If you’re making content for children, one of the most basic requirements is that you know children. You have to know your audience. If you’re creating, writing, directing, animating child characters, you have to know what children are like at that age.

Kids and adults are not the same thing. Approach your audience like adults and you’ll get it wrong. Approach your characters like adults and, yep, you’ll get it wrong.

And be aware that children of different ages vary hugely. Sure, a 36 year old might be pretty much the same as a 39 year old. A 3 year old child is like an entirely different being to a 6 year old. They are not the same thing.

There are far too many things to cover in one post (and I shouldn’t – reading bullet points is not the same as knowing what kids are like) but you have to remember that young kids are SMALL. They are curious. They are explorers. They learn fast and soak up information. They often think in absolutes, not grey areas. They don’t do subtlety. They get REALLY excited about things. More excited than you ever get and often about things that you find utterly mundane. And they can go straight to REALLY upset in an instant. They can switch emotions with no transition. They are animated, expressive and, when young, usually have very few reservations or social barriers. They have challenges you never face. And they don’t let it hold them back. The smaller ones have to climb just to get up on a chair. You can be sure they’ll climb up on to the kitchen counter to get a glass. They have achievements every single day, often several a day. That means tying their laces or something else you take for granted. They will eat sweets until they are sick and then do it again the next day. They probably don’t care in the slightest about the pretty scenery out the window. They could well be picking their nose and eating it at this very moment. And they can do exactly what an adult just told them not to do and it doesn’t make them bad kids.

And most of all: they are all different.

But the one thing they aren’t is adult. You’ve got to know what kids are like. It’s so important.

A lot of creative choices are simply that: choices. That’s all. Got a teapot in a shot? Maybe you make it yellow. Or blue. Or kind of off white. Maybe an art director would prefer it purple to match some curtains somewhere. Maybe the director’s favourite colour is orange and tends to go for orange more. Six different people might pick six different colours for that teapot. And a day later some of those might pick a different colour.

When someone hands you that teapot design and it isn’t the colour you would have picked, you might want to jump in and get that changed… STOP!

Before you put something into the system, ask yourself this: will this change genuinely make it better? Or will it just make it different? Different is rarely enough reason to justify the change. There are enough things in any given story, episode or production that actually need examination or improvement for anyone to spend time just making something different.

Story, engagement and entertainment are what matters. Detail is important in fleshing out a world, the stage for the stories. But it needs to be recognised that so many choices in any creative endeavour are no more than that: choices. We won’t all make the same ones and that doesn’t make a different choice wrong.

So when working with a team or evaluating work, keep in mind that a choice is not wrong just because it is not the one you would have made. Don’t focus on the things you would do differently. Focus on where you can genuinely improve and enhance, always keeping in mind the bigger picture – the storytelling and engagement.

Writers will understand the need for this straight away. It’s that feeling when you save the final version of your file, put it in an email and click SEND. And then you spot the typo. EVERY. TIME.

It just needed one more check before sending. That typo probably isn’t the worst idea thing in the world but it will haunt you. And it may not be a typo – it could be something bigger. It’s not just for the writers either. A scene. A storyboard. A design. They could all do with one last check before you show them.

So buy that time.

Work it so you can take the time to do that final check before you send. To do this, aiming for your deadline isn’t enough. Given that something will likely slow you up somewhere, you should always be aiming earlier anyway but you’ll definitely need some extra time for that last check. So reset your deadline to accommodate that.

Remember: the deadline and the actual time you need to finish in order to meet that deadline are rarely the same thing.

Build it into estimates you give people. If you think something will take five hours, say it will take five and a half. Or six. If it will take a week, build in an extra half day or even a day. It’s check time and it will pay off. Yes it takes more time but it will mean your work is presented in a better form and you may well find you have more to fix than the equivalent of typos.

Always have that time for one last check. If you didn’t need it, great. But usually you will and you’ll be very glad you allowed for it.

Ever skip a paragraph in a book? Sure you have. Don’t deny it! Ever drift off in a movie? Start thinking about work or what you’re going to have to eat afterwards? Yep. I know you’ve done that. Kids do it too. Some people have this image of children locked to a screen like zombies but, actually, they usually get pretty busy when they watch TV or a movie. They move around a lot. Their attention might not go to you when you’re calling them for dinner but they might see a bird outside or see if they can put their toes in their mouth or whatever.

And the reality is that it’s not always as easy to engage a child meaningfully as some seem to think.

So think about when you drift off in media. There are many factors but there is one common problem I see crop up a lot and it also happens to be in a bunch of scripts that have passed by me in children’s media over the years: you’re just not getting to the story part.

We can call it a lot of different things and it ties into character agency but, really, it’s that simple. You have got to get to the story part. What is the story about? What’s the problem to solve or the challenge to overcome? Don’t get to it in the last 10% of your story. Get there as quick as you possibly can and let it drive every beat of that story. Is it happening too late? CUT ALL THE EARLIER STUFF! Just cut it. Get to the story. Can you do it on the first page? Give it a shot.

A lot of what we tend to write is fluff around the story that helps us as writers find that story and that depth and that world. But it’s not all story. Some of it is just help for us, part of our process. Like scaffolding around a building – you take the scaffolding off at the end so people can just go straight into the building. Get kids straight into your story. Remove the fluff. Get to the story parts.

Always imagine someone shouting in your ear as you edit and write those later drafts: “JUST GET TO THE STORY PARTS!”