As an avowed Disney hater through my twenties and half of my thirties (seriously, those adults who go to a Disney theme park without any kids… what’s that about?), I never thought I would one day be writing an article about what Disney’s new streaming service has taught me.

But living on lockdown with a toddler and a baby, while trying to balance shared parental leave, other projects and my husband’s job, has changed me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s entirely my husband’s fault that I am a changed woman. Because, you see, it was his idea to get Disney+.

Coronavirus: Lockdown learning

At first, I resisted. We didn’t need such a prop to our parenting. Not even when the libraries shut. And the country park cafes. And then, most bitterly, the soft plays with their bad coffee and faint reek of sick. 

I even sallied forth to the pound shop to buy £40 worth of craft supplies the day before the lockdown, to ensure there would be a steady stream of wholesome activities we could enjoy as a family. Naturally, this would just slot in around our work.

Readers - let me assure you there are only so many paper plate Pinterest ideas you can badly execute when you’re an English teacher who’s so terrible at art that she once drew a dual-coded crown so badly it resembled… well. Something else entirely.

I capitulated.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. As an academic, traditionalist, no-nonsense teacher, of course I would be using Disney+ to make links to Hamlet during a viewing of The Lion King, explaining that Ariel needed to do some work on herself before literally giving up her voice for a man, and extolling the virtues of just staying at home during Finding Nemo (topical!).

You would be thinking wrong. It is a strict diet of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in our house and, honestly, I am not sad about it. OK, I could do without the “hot dog dance” song echoing around my brain as I feed the baby in the depths of the night, but hear me out.

What Disney+ has taught me

For a start, unlike lots of the other programmes we’ve endured, this one is actually interactive. Surprisingly so, in fact. I knew that my toddler had some basic knowledge of shapes and counting but hearing him, unprompted, identify a diamond shape from the “Mouseketools” (don’t ask) startled me. I didn’t teach him that! 

Each episode is based around a problem to solve and viewers are invited to count, or find something, or compare, throughout, without Mickey actually directly addressing them. Yes, the visuals are eye-watering in their brightness and the stories certainly aren’t following Freytag’s Pyramid, but in this time of trying to - quite literally, in my case -  balance an open laptop, a cup of coffee, a baby and a toddler with the energy of 1,000 Duracell bunnies, it’s time to cast aside old snobbishness about the electric babysitter and embrace what Disney refers to as “Disney Junior’s common ‘whole child’ curriculum of cognitive, social and creative learning opportunities”.

Indeed, the character voices may grate (I am uncomfortably reminded of myself reading the part of Lennie from Of Mice and Men to all my old-specification classes every time Goofy speaks) but allowing a bit more telly has helped me to cope with this strange time we find ourselves living in. In fact, notwithstanding the fact that I now find myself calling “Meeska, Mouseka, Mickeeeeeeey MOUSE!” to communicate with my husband in another room whilst pretending we’re being ironic, Disney+ has opened my eyes to the toddler learning that really can take place whilst having fun. Who knew?

Now, where are those Mickey ears?

Laura May Rowlands is head of faculty for English and literacy at Woodlands Community College in Southampton