Hi gang,
We've noticed something interesting with our 3-year-old son when it comes to watching TV. He will sometimes get scared watching cartoons, which seems pretty normal for a 3-year-old. For example, the goofy troll at the beginning of the movie Enchanted freaked him out, and the scene in the museum in Kung Fu Panda (which is not at all scary or violent -- it's just the panda looking at artifacts) made him want to turn the movie off. Even Pete on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse sometimes upsets him a little. Nothing too unusual so far, right?
But live-action violence just doesn't seem to bother him at all. (Note that we try to avoid letting him watch violent programs, but sometimes flipping around the channels you just stumble across it. Even commercials during the daytime are full of crazy stuff.) I realized this last night when we surfed past Spider-Man and he begged to watch. It was the scene where the Green Goblin is attacking a parade in midtown Manhattan, and for those who might not recall it, it's pretty violent and the Goblin is scary. But he watched and just did his usual "why?" routine (as in "why does the Gobby-Gobby Man want to scare people?" and "why did Spider-Man get a boo-boo?" and other such questions). He was totally curious, but not scared at all. We went (as usual) to great lengths to explain to him how movies work.
I'm wondering if this might be because we are always very quick to explain to him that the stuff he sees on TV is not real, but maybe not so quick to say that when it's a cartoon. I don't know. It just strikes me as strange. Has anyone else noticed similar behavior in their kids?
Interesting ideas, everyone. Thanks!
And Laura, thanks for that link. I like the way they give numeric ratings so you don't have to read all the spoilers to get an idea of a movie's content. :)
I noted Kung Fu Panda's PG rating, but figured he might get a kick out of it since he takes karate lessons. I was ready with that Stop button though. :) (The part that actually bothered him didn't involve any violence, strangely enough.) We try to avoid letting him see anything that's really inappropriate, but now that he's in preschool he hears a lot of stuff from other kids and to be honest I prefer that he learn about, shall we say, PG-rated topics with Mom and Dad present to explain them.
BTW, it happened AGAIN last night! We wanted to check the overnight temperature, so we turned on the Weather Channel. They weren't showing the weather; they were showing the Hindenburg disaster! "Daddy, put that back on please! I want to see the blimp! Why is the blimp on fire?" So I explained to him about hydrogen and helium and static electricity and all that. Fortunately they didn't show any gruesome closeups of burn victims or anything.
Real people fighting etc. Then you have monsters, aliens he doesn't know what they really are. Is my guess.
I never banded my kids of any show, movies, books or computer stuff, What happened to them? One was 3rd in her high school class and has a BA majoring in math and physics and her brother is a USAF Capt working with nukes.
Only a theory here... if you take a dog in a cartoon, have it walk and talk, that isn't normal. Dogs shouldn't do that. And then if you make that dog turn into a monster or something, it compounds the fact that it isn't normal. That could be scary. If you have a real dog doing things that real dogs do, barking and chewing on chew toys. It is normal. Even if you take that dog and have it bite someone's leg off in the film, it still started out as a normal dog. So maybe, it is the normality of real things that is keeping him from being scared of them versus the abnormality of the cartoon things. So although the green goblin was doing things people can't do, he was a normal man.
I guess just keep explaining to him what is real and what isn't and eventually he will work it out. In the meantime, just shut off what bothers him.
With my own kids, when something scares them, we talk about how the people behind it are actors and the make-up, special affects, and sound effects involved. They have watched "making of's" certain films to see how things were done. They are rarely scared by anything anymore. Of course, we do monitor what we think is appropriate or not for their age.
I don't have an "explanation" - but wondered:
perhaps your 3-yo doesn't focus in on the live action violence because you switch the channel too quickly for him to have a chance to relate to the characters?
or - as you say - you don't intervene and explain re the cartoons?
violence IS shown to affect us more when we are able to relate to the character who is the victim and when we relate to the perpetrator... (Keep in mind, when we relate to the perpetrator, who is the so-called "good guy" is when we are more likely to emulate violence...)
keep up the explanations about the differences between how we solve problems in our world vs how they are solving them in "this program / movie"... we learn from "good" examples - and "bad" ones - IF it is explained so we internalize the lessons...
good luck!
kung fu panda is rated PG.
