopped it and maybe should have stopped it, but I let him watch it and talked to him about it as he did.

Here is what happened:

JDaniel and I were at my mom’s house last Friday afternoon. My mom has her TV. on a lot and it was on when we were there. JDaniel noticed the TV wasn’t turned to a kid’s network and he asked her to change the station.

She changed it to a cartoon network and we proceeded to watch a Tom and Jerry cartoon called Downhearted Duckling. Jdaniel has watched Tom and Jerry cartoon with my husband and it hasn’t ever been a problem so, I said it would be alright.

Downhearted Duckling is about a duckling that reads the story the Ugly Duckling and decides he is too ugly to live. He tells Jerry that he is too ugly to live and he won’t believe him. Jerry tries to clean him up and dress him up. He still thinks he is ugly and wants to die.

The duckling then spends the rest of the show trying to be Tom the Cat to eat him. Tom doesn’t know the duckling has a problem and just wants to eat lunch.

At the end of the show a girl duck walks by the duckling who is now wearing a bag on his head. He sees her and tries to run away. She stops him and tells him that he is cute after the bag is removed.

I am glad the duckling finally sees that he isn’t ugly. I am glad he decides to live. I am so upset that a cartoon exists and is being shown at a time when children might be watching it. Some of those children maybe watching it on their own without some sitting beside them telling them the message is wrong.

I know there are children that feel ugly or unlovable. I think that they would totally take what this duckling was saying and his feelings to heart. Maybe they won’t, but I really hate to think that they would.

Beyond this terrible cartoon (This is my opinion of it.) there are so many messages being sent to our children young and old about how to look and what is handsome or pretty.

The duckling did what lots of kids do. He didn’t wait to see how things would turn out. He took the message that fit how he was feeling about himself and he ran with it.

If he had read the story to the end, he would have seen that the ugly duckling had a tough time, but he grew up to be swan.

Whether children grow up to be beautiful on the outside like a swan or beautiful on the inside or both, I want them all to grow up knowing they are each gifted, special , and unique.

I want them to understand that it is totally impossible to be someone else. They can emulate other people and work on areas they would like to improve, but each of them is wonderfully made.

How do I know that I read it is a trust worthy book that shares the truth?

This truth is I want my son to cling to:

“..I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful…” (Psalm 139:14)

The duckling in the cartoon needs to learn that or he will be back to thinking badly about himself if the girl duckling ever ends their relationship.

My son needs to know that who he is wonderful and special. He may not always here that from the world, but I am working on helping to bury that truth in his heart. I think the duck could have used that too. He had such trouble with his low self esteem.

Disclaimer: I purposely didn’t link to the cartoon I mentioned in this post. If you want to view it, you can find it on Youtube.com. I was afraid to have this post lead traffic to something I don’t want to see have a rise in views.

This post is linked to Pour Your Heart Out and Alpabe Thursday.