Sesame Street is once again pushing the limits when it comes to the lessons they relay to preschoolers, as their newest is teaching kids how to deal with an incarcerated parent.
Alex, who isn’t a regular cast member, is the first Muppet whose dad is in jail, and his storyline is part of PBS’ “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration” initiative, which gives kids an online tool kit for how to deal with a parent being behind bars.
“I just miss him so much,” he says in the episode, Indiana Newscenter reports. “I usually don’t want people to know about my Dad.”
GlobalPost reports that Alex’s friend also says that people go to jail because they broke "grown-up rules.”
Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, a child education specialist who worked on this project with Sesame Street, said "As we started to look at this topic, we realized there were very limited resources. By not talking about it, you have children growing up with these unanswered questions and later in life it can affect them. We hear from adults to this day and they are living with the consequences."
Watch it below: