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  • The titular character of Angel has a soft spot for the little ones. Now that he's stopped eating them.
  • B.A. Baracus from The A-Team. In the army, he earned his nickname of "Bad Attitude" by striking officers, he's punched his own teammates in the mouth, he's an all-around grumpy badass... and he's great with kids. He also turns into a Papa Wolf quickly whenever children are threatened or bullied.
  • The Barrier: Julia gets along very well with both her niece Marta and Sergio, the boy she's caring for as part of her job. She's also implied to have gotten attached to a baby during the short time for which she helped with smuggling him out of Madrid. It's implied to be a factor in her being able to pass as Marta's mother (who was her identical twin sister Sara), as Sergio's legal guardian, who believes she's employing Sara, interpreted Julia's first interaction with the boy as her using parenting skills despite the fact that Julia doesn't have any children of her own.
  • Barney the Dinosaur, being the imaginary friend of young children, is naturally this. Not only does he play with his young friends, but he often gives them life lessons and helps them solve problems they may have. His (in)famous song "I Love You" is about the bond he shares with his young playmates, with them being his family and all.
  • Baywatch: Most of the lifeguards exhibit this trait once or twice. Special mention, however, goes to Mitch Buchannon (David Hasselhoff) who is often shown to be both respectful of and able to get along well with just about any kid.
  • Between:
    • This is pretty much true of all the residents of Pretty Lake as there are mostly only children left, but special mention goes to Gentle Giant, Gord, and Knight Templar, Melissa, for taking care of the youngest children in town.
  • Bones:
    • Seeley Booth is very fond of children and doesn't take lightly to cases involving child death or child abuse (this makes sense as he was physically abused by his dad.)
    • Dr. Temperance Brennan is extremely awkward with adults but consistently shows a surprising tenderness towards children, despite initially saying she never wants any of her own. She's especially good at connecting with foster kids, due to her own past, and gets angry with Booth on several occasions for trying to leave a victim's children to Social Services.
    • Angela Montenegro could be considered this; in an early episode where Booth and Brennan were put in custody of a victim's child until the case was solved, she got in trouble for constantly playing with the baby instead of working and, when the two were arguing and ignoring the kid, she took care of him and then lectured the B and B about parental responsibility. She also openly really wants a large family, and is annoyed with her husband for only wanting their one son.
    • Sweets also became this in later seasons; when he temporarily leaves the FBI to do some soul searching, he ends up working in a poor, gang-run town at a community center as a youth mentor and becomes so attached to the kids that he initially doesn't want to return to his official job. He also babysits Booth and Brennan's daughter Christine and becomes attached to her when he lives with them for a brief period of time, to the point that Christine later calls him Uncle Sweets.
    • Agent Aubrey fancies himself this and eventually proves himself to be very good with Christine, who is now in first grade when he is introduced. Most likely, it's because he is a big kid himself (his office at the FBI is full of candy, video games, and beginner crime scene investigation manuals).
  • Eric Matthews on Boy Meets World relates well with children due to being One of the Kids. His most serious girlfriend on the show was a young single mom with whose kid he bonds, and in another season he forms a relationship with a kid from an orphanage; he would have adopted the kid (who was ecstatic) but a married couple also wanted to adopt him and he decided they could do a better job.
  • Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. He makes sure to keep children out of harm's way whenever possible and is particularly close and fond of his girlfriend Andrea's six-year-old son, Brock. And harming a child in any way is a good way to send him into a murderous rage.
  • Michael and Fiona in Burn Notice both have soft spots for children. A good example of this is that in one episode, Michael helps a desperate father get his money back from a gang of con artists who claimed to have a cheap cure for the terminal illness of his son. Fiona bonds with the child and when she goes undercover with Michael to meet with the leader of the gang of con artists (with the two posing as a rival gang), the leader of the group makes some very callous remarks about how she profits from false cures for children and how the families even thank her for it. Fiona promptly blows her cover and almost kills her.
    • Michael, having been abused by his father, has a particular soft spot for children in the same situation. In the first season, an assassin uses such a story to convince Michael to track down her mark for her by posing as a mother whose son has been kidnapped by her abusive husband.
    • Quite a few clients have only managed to get Michael to work for them by mentioning their kids. In one instance, when a woman and her children are being abused, Michael's mother Madeline opens up her house to them (knowing that the father is a well-connected and dangerous man), no questions asked, and mentions that if it involves kids, "Michael will take on the Chinese army."
  • The Halliwells on Charmed are all shown to be very fond of children, such as when they willingly take in an abandoned infant to protect him from a vengeful ghost, and being open and supportive of their young neighbor Jenny for the short time she lived next door. Other examples include Prue going to the rescue of a young witch when he signals for help and acts as a guardian and mentor. Piper helps a young fire starter to accept and learnt to control his magic while protecting him from demonic bounty hunters. Paige worked for Child Services and was shown to be very affected by the plight of some of her cases. But of them all Phoebe seemed to be the most compassionate, comforting a hospital-bound boy, getting a little girl being hunted by trolls to safety, and using her empathy to understand her infant nephew's struggles.
  • In CSI: Miami, Horatio Caine is usually a huge Jerkass unless there's a little kid around, then he's the nicest, most compassionate friend any kiddo will ever have, and woe betide anyone who hurts a kid near him.
    • A less lethal-prone example, but Nick from the original CSI is often the one seen comforting young children involved in their cases.
  • While he's usually a sarcastic, ill-tempered Jerkass, Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm is surprisingly quite patient and cordial with children most of the time. In "Larry vs. Michael J. Fox", Larry is quite accepting of his girlfriend's "flamboyant" son, Greg, and gives him a sewing machine for his birthday, much to his absolute delight.
  • Dexter: Dexter Morgan likes children, which means that he is particularly wrathful against criminals that harm children. When he's not being particularly wrathful he only stabs people in the heart. He's a compulsive serial killer with a strict "only-hunt-monsters" policy and a soft spot for children due to his own Start of Darkness. This makes for a reaction to children in danger that goes far beyond Papa Wolf territory into something frighteningly awesome.
  • Doctor Who: The Doctor.
    • In "Full Circle", the Doctor frightens off the marsh-man child and observes it's odd, he's usually good with children. Later, he would have managed to calm it if he hadn't been knocked out.
    • The Ninth Doctor seems perfectly at home among a group of orphans in "The Empty Child", chatting and joking over dinner while he tries to gather information.
    • The Eleventh Doctor in particular is this, due to being One of the Kids.
      • "The Beast Below": When explaining to Amy that they must be observers only and that in all his travels, it is the one rule he always sticks to, he is watching a crying child on the monitor. He abruptly exits the TARDIS to go and help. This prompts the remark from Amy:
        Amy: Is that how it is, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of people or planets. Unless there's children crying.
        The Doctor: [grinning] Yes.
      • In "Closing Time", Eleven gets a temporary job in the toy department of a store, and is wildly popular with the kids.
    • Clara Oswald is introduced as a nanny and later becomes a teacher. The version of her from Victorian England likewise was a governess. In the endgame three-parter of Series 9, a combination of her Doctor-esque Chronic Hero Syndrome and this trope leads to her being Killed Off for Real when she takes a risk to save Rigsy's life so he can return to his infant daughter.
    • The Twelfth Doctor takes a different approach than his predecessor. Eleven was One of the Kids, Twelve behaves more like a prickly yet caring grandfather.
      • In Series 8, one of the first signs that he isn't just a Grumpy Old Man with No Social Skills is his genuine concern for and liking of children, as seen in "Listen" and "In the Forest of the Night", although this is tempered by his Brutal Honesty. He befriends fifteen-year-old troublemaker Courtney Woods in "The Caretaker", but his decision that she's not companion material leads to the crisis of "Kill the Moon" when Clara demands he make that up to the girl...
      • This leads to a gigantic, tragic situation in "The Magician's Apprentice". He helps save the life of young Davros, creator of the Daleks. He flees in horror upon realizing what he's done, not even finishing the rescue effort. However, his shame and compassion lead him to accept the challenge of visiting an older, dying Davros, and at the end of "The Witch's Familiar", he ends up truly saving boy!Davros, becoming the man who taught him compassion — which is why it's one of the few positive concepts the Daleks understand.
      • One reason the Doctor decides to stay and help the imperiled Viking village in "The Girl Who Died" is that he doesn't want innocent children to suffer for the foolishness of the adolescents and adults.
      • Early in "Face the Raven", he coos over Rigsy's child and later saves Anahson's mum to reunite a parent and child despite the peril this places him in. Shortly after the latter event, Clara is quick to remind him during his Freak Out, in which he's swearing revenge against Ashildr, the trap street, and everyone in it over Clara's imminent death, that his rampage would be stopped the moment a child started to cry.
  • Downton Abbey: At times it seems like the only people Manipulative Bastard Thomas Barrow really likes in the house are the children, and vice versa. There is a brief scene in Series 4 where he teases Sybbie, citing his friendship with her mother, and in Series 6 he's shown to give frequent piggyback rides to George and Marigold as well.
    Thomas: I hope you'll be good when I'm gone.
    Sybbie: No, we won't!
    George: Please don't go.
    Thomas: I must, Master George. But remember, I will always be your friend wherever I am.
  • Emerald City: Dorothy breaks down Tip's bedroom door to help him escape. Later she's seen protecting Sylvie, a Cute Mute girl.
  • ER:
    • Doctor Kovac cares deeply for children and gets particularly upset if they are mistreated in any way. He even watches kids' shows, like The Wiggles, to keep up with what kids like and be able to talk to them.
    • Before that, there was Doug Ross. Despite all of his problems as a self-destructive womaniser, he was very good with children.
    • Kerry Weaver, of all people, has an excellent bedside manner despite her abrasive personality, but most of all she is absolutely fantastic with children. It's her colleagues she can't seem to deal with.
      Doug Ross: [impressed] You could've gone into pediatrics.
  • In Mexico it's the tagline of the Sunday morning show En Familia con Chabelo "...Soy Chabelo amigo de todos los niños..." in Spanish.
  • Extraordinary Attorney Woo: Bang Gu-ppong, the defendant in "The Pied Piper," is so devoted to the happiness of children that he changed his name to something silly (his name roughly translates to fart in Korean) because it makes kids laugh... and has the added bonus of making adults angry. He's the founder of what he calls the Children's Liberation Army, which is dedicated to dismantling the Korean education system he sees as deeply harmful to children's happiness and health. He runs into legal trouble when his cause leads him to kidnap some students en route to school, instead taking them to a mountain for a day of games and enjoying the great outdoors. Their parents are rather understandably livid (not to mention terrified of what could've happened), but the kids just see it as having gotten a break from school and having a really fun day.
  • Played with Parker in Flashpoint. Parker is very good with children - even teenagers and they appear to like and trust him. However, he often has trouble reconnecting with his own son.
  • On Friday Night Lights, Epyck, a Broken Bird with a chip on her shoulder towards almost everyone else, is described by her foster mother as someone who's very good with her younger half-siblings. In a later episode, we see this when she's around Tami's baby girl Gracie Belle.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Davos has a knack for talking to children with respect, and in return they quickly trust him.
    • Considering that her own child died in stillbirth, Daenerys feels this greatly. When she takes command of the Unsullied, she specifically orders them not to harm any children. Her horror at Drogon's actions at the end of Season 4, burning a goat herder's daughter, is even more acute as a result.
    • Tyrion has a soft spot for kids (even the children of the enemies such as the Starks), and especially his younger nephews, except for Joffrey.
  • The title character of Ghostwriter. When he first appears, he is worried about "the children". It's not clear what children he means, but he cares about children in general.
  • Homicide Hunter: Homicide detective Lieutenant Joe Kenda takes it upon himself to try to emotionally protect children at crime scenes as much as possible. In one episode, a young boy and his dog are brought into the station after his mother's murder. When someone insists that the dog be sent to the pound, Kenda becomes incensed:
    Kenda: I said, "Absolutely not. I'll take this boy home with me and his dog before I let that happen. This boy's lost enough today. He's not going to lose his dog too."
    • Similarly, he isn't nearly as hard on juvenile suspects as he is on adult ones. In one case, when he realizes that the two teenage boys who found the victim's body also stole money from his wallet, he chews them out good and proper — but ultimately lets them go.note 
  • Homicide: Life on the Street:
    • Stanley Bolander absolutely adores children and treats them with surprising gentleness and kindness. One episode has him take care of an abandoned baby until the mother arrives and perpetually dote on the kid.
    • The usually irascible John Munch has a soft spot for children and takes cases where they are harmed personally. However, this doesn't mean he's nice to them; at one point, he drives a kid to tears when he berates him.
    • Lt. Giardello is very friendly with children. In the third season episode "The City That Bleeds", when Felton gets shot, his ex-wife Beth brings their kids to the hospital and asks Giardello to look after them while she visits Felton. The kids both say they don't need anyone looking after them, so Giardello, with a smile on his face, bends down and says, "Maybe you can look after me," which they both agree to. When we next see them, he's reading them a story.
  • Horatio Hornblower: Mariette, a French peasant girl who became a schoolteacher and falls in love with an English sailor Horatio. Whenever Mariette's shown, she's protecting a child, holding a child, picking up a child, carrying a child, cradling a child, or putting down a child. Because she's such a Nice Gal.
  • House:
    • Dr. House, the champion of Loners Are Freaks, doesn't mind babies. "People don't bug me until they get teeth." He gets on with older children much better than adults, even when they have a full set of teeth. In the seventh season, when he goes to dinner in Cuddy's house and he and her daughter are alone, he did say she was adorable.
    • Dr. Chase gets along very well with children and often forms good connections with child patients.
  • Harmon Rabb in JAG comes across as this. He befriends the 10-year-old son of his girlfriend in Season 3 and saves him from both murderous thugs and terrorists. In Season 4, he goes after the murderer of a small girl on a Navy base and saves her twin sister from the same fate. And initially in that case, he employed Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on a convicted child molester, who was innocent but provided useful info. And he finally becomes the guardian of an adolescent girl in Season 9 with an alcoholic father.
  • Princess Michelle in the NBC series Kings. She even risked her life at one point to stay with a sick boy as he was dying.
  • Stuffy, and slightly aloof K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider is routinely shown to have a surprisingly soft spot for children. This may be in part that most children, unlike the adults, tend not to Freak Out when first meeting him, and in fact, are more often than not, are actually enthralled by him.
  • Most of the Kamen Riders are shown to be very caring and kind towards children.
    • Later in the original series, the Kamen Rider Squad is created, which is a national team of boy squads that help the Riders report activities from Shocker, and of course, both Hongo and Ichimonji take care of them. They became a fixture of the sequel Kamen Rider V3, with Shiro often taking care of and helping them.
    • Kamen Rider Amazon is also very notable in this regard, with Daisuke being a Wild Child and his first and best friend when he came to Japan being a kid, he's often playing with and protecting them. Usually the Monster of the Week gets to learn this the very hard way.
    • Kamen Rider Super-1 has a new iteration of the Rider Squad, meaning Kazuya often takes care of them and is this way.
    • Kamen Rider BLACK RX has Kotaro loving and protecting the two children of the Sahara family Shigeru and Hitomi.
    • Kamen Rider Ryuki has Shinji Kido who is shown to care for the safety of children while fighting as a Kamen Rider.
    • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has Emu Houjo being this, as he states that his goal is not just to cure his patients, but to bring back their smiles. Often these include children.
    • Kamen Rider Geats has Ace Ukiyo, who is a Smug Super Jerk with a Heart of Gold who focuses solely on winning the Desire Grand Prix, which just happens to incentivise saving lives. However, the one thing he will do with no benefit to himself whatsoever is helping kids. Ace himself has been searching for his Missing Mum for centuries.
  • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Pretty much a job requirement at the SVU.
    • The grumpy, snarky, conspiracy-theorizing John Munch is routinely shown to have a very soft side for children. One episode had him reading Oh, The Places You'll Go to a little girl who was left hospitalized in a near-vegetative state by her mother's abuse.
    • Olivia Benson has quite the knack with kids despite never having any of her own, for various reasons. She loves kids, and they love her right back. In season 15, she winds up taking custody of, and later legally adopting, an infant boy caught up in a major sex trafficking bust. Needless to say, she loves getting to finally be a mom.
    • Nick Amaro, despite his hotheadedness, is great with kids. As he's the father of a little girl, it's not surprising.
    • Ditto Elliot Stabler, who is also a hothead, but is married with children and deals very well with them during cases. This is highlighted in the episode "Resilience". When a 15-year-old girl is sexually abused by her father, she regresses to a childlike state. After several officers try (and fail) to reach her, Dr. George Huang figures out that only Stabler can connect with her, as he is a kind, loving father, something she always wanted. He does, in fact, end up connecting with her.
    • Sonny Carisi, as the older brother to three younger sisters, is fantastic with children, including taking to surrogate fatherhood like a duck to water (his partner, Amanda Rollins, becomes unexpectedly pregnant and has no idea how to raise a kid; as one of her closest friends and very experienced at caring for children, Carisi helps her out considerably with her daughter). He's also great with kids in the interview room.
    • In "Sick", toy company owner Billy Tripley hosts lavish parties for sick and poor kids — but is thought to have picked "special" ones out to molest. He winds up exonerated thanks to the actions of greedy adults looking for payoffs. He's a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Michael Jackson, whose second child molestation scandal was playing out at the time (2004).
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent:
    • There are a couple of Funny Background Events of Detective Nichols playing with children, and he seems to be pretty natural at it, even though he doesn't have children of his own and is adamant that he doesn't intend for that to change.
    • Detective Goren appears to be pretty good with kids as well, as seen when he does a magic trick with a crayon for a little girl in "Crazy". Also doubles as The Cast Showoff, as Vincent D'Onofrio has practiced magic in Real Life.
  • The team as a whole are this but notable examples from Leverage:
    • Phantom Thief Parker abandons a job to spring a slew of orphans from a nightmarish orphanage, even going so far as to put herself physically between them and several guys with automatic weapons. She takes an apprentice car thief under her wing in one episode and is seen as early as the third episode of the series teaching a little girl how to pick a lock.
    • Eliot abandons a job in one episode to champion an abused child in a hospital, almost throwing the kid's father down several flights of stairs. He arranges for the team to donate tons of money to mistreated children, mentors an underage miner, and drops character in a con to help an Iranian girl find her family in an airport. He even turns out to have a knack for teaching kids, as shown in an episode where members of the team pose as private school instructors. When he receives a 911 call for a domestic disturbance while disguised as a Boston police officer, he insists on going to the scene on the chance that there are children present.
    • Nate has a soft spot for sick kids being screwed over by the rich and the powerful thanks to his son dying because his insurance company (his employer) refused to pay for an experimental life-saving procedure. And in "The Carnival Job" once they hear the mark's daughter's been kidnapped and held hostage for the mark's product, he immediately tells the team to make rescuing her the priority and to drop the con and lose the product if need be; no one on the team opposes either.
  • Ben Linus of Lost seems to have a soft spot for children. Not only did he spare Rousseau because she had a baby girl in her camp (and went on to be a loving — if scarily over-protective — parent) but he also spared Penny's life because she had an infant son on board her boat.
  • Megan Calvet Draper in Mad Men. When Sally Draper ran away to visit her dad's office and tried to run away when forced to return home, the only sympathetic adult was Megan. She later takes care of Sally and her brothers during their trip to Disneyland. Contrast this with Faye Miller, Don's girlfriend, who was incredibly awkward around children and talked to Sally as if she were an infant. In a show full of bad mothers, Megan at times seems like the only one who likes kids which is one of the reasons why she's Don's second wife instead of Faye.
