You know how, as parents, you're not supposed to laugh when your kids are ticked off? (It invalidates their feelings, or something like that.) Well, try not laughing when Jacob gets mad and starts screaming "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family!" (aka the Barney song) at the top of his lungs. If you can keep a straight face, you're a far better person than we are.
Barney is actually a good tool for teaching about feelings. When Brandon was younger and would watch (ok, admit to watching it. He'll still watch if he thinks no one is looking), he learned how to appropriately express his anger. And it was cute. He would cross his arms and say, "That makes me angry! You should be nicer." Of course, he would usually direct that to the (non-compliant) computer, and that was hard to keep a straight face because it was so cute. When Jacob gets mad, he usually screams the same sentence over and over, and after 4 years we're still trying to figure out exactly what it is he's saying. It comes out as "ne ne ne, ne ne ne, che cheche chee!" Exactly the same every time. His teachers can't figure it out, either. So, when we're getting screamed at with the Barney song, we at least know what he's saying.
