If we present our children with sweet sugary preschool worlds where everyone is lovely to one another, is real life just going to be a real kick in the crotch? Worse still, are they going to be totally unprepared to deal with tough situations?

Could heaping the sugar on actually be really damaging to children?

The reality is, life is not sugary sweet. Children can be mean. That’s just children finding out who they are, reacting with instinct and learning how to be among other children.

And the world can get much worse going into adulthood.

So is there a good case to be made for presenting children with fictional demons, wicked witches or bullies in order to prepare them for life? That young children actually need to see the darker side of life?

Possibly. As a parent I find that, at the right time, certain stories can really help children understand with or deal with why things happen (like when I had to explain why my scooter was stolen). Or at the right time they can even help children find the strength to overcome their own problems (like when I invented ass-kicking fairies to help my girls beat their bad dreams). Useful.

At the right time. Like medicine, to be taken when prescribed.

And yet all the research I have read indicates that violent television leads to increased aggression. Heavy viewing can scare children, leading to a paranoid world view which then leads, yet again, to increased aggression under the guise of self-defense. And some studies seem to indicate that children who have been watching more age-appropriate content rather than content outside their age range are actually better equipped to deal with life’s problems as they get older.

It seems to me that, while television isn’t to blame for children being who they are, for people being who they are, presenting the darker side of life too early will actually compound problems. In telling children that there are demons, wicked witches or bullies out there, we’re not just preparing them for the worst. We’re presenting the worst as normal. We can make them fearful, more likely to strike first or, worse still, have some aspire to be that which we’re desperately trying to defeat in our fictional worlds – certain preschool demographics were shown to aspire to being Swiper the Fox, for example, and who didn’t want to be Darth Vader?

I think, no matter which way I look at it, by presenting those tales of demons, wicked witches and bullies, we are more likely simply to end up with more demons.

More wicked witches.

And more bullies.

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Tags: animation, Children, education, Messages, parenting, research, writing

Mild peril. A staple in much of children’s entertainment. Then a big happy ending. But what stays with a child? The peril or the happy?

I first observed this personally when my eldest girl, Daisy, was still pretty small. A funny and mild as mild can be episode of Pingu was on. Something bad happened to Pingu (probably because he did something a little naughty, that rascally penguin!) and then it all turned out fine at the end. All Daisy took away from the episode was that Pingu was sad.

Much later, the same effect was observed with Happy Feet. The one part that registered? The scary seal. The happy ending was totally wasted on her.

I was reading some research into educational television that said children take in information best when they’re emotionally invested in the show. It seems so obvious.

So, applying that to general entertainment whether with or without any educational value, when are children going to be most emotionally invested in a film or show? During the ‘relax folks, the world is great and everything is okay’ parts? Or during the ’OMG run, something is going to eat us!!!’ parts?

You might be looking at your child (or indeed your audience) thinking, this is great, they’re really hooked by this show, whereas what they’re seeing is effectively a horror film for kids. The ‘mild peril’ parts may be the only parts that stay with them when they go to bed that night. I am not saying with this post that peril should be avoided or your show must be toned down into nothingness. Not at all. In fact, the more inventive among you may find ways to use this positively somehow. But what children take away from your show at any given point in the episode is always something to consider. Especially when you’re dealing with a younger audience, who might not effectively verbalise what they feel about the show.

More often than not, children remember the scary stuff.

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Tags: animation, education, research, writing

The rules are different in cartoons. Nobody really gets hurt. They can’t get hurt. They’re not even real and have little or no bearing to anything in the real world.

But when it comes to how they affect children, that doesn’t seem to really matter.

Studies have indicated that children are emotionally responsive to cartoons (no surprise to parents there) and cartoon violence and exposure to violent cartoons are associated with increased aggression in kids*.

Now I watched a lot of Road Runner and I haven’t once blown anyone up with dynamite or caused them to run off a cliff and fall until they were a mere puff of dust so we have to be careful about overhyping the ‘dangers’. But I guess the thing with our own experiences is that we don’t have a proper test scenario. We don’t have a control. We can’t fall back on the “well, it didn’t do me any harm” thing because we can’t possibly know just what parts of our personality, reactions or world view were affected (even if in a very small way) by what we’ve watched.

That is, unless you’re a twin and you watched violent cartoons and your twin didn’t.

I don’t have a twin.

The good news in that is that, just as some cartoons can have a negative effect, we can (and do) work to make a positive contribution. Good content is key.

But it seems the old ‘only a cartoon’ thing isn’t backed up in tests.

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*Cline, Croft & Courier, 1973; Osborn & Endsley, 1971; Ellis & Sekyra, 1972; Hapkiewitz & Roden, 1971; Lovaas, 1961; Mussen & Rutherford, 1961; Ross, 1972.