  • The Mandalorian:
    • Mandalorians, as a culture, are extremely protective of children, which probably has something to do with how a significant number of them are "foundlings," orphans who were adopted by a clan. Outsiders are pretty much completely ignorant of this facet of their culture, which is why the Mandalorian blindsides all the other bounty hunters when he breaks Guild law to save a child with a bounty on its head.
    • When Din meets the Nite Owls, Mandalorians from another clan, he is clearly distrustful of them. But when the Child falls into the water during a fight, he asks one of the Nite Owls to retrieve him, and she does so immediately. Neither of them comments on this after and they still don't trust each other, it is just taken as absolutely understood that Mandalorians protect children.
  • Several heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Daisy Johnson from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has an immense care for children and their well-being and is surprisingly capable of handling them, she first showed these instincts with Ace Peterson and later Robin Hinton.
    • The reason Matt Murdock became Daredevil? To help a little girl when the law couldn't. The reason he got ambushed and beat to a pulp in the second episode? He was trying to rescue a kidnapped boy. The reason he got into a fight with Stick? His mentor killed a child. Matt is consistently compelled to defend kids to the point the compulsion can be exploited. His own rough childhood probably plays a part.
    • While it's a stretch to call Jessica Jones a "friend", the only people she isn't rude or abrasive to are kids and is actually shown to be somewhat nice to them.
    • Despite being quite blunt to adults, Frank Castle is quite genial and fatherly to children. As such, he lectures kids if they do wrong and tries to be a good example to them. And god help you if you hurt children in any way...
  • Patrick Jane from The Mentalist loves kids, particularly little girls due to the loss of his daughter, and will abandon everything else when they're around.
    • His partner Lisbon has a soft spot for them, too.
  • Percival's Establishing Character Moment in Season 4 of Merlin is endangering his own life to save three frightened children by carrying them all to safety in his arms.
  • Alpha-5 in A Day in the Limelight Christmas Episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, "Alpha's Magical Christmas". This is getting a bit Harsher in Hindsight due to Michael Jackson's 1993 and 2003 Neverland Ranch "incidents", since he, like Alpha, invited children to his ranch for parties and fun times, mostly without their parents' permission, and the parents started to suspect that he could be a child molester, thereby backfiring the trope in the latter.
    • Robo Knight in Power Rangers Megaforce had a rather uninterested view of humans and the rangers attempted to show him they're worth giving a damn. Aside from the rangers, the only other humans he speaks with are children (a boy whose parents were frozen by a monster, a boy waiting to see his mother on a train the villains were causing to be late, a teen who taught him rap music and a village of African children during Megaforce's own Christmas Episode) and he seems to get along with them as well, if not more so, than the rangers.
  • Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The world will always remember Mister Rogers as the kindest person who ever lived.
  • Monday Mornings: Dr. Jorge Villanueva, aka "El Gato", is impressive with kids and young teens. He often bonds with them and they trust him immediately.
  • Played with in the Final Justice episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Goosio is "a friend to Maltese children everywhere...io." Really, it's worth seeing for yourself.
  • NCIS: Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Probably because his own daughter died young.
  • Possibly due to being rather childish himself, despite his physically imposing figure, Bull from Night Court has a noted soft spot for kids. When his neighbor had a meltdown and nearly abandoned her newborn baby, he looked after him until she came to her senses and returned, on Halloween, he would take kids trick-or-treating throughout the courthouse, and he tried to be a part of a big brothers program, but was deeply heartbroken to find that the kids there were all afraid of him.
  • The Office (US): Michael Scott loves children and one of his greatest wishes is to have children of his own, particular because of his childhood dream of having many friends, and he's nice to every child, including Toby's daughter despite him hating Toby with passion. He also promised to fund the college funds for a school and he still remembers each of the kids, but...he never managed to raise the funds.
  • The Super Sentai series has always been kid-friendly and the main characters are always there to help people out including children. Here are a few examples:
    • This goes all the way back to Himitsu Sentai Gorenger with Tsuyoshi Kaijo, who in one episode was greeted by various kids fond of him and in another called one of the Masked Monsters a demon for harming children.
