PBS Kids Songs

Who says kids shows aren’t educational? Because I sure have learned a lot of tips PBS kids songs.

When my oldest was almost 2 years old, we found some great shows on PBS kids. These PBS kids songs are really helpful for learning ways to deal with toddler emotiosn.

One of the best at talking about emotions and feelings, with catchy songs, is Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

For those who don’t know what the Daniel Tiger show is, it’s the newer cartoon spin off of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. The main character is Daniel Tiger, who was also a part of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood land of make believe characters in the original series.

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Daniel Tiger teaches children life lessons in a fun, song & dance kind of way, much like Mister Roger’s Neighborhood did. I loved Mister Rogers growing up and when I found this show I knew my toddler would love it too!

So as time went by of watching this show, my toddler and I eventually learned all the songs and catchy phrases. Because lets be honest parents, you know the songs and phrases of your kiddos favorite shows because you’ve seen them over a thousand times in a week (or even a day), am I right?

Daniel Tiger is one of those shows that has catchy songs and phrases that kids remember and actually can learn from. They are simple, straightforward and honest with kids.

This is how they learn! Repetition and simplicity.

So after weeks of watching repeat episodes and eventually buying some seasons on iTunes, we both learned all the songs and these songs helped me connect and teach my toddler in a way that she UNDERSTOOD and wouldn’t fight with me.

Now before we get into the phrases and stuff that I use that WORK, I just have to disclaim this:

I parent my child.

I am fully aware that parents are their child’s first teacher and I have taught my children many things about feelings and how to handle themselves.

But there are just sometimes when I am exhausted, run down and need a new perspective on parenting tips. This is where Daniel Tiger came into play.

I do not rely on Daniel Tiger to parent my kids. Now that we got that out of the way, here are my examples of how Daniel Tiger gave me my sanity back.

(For more sanity saving hacks, check out this mom hack post)

For example, when we are out at the park or a friends house to play my daughter would throw a huge fit when it was time to leave, to the point I would have to carry her out kicking and screaming.

She would scratch me, I would yell, it was just plain ugly. We’ve all been there! It’s no fun, everyone’s starring at you and it just always ends in tears.

Now after learning some catchy phrases and tunes from Daniel Tiger, we can now leave the park in peace. I just chime the phrase, “its almost time to stop, so choose one more thing to do”.

This lets her know, hey it’s almost time to stop so pick one more thing before we go. But instead of me explaining this to her, singing it in the same tune Daniel Tiger’s family does, allows her to remember the episode and know its time to go.

Now I let her choose one more thing and when she’s done I sing, “that was fun, but now its done!” And she sings it after me and we leave. No tears, no screaming! It’s like magic.

I vividly remember the first time I did this out in public. I probably got some weird stares from other parents, but when my toddler stopped and actually followed me to the car they were all shocked!

She listened without the tantrum! I was in awe my first time and thought, ‘okay this might actually work!’ And it did.

Now there are some days that she will still beg to keep playing and I just repeat the song and say “next time” and then we repeat the same steps as listed above.

She is now almost 4 and to this day, I still sing the “almost time to go” song and she knows its time to stop playing.

Her little sister, who isn’t even 2 yet, is now catching on and it has made play time and outings much more enjoyable!

Another example of what Daniel Tiger has taught me is what to say to her when she has different feelings.

Daniel Tiger goes through every emotion and feeling in his episodes from sadness, frustration, empathy, happiness, scared, anger, etc.

There is a catchy phrase for each of these, but the one I use most is, “when you feel so mad, that you wanna roar, take a deep breathe and count to four”.

https://youtu.be/DFojWGH-I-c

This lets her know that I am validating her feelings of feeling angry and its okay she feels that way, but she needs to take a deep breathe and calm down instead throwing a major meltdown, so we can get to the bottom of why she is feeling that way.

Another good one I recently used because she just started school was the “grown ups, come back” song.

Daniel Tiger’s mom and dad leave on a trip and his grandpa babysits him and when Daniel Tiger is sad because they are leaving his mom and dad sing that tune to him to let him know grown ups always come back when they leave.

I started singing this song when we would leave for a few hours for date nights or to run errands and she would stay behind with her Grammie.

I started it young so now that she is in school, she has the tune and PROOF that mama and daddy always come back.

Daniel Tiger isn’t only helpful to my kiddos to help them figure out their feelings and how to handle situations, it is also helpful to parents to learn to validate their kids feelings as well as maybe provide some tips and tricks to parent along the way.

Daniel Tiger has saved my sanity some days and most days, when I implement the tricks, it’s an all around better day in our household.

If you want to have the Daniel Tiger videos on hand, they have all the seasons on iTunes as well as you can purchase their favorites from Target for $5-$10.