Caillou

Seriously?! This show has a freaking terrible influence on kids. My niece was obsessed with this show and would throw tantrums and act out if you didn't put it on for her. She would act like Caillou all the time and be a brat and whine a lot. Even with her parents putting her on timeouts and giving appropriate punishments she would still act out every time she watched the show. When we had her watching other shows she never acted that way. I watched the show myself (several excruciating episodes) and I found it to have very bad influential instances, and it was often "silently" racist... I can't believe they ever aired this show on PBS... If I could give this show a zero rating I would... Whoever wrote/created this show must be clueless about parenting among many other things. I can see from reading the other reviews that a lot of people noticed the same things I did, so why didn't the people screening the show notice all of this terrible crap and halt the production? Freaking garbage show, man...

At first, I thought Caillou was great. While I prepared dinner, it kept my daughter occupied. My suggestion to all parents, give them something else to do! My daughter, who is now 2 1/2, has watched Caillou since she was about one. Now, she has been imitating his poor behavior! i could not figure it out! The two girls she plays with are very well behaved. And finally, one day after her swimming lesson, I allowed her to watch him as I prepared lunch. During the episode, Caillou's parents were having a dinner party. Caillou and his sister were to go to bed (as Caillou's parents hired a babysitter to do this! UNBELIEVABLE!) Not sure about the rest of you, but my husband and I do not hire a sitter, when it's time for our child to go to bed! Caillou carried on screaming with his annoying whine, "I don't want to!" Guess what-my daughter will not stop saying "I don't want to!" Well that is the end of that! Caillou is no longer allowed in our home! When my daughter asks, I keep telling her that Caillou is a very bad boy, and she is no longer allowed to watch him! SHAME ON YOU PBS! With such wonderful educational shows created in the past, I would have never dreamed to have to monitor your shows! I was wrong! SEX AND THE CITY teaches better manners!

"Caillou" is one of only two PBS for Kids programs who's appeal is totally lost on me...and my children don't like it either. Part of it is the vocal characterization of Caillou-who's whiney little voice is like nails on a chalkboard. Couple this with insipid dialogue and sickly-sweet plotlines and you've got a show that, despite it's intent, few kids will want to sit through, let alone learn from.

As a 45 year-old parent of a 4 year-old daughter I must say I have to agree with some other reviewers here - this show is terrible. I guess the developers of this show fail to understand that 4 year-olds will see Caillou as a role model and they do not get the character arc. So when Caillou is being whiny or ungrateful and he learns how to behave in the last few minutes of the show, what kids remember is the whininess, not the lesson.

Caillou is a horrible show that teaches kids how not to behave. My daughter actually started to behave much worse after being exposed to this show than she did before seeing it. At one point she even copied Caillou's style of tantrum - where he falls on the floor and kicks his legs while crying - on one level that was amusing but it was clear that our daughter was using the show to learn very bad behaviour. Thanks to the title lock on our DVR this show is now blocked and our daughter has once again become the sweet, well-mannered and happy 4 year-old she was before she saw Caillou.

I agree with the other comment about how bad this show is. Caillou is a 4-year-old kid and he does and says lots of bad things. It often takes several minutes of watching the show before he is castigated for it, and by that time, the children watching have forgotten that he did anything bad. Plus, the grandma voiceovers reinforce the badness. An example is that Caillou is supposed to go somewhere with his parents, while the grandma stays at the house and watches the baby. Caillou lays down on the floor and starts throwing a temper tantrum. The grandma voiceover says, "Caillou didn't want to go with his mommy and daddy." Then the parent moseys on in, says, "Caillou, time to go!" He cries and whines a bit, and then the parent says something like, "We're going to stop for ice cream on the way home," and Caillou jumps up, all happy, and goes. I feel this is poor programming to show to young children.

My son likes Caillou, but I won't let him watch it anymore. (He's 3, we stopped watching it when he was 2).

I wrote a nastygram to the Caillou email that's given on the PBS website, and got back a response as follows:

"The premise behind CAILLOU and his adventures is that they reflect the real life experiences and emotions of a 4-year-old child. However, we do take your comments seriously and we will share your concerns with the production team and their child development consultants."

I am sure that Caillou's "emotions" are pretty close to those of a 4-year-old! I'm just not sure that the Caillou adults handle him in an appropriate manner. I don't want my kids to expect the kind of treatment Caillou gets, when they act like he does.

Trivial thing: one of Caillou's stuffed animals is a T. Rex named (predictably) Rexy. Rexy claims that his favorite food is lettuce. If my son grows up thinking that T. Rex ate lettuce, I'm not doing my job as a parent!!