    • After the retool that J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai went through, it was common in the second half of the show to see the team helping kids even before the villains attacked, with the child of the episode often being used as bait by the Monster of the Week somehow.
    • One of the most justified examples is in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, given the team are all elementary school teachers. A similar case happened in the 4th series, Denshi Sentai Denziman, though it's less played on.
    • The Zyurangers from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger are always playing with the local kids and saving them when they need help. This also serves to make them foils to Witch Bandora, who hates kids and often wants to harm them.
    • Shiraishi Mako from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, being an ex-kindergarten teacher, is shown to be caring and nurturing to them. In fact, this goes to extend that if there's someone having Heroic BSoD, she sees that friend like 'a kid that needs care and nurture' and will do her best to comfort that person and sometimes with Cooldown Hug. In one episode, Akumaro abducted children so he could use their fear and sorrow. And what did Mako do in the end? She went Super Shinken Pink and whupped his Ass!
  • David Fisher from Six Feet Under is great with kids; for instance, he immediately bonds with Keith's niece Taylor, he's glad whenever he can hold a baby or Barb's children immediately take a liking to him. Little Michaela is clearly troubled and tells him she's glad to have him in her family, and he replies he's glad to have her in his family as well. He's also distressed when an insensitive woman scolds her daughter who cries for her deceased alcoholic father when they went to arrange a funeral. He longs to have kids of his own because he's a family man. In the final season, he and Keith adopt two boys.
  • Clark Kent of Smallville.
  • Spider-Man (Japan): Takuya Yamashiro, the Spider-Man of the Japanese live-action series, is shown to be good with kids and several episodes involve him helping out less fortunate children. For instance, the fifth episode of the series has him befriending an orphaned boy and donated his blood to save his life.
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • Teal'c, whenever a child is around, he turns into the Gentle Giant. It helps that he has the patience of a mountain.
    • Right behind him is his teammate Samantha Carter, who has yet to meet a kid she doesn't like — or who doesn't like her.
    • O'Neill is pretty good with children. It's rarely shown on screen, but most children he interacts with seem to like him. The reason he doesn't interact with them more often is probably because they remind him of his son.
  • Star Trek:
    • Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation doesn't like the company of children and says so more than once, mostly because they're unpredictable and he's far more used to dealing with adults, and he finds "Captain Picard Day" that the ship's teachers arrange is rather embarrassing... but children all seem to like him, so he eventually figures out how to cope. (He likes spending time with his nephew, though, who considers him a Cool Uncle.)
    • Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in contrast, loves hanging out with kids and even taking care of babies. Since he's already a father, this is no surprise. Sisko actually makes it a priority for the station to be welcoming to families. Even a dreamland-prophetic-vision version of Sisko (Benny Russell) does an impromptu a capella song with a bunch of kids as they walk along.
    • Degra from Star Trek: Enterprise is like this, probably from having two of his own. One reason why he hates the superweapon he helped create is that many of its victims will be children. Contributes to his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Dean Winchester from Supernatural seems to like children. When they have to work with a kid, Dean seems to do a lot of the talking, but Sam seems to like them, too. Ironically, in the third episode, Dean uses the "I think kids are great" as a cheesy chat-up line to an attractive mother, and Sam calls him out on it, pointing out "name three kids you even know." However, for the rest of the series, including that episode, Dean does indeed get on well with children. Naturally, harming or refusing to protect children is a pretty good way to piss him off.
  • Richard Hammond on Top Gear. If any of the presenters is shown interacting with the local kids, it is probably the Hamster. Known to host children's science shows like Brainiac: Science Abuse and his own Richard Hammond's Blast Lab.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In the episode "One for the Angels", pitchman Lew Bookman is well-loved by children and a truly compassionate man. He tries to escape Death, but when he learns that a child will die in his place, he sacrifices his life to save the kid by distracting Death with the "ultimate pitch, one for the angels" (hence the episode's title) until his deadline is up. Afterward, Death comforts Bookman with the knowledge that his kindness got him into Heaven.
