Sesame Street is coming to Canberra on Tuesday as the much-loved children's institution devotes its entire 47th season to the concept of kindness in the face of a seemingly uncaring world.
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Sesame Workshop, the organisation behind the enduring television show, commissioned a survey of American parents and teachers in the face of an increasing number of news stories focused on anger, fear, bullying, and violence and also research which suggested narcissism was on the rise and empathy on the decline.
The survey found three-quarters of parents and almost four-fifths of teachers say they "often" worry the world is an unkind place for children.
Three-quarters of parents felt it was more important for their children to be kind than academically successful, according to the K is for Kind: A National Survey of Kindness and Kids.
The survey also found parents believed they were doing enough to ensure their children were kind and respectful while teachers thought they could be doing more.
Sesame Street's senior vice-president of Content and Curriculum Rosemarie Truglio said the decision was then made to focus on kindness for the entire 47th season of the television show to model empathetic behaviour, rather than just talk about it.
Sesame Street seems already infused with kindness but a deliberate approach was needed, Ms Truglio said.
"Sesame Street is probably one of the kindest streets in the world and our mission is to help children grow smarter, stronger and kinder," she said.
"The reason we're making it more explicit is that we want to start labelling these behaviours as kind behaviours. The reason for that is kindness is innate, it's in all of us but it has to be learned behaviour and it needs to be modelled, by other children, but more importantly, by other adults in their lives.
"So when we went out to talk to children and asked them, 'What is kindness?', they would say things like, 'You need to be nice to each other'. So it was very vague. We realised that we need to be explicit about the word kind and that kindness is about being mindful of what another person needs or wants. But kindness is also showing gratitude, being thankful, showing respect and having manners."
The developments come as Sesame Street is touring a new live show - Elmo's Super Fun Hero Show - around Australia, with shows in Canberra on Tuesday.
And as to whether Sesame Street was kind to long-time "residents" Bob, Gordon and Luis who were axed from the show? Ms Truglio says they will "always be part of our family" and will certainly pop up for the 50th anniversary celebrations in three years' time.
* The live Sesame Street show is on at the Playhouse at the Canberra Theatre Centre on Tuesday for three shows at 10am, 12.30pm and 3pm.