My 5 year old still only watches G-rated movies. he is very sensitive and, even if he wasn't, I don't think children 'need' to be watching so much! it sounds like you have similar beliefs, so I just wanted to point that out...
here's a site that looks interesting:
http://www.kids-in-mind.com/k/kungfupanda.htm
It does seem a little strange. There must be a reason why he looks at cartoons differently. You just don't always know what they are thinking. My three year old daughter has all the sudden became very emotional when watching any kind of movie. It started when she cried during the new Ariel's Beginning movie. She cried at the end when Ariel and her dad made up. I never thought a 3 year old could understand what was going on. Now it seems there is at least one part in every movie she watches that she cries at. Once she sees a movie she is ok after that.
I do the same as you do with explaining right away about things being make believe. I would try asking him what it is about it that scares him. You never know, maybe he will enlighten you!
My thought is that maybe he understands and relates to the cartoon visual vs. the actual real life picture. With such a hightened immagination, he sees things in more of a "cartoon" world. In his world, the troll is more real than a drive by shooting. Not sure how to make it any better other than stressing the fact that it's not real....but not sure if that would help either. I was obsessed with cartoons for a long time (and still love the cartoon movies), so if he's like me, his attraction to them might last a while. Honestly, I think he's just going to have to work through this on his own. Good luck!
Curious indeed. It seems like you already have the answer--the explaining movies but not cartoons. Try explaing that cartoons are only drawings. If you can get hold of one of those books you flip with your thumb and the drawings "move", would be useful. Let me know what happens. Good luck.
A.-- I was thinking of posting a similar question, because my three-year-old son has suddenly begun finding lots of things scary. He used to love the movie "Shrek"-- it was his very favorite-- and now he's scared of the dragon. That's completely understandable, but I was just curious whether it was part of a developmental stage, because it happened all of a sudden. He'll even tell me that an Elmo video is too scary (because Elmo screams as he goes down the hill on a rollercoaster). He has started to tell me all the time that he's afraid of monsters-- he'll say, "Mommy, there are monsters in the garage" or "in the bathroom". I used to read him "Where the Wild Things Are", because I loved it as a kid, so I don't know if that's what planted the seed of monsters? Also, he got a "Goodnight Moon" video for his birthday which has a little animated vignette of "There's a Nightmare in My Closet", with a funny cartoon monster "nightmare" who starts crying because he's afraid, so the boy in the story lets the nightmare sleep in his bed with him. He used to love it, but now it scares him. I'm not really sure how he'd react to the live-action stuff, but I definitely noticed a change in how he reacts to movies he used to love. He's even afraid of "Finding Nemo"--which he used to LOVE-- because of the scary beginning where the barricuda (or some scary fish) eats Marlin's wife, Coral. And it IS scary, but it just started to frighten him recently. Maybe he's just now beginning to understand that things can be threatening? I've also noticed that he's started to comment on things around him, classifying them as "funny" or "scary". For example, we were walking back from the grocery store the other day, and a scary-sounding dog started barking at us from his front porch. I admit, it even scared me. My son froze and watched the dog for a few seconds, and then said, "That dog is FUNNY." I think he was trying to reassure himself. But I've noticed a tendency for him to find a lot of things scary lately. Maybe it IS a developmental stage? Maybe I should post that question to see if anyone knows? I guess my situation is a little different than yours, but just thought I'd tell you about my son's fears of his formerly beloved cartoons. (Just as I was typing this, by the way, my son was looking out the front window, and I heard him say to himself, "Those monsters aren't scary-- they're FUNNY!" I asked him where the monsters were, and he looked up at the tree outside the window and said, "In the leaves." Maybe this is an age when the imagination is really firing up? I need to learn more about it...)
