In an effort to help kids get to bed sooner, Netflix and Dreamworks have teamed up in the creation of five-minute videos to be deployed by parents at bedtime.
The new series, “Dinotrux 5 Minute Favorites” was created by Netflix in the hopes of offering a final 5 minutes of television time to children before going to bed. Each shortened episode features lessons on teamwork and friendship while making jokes and putting children to sleep.
The idea came about as a result of a survey commissioned by Netflix of parents in the UK, US, Canada, France, Australia, Brazil and Mexico. Of the 7,000 parents surveyed, 61% expressed that their children used creative tactics in order to avoid bedtime, writes Alejandro Alba for The Daily News. Many ask for “one more show,” hoping to stay up just a little later. The new series offers parents the upper-hand, hoping the short episodes will be just long enough to appease young children while keeping mom and dad happy.
“It turns out that bedtime stalls are a universal problem faced by parents around the world,” Netflix said in a press release. “All of that lollygagging adds up to parents spending nearly 20 minutes every single night negotiating with kids to get them into bed.”
Additional findings suggest that children in the US are more likely to become creative with their tactics used to push back bedtime, at 66% in comparison with the global average of 61%. US children were also found to take the longest to go to bed, at 19.3 minutes. The global average for bedtime was 17.5 minutes.
French parents were found to have less of a battle at bedtime, spending an average of only 12.3 minutes putting their children to bed.
In addition, children from the UK were found to be more likely to receive bribes from their parents in order to go to bed. The most popular bribes included a later bedtime on weekends and food or snacks.
Meanwhile, Mexican parents were found to be more likely to give into their children, at 60% in comparison with the global average of 41%, due to the cuteness of their stalling tactics, including negotiation, flattery and trickery, writes Mike Snider for USA Today.
The survey, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, also discovered that parents and children argue over bedtime for an average of 20 minutes each night.
A recent Nielson report that studied consumers from over 100 countries announced that TV watching habits among children is at an 8-year high. Findings suggest that children between the ages of 2 and 5 spend 32 hours per week watching television, with children age 6-11 watching an average of 28 hours a week.
There are currently three episodes of Dinotrux available on demand, which can be found by searching for “5 minute favorites.” The company has yet to announce any plans to release more.
