If ‘Barney’ Was Your Favorite TV Show As A Kid, You Have Some Pretty Special Gifts As An Adult
The loveable dinosaur taught quite a few lessons that seem to have stuck with his fans.
Lester Balajadia | Shutterstock We all remember the good old days when we would sit in front of the TV on Saturday mornings or in the afternoons when we got home from school and watch all of our favorite kids’ shows. For decades now, “Barney and Friends” has been a perennial favorite.
A lot of adults will think of Barney with fondness. However, those same adults probably don’t think that watching hours of “Barney” when they were little had anything to do with the person they became. One TikToker thinks being a Barney fan is something that follows you throughout your life, though, and it says a lot about who you are now.
If ‘Barney’ was your favorite TV show, you’re probably a very loving, caring adult.
A woman named Nesha, known as @blackpearlintention on TikTok, shared a video with her thoughts on how loving Barney as a kid affects you as an adult. “‘Barney’ being your favorite TV show when you were a child was because he gave you something that your inner child needed, and it also can tell [you] what gifts you may have today as an adult,” she said.
She went on to explain what loving Barney meant for you as a kid, and now as an adult. “The characteristics of Barney [are] unconditional love, belonging, safety, [and] inclusion,” she said. “So that means, like, as a child, you probably needed to feel safe for just being you. This can mean that you are a visualizer, a dreamer, and you have a huge imagination.”
Barney’s focus on loving others and teaching lessons through music was likely very impressionable for you if you were a fan. “It means that at a soul level, you are a community-hearted person,” she continued. “Maybe even an empath. You probably often create safe spaces for people. Or, um, music. You probably really still love music and [are] even an auditory learner.”
Nesha actually researched this topic to learn more about herself.
It may sound like Nesha is just naming random traits associated with Barney, but it turns out that there is a science to this. She put a lot of research into the topic because of her own childhood. “Now, I researched this because this is how I had to find out who I was at my core, when … I remembered how much I really loved Daisy,” she stated.
“As an adult, some of your gifts might carry over,” she added. “Like, you may be really good at mothering people or even re-mothering yourself. Um, you make people feel heard and you make them feel safe.”
Watching ‘Barney’ and then repeating the behavior you saw on the show in your own life could be what’s known as observational learning.
All of the traits that Nesha shared that adults might have picked up on from watching “Barney and Friends” as a kid are ones that Barney exemplifies as a character. According to psychosocial rehabilitation specialist Kendra Cherry, MSEd, this could be a sign of observational learning. She said, “Observational learning is defined as the process of learning by watching others, retaining the information, and then later replicating the behaviors that were observed.”
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Observational learning is most commonly seen in real-life situations. Cherry added, “Children learn how to behave and respond to others by observing how their parent(s) and/or caregivers interact with others.” However, if a child is repeatedly watching a character like Barney, who they perceive as being safe and trustworthy, it makes sense that they would pick up on his behavior and the behavior he celebrates as well.
Barney wasn’t a perfect example, just like any character or person in real life. But he had a lot of good qualities that kids could learn from, as is the pattern with children’s TV shows. His compassionate, gentle nature clearly made an impact on the kids who grew up watching him.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
