Yep, with the release of new Bluey episodes in the U.S. a few weeks ago, I’m on this kick again. While I’ve written broadly about the spirituality in Bluey, I want to spend some time looking at a specific aspect of the show: the creators’ sensitivity to child psychology and educational theory. In particular, Bluey and her friends attend a Waldorf-style school run by a kind Australian Shepherd named Calypso who has a knack for addressing their various psychological and emotional needs through guided play and storytelling. With its comforting music, serene color palate, and helpful parenting lessons, Bluey has a very therapeutic quality to it already, but some of the scenes at Bluey’s school read like case studies in a developmental psych text book. In fact, let’s look at some case studies!

Two quick disclaimers:
(1) If you’re not already familiar with the incredible Australian children’s show, Bluey, check out this post and go explore the show on Disney+ or YouTube! From here on, I’ll be assuming some familiarity with the show’s cast of canine characters.

(2) I am NOT a child psychologist. I’m a chaplain, so while I regularly work adjacent to child and adolescent psychological issues, and my care is informed by psychological theory, my primary lens is spirituality. As such, everything written here is from the perspective of a layperson, not an expert.

How Does Calypso’s School Work?
Calypso’s Glass House Primary School strongly resembles the Waldorf style of education popularized by Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th Century. Steiner argued that young children learn best through imaginative play in a safe environment with built-in routines of free play, artistic work, outdoor time, and group activities (including music and story times). Waldorf schools tend to have simple toys to encourage imagination, and the buildings themselves feature a strong emphasis on natural tones and materials (both in the interior and exterior design). Calypso’s school is ticking every box so far, but perhaps what’s most impressive about her style (and most similar to a Waldorf school) is the gentleness with which Calypso encourages children to engage one another. Even when she has to reprimand the kids, it’s never harsh, and rather than using “timeouts” or other punishments, she invites the children to explain what happened from their different points of view (as seen in “Early Baby”) and then reassigns them to play with different peers (as seen in “Mums & Dads”). Calypso approaches every situation with an attitude of growth, learning, and even healing. Her goal isn’t so much to provide an education in reading, writing, and arithmetic (though I’m sure these are being taught to some degree off screen); her goal is to create psychologically, socially, and spiritually healthy kids. But what does all this look like in practice?

Jack the Jack Russell Terrier: ADHD
Let’s start with the most obvious case study. The episode “Army,” introduces viewers to Jack, a Jack Russell terrier who has had problems at other schools due to his short attention span, issues with memory, and inability to sit still. Though never explicitly stated to have ADHD, every conversation around Jack indicates there’s an attention-related diagnosis, and Jack is deeply embarrassed by this. Having run out of other options, Jack’s parents enroll him in Calypso’s school, and Calypso pairs Jack with a kind but headstrong Red Kelpie named Rusty (we’ll get to his stuff later). Jack quickly confesses his issues with attention and hyperactivity to his new playmate, so Rusty appoints himself to be Jack’s drill sergeant in a game of “Army” (which is a dedicated recreation of basic training as described by Rusty’s dad— again, more on that later). Through this highly structured play guided by a trusted peer, Jack finds himself more able to remember things and follow directions. In fact, the entire episode is framed as Jack flawlessly recounting his day to his parents— something which has virtually never happened before because of his issues with memory.

Of course, what makes this episode so special is the way Rusty’s game not only provides Jack with structure; it provides him with meaning and purpose and companionship. Sure, he’s still got the hyperactivity, but Rusty’s passion for the game snags Jack’s attention in a way he hasn’t experienced before. This episode, perhaps more than any other, showcases Calypso’s teaching (and healing) style. By identifying children with complementary needs and then pairing them together for play, Calypso sets her students up to inspire and help each other. While Jack will certainly need additional help dealing with his ADHD, Rusty —and, by proxy, Calypso— has found a way to reach him. And speaking of Rusty…

Rusty the Red Kelpie: Parental Attachment and Masculinity
Every game that Rusty plays seems to come back to his dad— well, maybe not even specifically his dad, but a general archetype of the heroic male leader. When the kids play “explorers” or “astronauts,” Rusty is always the captain. In “Army,” Rusty is the drill sergeant. In the episode “Early Baby,” Rusty is the heroic knight who saves the princess but is gravely wounded in the process. Masculinity, leadership, and self-sacrifice are built into every game Rusty plays— he’s a very serious little kid! Of course, while children Rusty’s age tend to focus heavily on rules and structure and fairness anyway (more on this in the section about Coco), it seems like there’s more going on here.

