Common Sense Media Review
By Joly Herman
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Educational show focuses on life cycles of animals.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Growing Up Animal
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
GROWING UP ANIMAL is a documentary show about the family cycles of animals in the wild. In one episode, a female bear named Fern, for instance, is busy hunting enough salmon to sustain her as a pregnant mama in the hibernation months to come. The viewer sees the bears developing in vitro, their umbilical cords pumping blood and nutrients to their bodies. When her babies are born during the months she's hibernating, they nurse and are sustained while she continues to sleep. Upon waking, Fern and her two cubs must go into the wild to find food and enough safe territory for the cubs to grow. This is the theme that runs throughout these episodes: pregnancy, embryonic development, birth, growth, care, survival, and relationship. Animals are not so different from humans after all.
Is It Any Good?
Though the nature footage is extraordinary, the narrative of this series could be more engaging. Not to say there aren't dramatic moments in Growing Up Animal -- there are, but the narrative is as not poetic or subtle as some other nature documentaries that are able find a way to find a little more intrigue in animal life. This series is heavy on educational content -- it would be good fodder for a science class -- but it feels repetitive after a while.
What's important here, though, is the message that the animals we can see on television, but rarely in real life, are living, breathing, caring creatures worthy of our attention. Growing up as an animal is not easy in this day and age, in shrinking habitats with less and less food. Humanizing these animals makes perfect sense in this respect, and the more we can relate, perhaps, the more we will do to save the animals we come to care about in shows like this one.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Growing Up Animal shows similarities between animal families and human families. What can you find in common with these animal families?
The mama bear has to defend her cubs against a much bigger bear in an episode. How does this display of courage make you feel?
Animals in this show communicate without using language as we use language. Can you think of ways we communicate without using words?
TV Details
- Premiere date : August 18, 2021
- Cast : Tracee Ellis Ross
- Network : Disney+
- Genre : Educational
- Topics : Animals ( Ocean Creatures , Wild Animals )
- TV rating :
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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