Reality TV for Social Emotional Learning
Many years ago, one of my dear children had watched a show about Ted Bundy, and explained to us that she saw him as a nice guy who had made some poor decisions. I saw much of the future happiness of our lives as a family flash before my eyes, because I realized that her pattern of viewing someone like Ted Bundy from an optimistic perspective could justify some really awful decisions for herself. There is an old adage that every parent is only as happy as their least happy child, and I would extend that adage to “Every family system is only as happy as the health of their children’s families.” It has long been my experience, both personally and professionally, that criticizing someone’s partner choice rarely results in them making a wiser choice. Most people will fight to justify their attachment with even more force to prove you wrong. So, what is a parent to do? A lot of our emotional learning comes from observation of others, which has led to working to engage in observation of others' relationships and relationship-related decisions, brought to us through our very helpful television.
Go ahead, judge away, but to really understand how relationships work, reality TV provides a ton of examples of what can go terribly, terribly wrong. Here are a few recommendations:
Southern Charm (2014-present; Bravo network) To me, Southern Charm provides some key characteristics for great social emotional learning. For one, the cast is pretty equally male and female, which helps create storylines from both the male and female perspective on dating relationships. For two, these people have HISTORY. I don’t just mean that their relationships with each other are not brand new, but some of the families featured in this series have deep roots in their community. The huge advantage of these deep roots is that you get to observe the relationship between dating partners and sometimes extended family members. Of the options that are available, there is greater opportunity for true relationships within this series, and you can also catch how even matches that can seem like great fits can fall apart within stressful circumstances. The early seasons also incorporate themes of unexpected pregnancy and efforts at parenting, lessons that are at times pretty hard to watch. Lastly, the people often have to navigate managing friendships beyond the explosions prompted by production, and learning how to have people in a shared friend group who had to overcome conflicts.
90 Day Fiance (2014-present; TLC network) Don’t let the name fool you, many of these relationships have gone for much longer than 90 days! The title comes from the 90 day period of the K-1 Visa, which allows someone to enter the US with the intent of marriage. Many of these relationships started on international dating sites, which was a totally new concept to me, since my dating history essentially precedes the internet. Each season follows many couples through their process of obtaining a K-1 Visa (not easy for citizens of many countries) and then their experience of cohabitation during the 90 days to make a decision about whether or not they actually want to get married. Spoiler alert, most do get married, which has really reinforced for me the high value of US citizenship. Major draws for this one are how the relationships started, the interactions and receptions of family and friends to the relationship, and how the couple tries to weigh many costs (financial, emotional, career) in forming their unions. I have to confess that I do often look up how long these marriages have lasted, and have been surprised by the outcome.
Love is Blind (2020-present; Netflix) Another spoiler, love is not actually blind. This one was enjoyable in the initial seasons, but has been less so as the seasons have progressed. For one, all participants trust that there is going to be some baseline attractiveness, but the ones in the later seasons seem to be pretty harsh on their pick, making the “experiment” feel even more hollow. My other challenge is the speed with which people develop these supposedly deep connections, which exceeds any expectations I would want people to have for a relationship. Lastly, we know that the producers encourage them to stay pretty inebriated for most of filming, which may overly normalize problematic substance use. On the other hand, more rich territory to process how substance use affects decision-making.
Married at First Sight (2014-present, Lifetime) We started watching this one mainly because season 3 was filmed in Charlotte, our home town, which gave us ample opportunity to look for familiar places throughout the series. The approach that they take to forming a match between two single people is quite interesting, and sparked some discussion about how much personality indicators should or can be trusted in forming a relationship. There tends to be a pretty hefty amount of family involvement and discussion about values, which is helpful to watch and process, but the final decision is still made in a very quick time frame, which feels less like the relationships I would want my teens to idealize.
As far as discussion questions/techniques, it is helpful to not be too obvious about your goal of using these programs to understand how they see relationships, so try to limit yourself to only one or two questions per program. Also, nothing shuts down conversation more than lecturing, so hold in your judgments as much as you can. An easy open ended question would be something like, “I wonder what made them pick that partner?” or “How do you think they felt when X happened?” We have had some pretty deep conversations about the experience of conflict between family members and chosen partners, and even how different people chose to try to repair conflicts that have occurred.
Luckily, my belief in my daughter’s relationship decision-making has been redeemed by a few key experiences over the past year. For one, I was able to actually witness how she makes decisions about her own partners, and, for two, we have completely bonded over our favorite programs, and some of the decisions these strangers made. I also have sworn never to mention Ted Bundy again….
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