    • Mr. Bevis from "Mr. Bevis" loves to play with the children in the street, has children Christmas Carolers come into the office, and who is also building a replica of an old iron ship for a kid. His guardian angel says that this part of his personality must go if he is to be successful; in the end, he decides to be the same, happier in the knowledge that he likes who he is and wouldn't want to change.
    • In "The Grave", Johnny-Rob says that all children and animals love him as they always follow him around.
    • "The Fugitive": All the children in town love playing with Ben, and he in turn enjoys spending time with them as well, since they see his alien abilities as "magic". He holds an especially soft spot for Jenny, spending the whole episode trying to protect her from his captors.
  • The Ultra Series gives us several of these among the many hosts/human disguises of the many Ultra heroes. This is perhaps most prevalent during the Showa era, with examples such as Hideki Goh's friendship with Jiro in Return of Ultraman, and the numerous children who appear in Ace and Taro, but perhaps the greatest example is Gen in Ultraman Leo. Gen trains children in martial arts during his day job and develops a very close friendship with a boy named Tooru after he was left an orphan due to an alien killing his father. In fact, Gen's bond with children is so strong, that in the final episode, when Leo is locked in a particularly dire battle against Commander Black's final monster (and Black attempts to coerce Leo into letting Black End beat him by taking Tooru hostage), Tooru and his friends beat Black to death, giving Leo the opening to defeat Black End and finally destroy the Black Star.
  • Badass Biker Weevil from Veronica Mars is very good with kids, especially his relatives.
  • Omar Little from The Wire. The first sign we get of him being more than the average criminal is him showing affection to the child of a dope fiend who has come to him seeking a free fix. On the streets of Baltimore, Omar walking down the street triggers cries of, "Omar's coming!" from the hoppers, but this is inverted in season five when we see him in retirement in Puerto Rico, giving neighborhood kids (who joyfully run up to him, shouting, "Omar!") some candy. Indeed, the fact that he believes Children Are Innocent leads to his death, when he dismisses eight-year-old Kenard as Just a Kid.
  • Wonder Woman (1975): Wonder Woman frequently befriends children throughout the series. In "Baroness Von Gunther" and "My Teenage Idol Is Missing", only Wonder Woman believes the fantastic story from the child that turns out to be true. In "The Bushwackers", she befriends all of the children, including inducing the wayward and jealous son to do a Heel–Face Turn and getting the Elective Mute orphan to talk.
  • Walker, Texas Ranger: The titular policeman, Cordell Walker, is this; different episodes show him going out of his way to help kids out, whether they're involved in the main story or the B-plot. Anyone who hurts a child can expect Walker to beat them to a quivering pulp when he finds out about it.
  • Surprisingly, Negan from The Walking Dead (2010). The man was introduced in Season 7 as a barbed-wired-bat-wielding psychopath who put the thumbscrews on any man or woman that tried to defy his authority. Unexpectedly, however, he shows massive restraint and even humor when Carl kills two of his men. Keep in mind that Negan holds a quite clear eye-for-an-eye mentality when it comes to harm done to his people. There is also the moment upon discovering the existence of Rick's toddler daughter Judith that he immediately cozies up to her like he's a long-lost uncle meeting his niece for the very first time. In Season 8, Negan expresses genuine remorse over Carl's death, despite the kid being a thorn in his side along with his father Rick. By the beginning of Season 9, time has passed, and Negan has been ousted from his leadership role of the Saviors and kept as a prisoner in Alexandria. While Judith has grown old enough to be more understanding of how dangerous Negan can be, the initial genuine doting that Negan paid to Judith morphed into mutual fondness.
  • Women's Murder Club: Lindsay is shown to repeatedly have a soft spot for children. One episode has her investigating the disappearance of a pregnant woman, with her growing more and more desperate to find her, especially after they discover that the baby has been born. One episode has them discover that a child witnessed a break-in at her house, with Lindsay being shown to be far gentler than she would be with an adult witness. This is revealed to be because she and Tom were at one point expecting a baby which died in childbirth.

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