The episode “Army” gives us a little more insight into Rusty’s whole deal. Having spent most of the day pretending to be Jack’s drill sergeant, Rusty finally gets a question that makes his face light up: “How do you know so much about the army?” Rusty explains that his dad is in the army and has to be away on patrols and deployments often. Perhaps, with his dad’s frequent absences, Rusty has started to idealize his dad into the sort of hyper-masculine character Rusty plays in his games. While Rusty and his dad share an affectionate embrace at the end of the episode, perhaps Rusty has just enough insecure attachment that he feels the need to recreate his dad over and over again throughout every game. Rusty’s dad can’t be physically present with him as often as Rusty wants, so Rusty instead becomes an idealized version of his dad through play.

(Quick sidebar: The show creators chose not to show Rusty’s dad’s face in “Army,” and I love this. We the viewers are not shown what Rusty’s dad really looks like; we have to rely on Rusty’s description of this larger-than-life figure. I’ve heard that the season 3 episode “Cricket” explores their relationship even more, but it is yet to air in the U.S.)

Thankfully, just as Rusty helps Jack to grow, other characters help Rusty grow. Rusty’s hardline views on masculinity become a source of conflict when he plays “Mums & Dads” with the more progressive Indy, and Indy ultimately helps Rusty to consider a more nurturing aspect of masculinity and fatherhood. In the episode “Shops,” Rusty joins a game after it’s started, and rather than forcing his way into a leadership role, he graciously accepts the part of “shopkeeper’s assistant” instead. All this represents growth for Rusty, who must learn that there’s a lot more nuance to the world (and to himself) than his earlier views allowed. And speaking of characters finding nuance…

Coco the Poodle: Developmental Theory and Birth Order
The season 1 episode “Shadowlands” is one of the earliest times where the Bluey creators tip their hand that this is a show about how kids grow and learn. In the episode, we see Bluey and Snickers the Dachshund playing a game of “shadowlands” with their friend Coco. In the introduction to the episode, we see that Coco has an annoying tendency of bending a game’s rules to give herself an advantage, and this frustrates the more fairness-focused Bluey and Snickers. Unlike Bluey and Snickers (who simply accept that they have to follow a game’s rules “because they’re the rules!” No), Coco is starting to ask why games have rules in the first place. The episode ultimately resolves when Coco lands on her own answer: rules make a game more challenging, and thus more fun.

The psychologist Jean Piaget was a pioneer of developmental psychology. Piaget noticed that, often around age 6 or 7, children begin to shift into a much more concrete and organized style of thinking before again undergoing a big shift into more abstract thought with the start of adolescence. Albert Einstein famously described Piaget’s theory as “so simple only a genius could think of it,” and Erik Erikson, James Fowler, and others would refine Piaget’s theory into the more familiar stages of development we study today.

Bluey and Snickers are clearly in that very concrete stage where rules don’t need to be explained, authority is accepted, and fairness is everything, but Coco (in an admittedly annoying way) is taking the early steps into less concrete thought. She’s starting to ask big questions a little before her peers, and while it may frustrate Bluey and Snickers, Coco is doing some pretty advanced thinking for her age. Coco’s arc in this episode is developmental theory in action!

Now, before we move on, let’s take a quick detour and talk about “birth order” theory. In a lot of 20th Century family theory, there was a strong belief that a person’s personality could be predicted based on whether they were an oldest, middle, youngest, or only child. Per this theory, oldest children deal with inexperienced parents, so they tend to become cautious, reliable, and high achieving themselves. Middle children tend to be people-pleasers and peacemakers, often with a rebellious streak. Youngest children tend to be attention-seeking and maybe a little self-centered and manipulative. And only children tend to be perfectionistic and mature for their age. While there’s some validity to this theory, factors like trauma (especially illness or loss of a parent), the age gaps between siblings, access to media, and changing social and technological contexts almost always override the birth order stereotypes, so it’s best to take them with a grain of salt.

So why am I bringing all this up? Well, because Coco is the youngest of NINE KIDS. She’s had a lot of opportunity to observe and learn from her older siblings, and her parents have been thoroughly “broken in.” This family structure could be a contributing factor both in Coco’s intellectual maturity and her manipulative streak (as showcased at the beginning of “Shadowlands” and in the later episode “Circus”). I personally don’t put a lot of stock in birth order theory, but it’s kind of hard to deny its effect on Coco.

Okay, that was a lot, and there’s still a lot more to come, so this is going to be a series. In the next post, we’ll look at three more of Bluey’s peers: Indy the Afghan Hound, Winton the Bulldog, and Chloe the Dalmatian…