Without choosing sides, I think it's pretty clear that Caillou's creators are presenting an approach to parenting that involves encouraging kids to emote. Which

Without choosing sides, I think it's pretty clear that Caillou's creators are presenting an approach to parenting that involves encouraging kids to emote. Which is often not a lot of fun to be around, of course, but the opposite approach could amount to telling kids to shut up because you don't want to know how they feel. My suspicion is that kids will self-limit eventually, as part of developmental growth, and that worrying too much about either extreme is probably pointless. My gripe is that Caillou's pacing is so vague and dreamy that essentially almost nothing happens in an entire episode.