The Disney Channel

While laid up, I got to spend more time around the family than I usually did. In the winter months, I usually don't get home till relatively late, and by the time I'm home the kids are getting ready for bed, or at least immersed in homework that I need to go over with them.

This additional time translated in part to watching some TV shows with my middle school kids that I usually wouldn't see. A fair number of them were Disney Channel shows.

The shows that they like a lot are Wizards of Waverly Place, Shake It Up, Jesse, Austin and Ally, and of course, Phineas and Ferb. Three months ago, I doubt that you could have forced me to watch these programs. But they have their charm, as I realized from sort-of-forced viewing. They have their innocent humor, their cute girls, their cool guys, and stories that are simple but at least effective enough to occupy my middlee schoolers' minds. They have another show or two that they like quite a bit, but not on Disney. (They're big fans of Big Time Rush.)

These aren't just shows for girls. Austin and Ally, for example, has my kids interested in internet programming and its possibilities, not to mention songwriting and playing music. (They already have a pretty strong basis for this interest.) Wizards of Waverly Place (which has apparently ended as a series but is still being shown in reruns) entertained them with its Harry Potter wannabe vibe. They just find the other shows entertaining.

I'm glad to report that maybe Disney is doing something basically right with their programming on the Disney Channel.

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