Thanks to Safety, the Wiggles are now doing safety. Helped along by the Queensland Government (read Regulator). The Wiggles audience are toddlers and pre-schoolers. The influence and income of the Wiggles are remarkable. For those in other countries, the Wiggles are a children’s troupe of musicians, actors and performers. They were formed in 1991 as a spinoff from a rock band, the Cockroaches who were struggling to make a buck. It’s a business success story with an annual turnover of $20 million, way more than many rock bands would dream.

The Wiggle influence is substantial which is why the Government is now paying the Wiggles to ‘tell’ the messages of Safety. In the Wiggle way, the messages are musical, have actions and catchy tunes. You can see some of their safety videos here:

Electrical safety

The message is, don’t risk it, get a grown up to do it for you, electricity is dangerous.

If you want to see more, there is this ‘Learn About safety’

The language is: ‘wiggle and learn’, ‘safety is what we like’, ‘safety first’ and ‘if it’s dangerous, ask a grown-up’.  The word ‘danger’ and ‘dangerous’ are repeated constantly. And on the surface, this all looks grand. Of course, developmentally and perceptually, differentiation in such matters is way beyond any child aged 2-5 years of age. And, there’s always the issue of parenting and neglect is most associated with low socio-economic conditions. Even then, how many parents actually take note of the message?

Whenever Safety is present, the most important questions that need to asked about trade-offs and by-products are rarely asked. The trouble with Safety is, it believes that any message about safety is an effective and good message. This is at best safety naivety and at worst dangerous, fostering in the long run an anti-safety message. We see this all the time in how Safety desensitises people to risk through blind messages of risk aversion, indoctrination and hyper-safety.

In this case, the same people who say ‘fun’ are the same people doing the same actions saying ‘don’t’.

The trouble is, the basic message is about risk aversion and control. This kind of repetition is little more than indoctrination, conditioning children to be fearful and risk averse. All sponsored by regulators who have no idea that Risk Makes Sense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risk-makes-sense/ ). Nor does the regulator have any idea about the nature of learning.

And the safety crusaders clap and cheer because they want to get in their safety indoctrination from the cradle to the grave. One of the reasons they love this is because they know that adults are not receptive to their message and they think getting in early will condition children to receive the message positively. Have they got news for when these kids become teenagers!

Yet, all risk aversion does is supress anti-learning.

The message should be about guided risk taking with parents not give over control to parents to do things for you.

Of course, the Wiggles count their bank balance doing the indoctrination for the masters but it’s not the right message. It’s just the only message Safety knows. Just more dumb down safety, well done.