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Tags: animation, Children, education, Messages, parenting, research

So much of the violence in the world seems to come from the idea of the pre-emptive strike. It’s about being ruled by fear. The fear that someone wants to harm you makes you want to harm them first. And then they feel threatened and aggressive. And sure enough it looks like they do want to harm you. Your initial fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

And so people die and everything goes to shit. Countries level other countries.

On a far smaller scale, children punch other children in playgrounds.

Part of this is massively reinforced by entertainment that existed long before television – stories of good guys versus bad guys. Absolutely naïve and yet still a staple of stories today. Makes for a very easy watch in movies or television. Were the cowboys the good guys and the Indians the bad guys? Every side ultimately sees themselves as the good guy, and so any aggression aimed at someone with opposing views is justified. We kill the bad guys and that makes us good. Hmmm…

But there is more to it when it comes to television.

In studies that began in the ’60s*, researchers gauged the perception of the world and how it relates to television viewing. What they found was a ‘mean world syndrome’ effect. Basically, those who watched much more television were found to be far more afraid of the world around them. To the point where many heavy viewers of television would seriously overestimate crime figures and the risk of them becoming a victim of violence or crime. Not really surprising with all the Criminal Minds, CSIs and so on, is it?

Television viewing can lead to the perception that we live in a more dangerous and mean world (hence ‘mean world syndrome’) in which people can not be trusted, we are in constant danger and we need to take steps to defend ourselves.

And so children punch other children in playgrounds or countries level other countries.

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This is one reason I adore preschool television over other areas of entertainment. So much preschool television  reinforces the idea that people can be good to each other, that people aren’t out to get you, that we can help and be helped and that the world can be a wonderful place to live.

I remember reading about a TV conference where someone said that we shouldn’t be sugaring up our children’s television because the world isn’t actually all that nice. Sure, that’s true. And it never will be unless we start believing that it can be and work towards that rather than reinforcing the bitchy, cruel world often depicted in shows for the older kids. Preschool television shows a caring, nurturing, helpful, inspiring, playful, gentle, fun, whimsical, creative and peaceful world. No mean world syndrome. A beautiful world. One I think we’re capable of. Eventually.

Isn’t that something to aim for?

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*(Gerbner, 1970; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1994)

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Tags: animation, Children, education, Messages, research

On Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated their policy and made a statement which, once again, discouraged television for children under age 2. As someone who creates and delivers content for children, it’s always important for me to know where I stand when new research emerges or statements like this are made.

So what did I make of the AAP statement?

What I found was that impressions I got from how it was reported (and how it flew around Twitter) weren’t always the same as what I got from the words of the AAP themselves. For example, much of the reporting talked about ‘screens’ like all media and all content is equal. I’ve tackled this here before – all screen time is not equal. Playing an interactive Sesame Street app is not going to have the same effect as sitting them in front of The Exorcist, for example.

But, in this conference, the AAP aren’t lumping all screen time together.

I did find the text of the early press release a little more vague and guilty of lumping ‘screen time’ together, possibly the reason for the rather basic reporting on it. But the actual content of the conference?

It’s about television.

Their statement is mainly about television. They even go as far as to say that there may be some benefit to interactive media. Bear in mind that ‘may be’ is a long, long way from ‘is’ and much product is pushed as being educational – they might well be but are the results really there? In this statement, the AAP are refreshingly honest about what they don’t yet know.

On television, the focus of this statement, the AAP discourages TV before the age of 2. Discourages – they recognise the world we live in and how that’s not always easy (if you have older children, for example).They have found no benefit in children too young to understand what they are seeing, while finding benefit in other activities that simply don’t take place when they’re watching TV. This seems to be just common sense. If they sit watching a box of what is essentially (to them) flashing colours for an hour rather than figuring out how to dismantle a dog toy or how to get dad’s attention or how to force a large figure into a tiny car from a whole other playset, well, they’re missing out.

That’s not about guilt. I’m a parent. We’re all about the guilt and TV Guilt is something we parents do just fine on our own. Guilt isn’t their job – that’s what our mothers are for!

The AAP discourage background TV. TV is distracting and its content should be an active choice. Forget about under twos – we could all do with keeping this in mind!

They encourage talking about media use and limitations – again, making an active choice.

They value free play and talk time. Fantastic. We all should. Watching children discover cause and effect as they use objects, there can be no doubt as to the value of that. And, by the way, I include some media devices in there too – it’s amazing how quickly children can figure out how a phone works, or a computer. And of course talk time is important. Not always easy, but important. Otherwise, your daughter may get most of her language from TV like one little girl I know who greeted me the other day with, “Do you see the Daddy? When you see Daddy, shout ‘Daddy!’” Oh, there’s that TV Guilt kicking in…

Lastly, the AAP encourage more research into all of this and the long-term effects. As would I.

So, as someone who makes children’s television, where am I on the AAP statement? I’m all for it. Everything in it makes sense. Let’s embrace it, keep parents informed and encourage active choices in content for children.

And keep the research coming.

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Tags: Children, education, parenting, research