The Cartoon: Friend or foe

Hyderabad: Cartoons are the most frequent and easily accessible source of entertainment for children. With the advancement of technology and increase in the number of channels, it has become easier for children to watch their favorite cartoons with a single click and has also made it easy for parents to provide children with instant entertainment.

• Are your children talking to themselves?
• Have they been aggressive lately?
• Are they hooked to electronic gadgets?
• Have they lost interest in outdoor activities?

Children rarely spend time outdoors and are instead glued to the TV sets for long hours, switching between cartoons, mostly without the supervision of elders. Many assume that animation and adult content do not go hand in hand and that innocuous plots are scripted keeping children’s welfare in mind. But many are sadly unaware that certain alarming behavioral patterns get burned into children’s psychology, which emerge gradually in their adult life.

There are a wide variety of cartoons. From fairy tales like beauty and the beast to action-packed Ben 10 and comedy flicks like Doremon and Shinchan, kids have a large array of cartoons to choose from. Toddlers below the age of ten are often interested in watching cartoons and developing their own preferences. Girls largely prefer fairy tales like the Barbie series while boys take to action-heavy cartoons.

A child’s mental development takes place between the ages of six and ten and their grasping power can unfortunately work to their detriment when potentially harmful content is fed to them. Sarita Lal, a parent of a six year old girl Kavya complained that her daughter mimics Nobitha from the cartoon Doremon. She shows little interest in studying and persuades her parents to purchase electronic gadgets like the i-pad or i-pod either to play games or watch videos.

If this could just be categorized into garden variety cranky behavior, Kavya has traits that might astonish a passerby. She talks to herself, just like Nobitha does in the cartoon. “She shows this tendency especially when she is upset or when we deny her something”, says Saritha.

“Kavya on the other hand replies that she is talking to herself. We’ve tried to explain to her that she is not right but toddler refuses to accept. She demands to know that if Nobitha can do it, why cant she?”, Saritha rues. Not all cartoons are however harmful. There are a few like Beam and Bean meant purely for tickle bones but there are other cartoons that further seep into the mind of the kid.

Krishna Mohan, another concerned parent, feels these cartoons are increasingly making children precocious. He has a 5 years old son who is an ardent fan of the cartoon Shinchan. “At first, we would allow him to watch Shinchan as we felt they were not harmful, but the rapid change in his behavior alarmed us. He lost interest in school and behaves as though possessed by Shinchan,” says Mohan, adding that he and his wife have decided to restrict their child’s cartoon-viewing time.

Padma, primary school teacher at St Anthony’s high school, says she has been receiving complaints from parents about increaingly aggressive behavior in children and feels that cartoon shows have a major role to play in this rising trend. “Most of the kids in my class have turned aggressive and are constantly in fight with each other. Surprisingly, their vocabulary does not go with their age either”, she adds.

Children with a regular cartoon-viewing habit are vulnerable not only to behavioral problems but also to obesity. As they watch cartoons, while suspending their primary awareness levels, they take in every detail without filtering any unwanted information since their minds are too young to make such decisions. This process is called vicarious learning.

“If not nipped in the bud, these behavioral changes lead to long lasting psychological problems, which might even lead to depression and suicidal tendencies”, says Sreenivas, a psychiatrist. Kalpana Sringar, also specializing in psychiatry, says that children subjected to prolonged period with cartoons have good language as they try to inculcate the slangs in them.

“The habit eventually turns into an addiction, which suppresses the child’s social skills and interacting ability”, she adds. Child counselors, however, are against entirely banning cartoons from their children’s diet. Rather they say that concentration should be put into goading them towards outdoor and indoor activities.

The influence of cartoons can be made positive with a little effort from parents and elders. The kids should be constantly reminded that these fantasy images have no true value and identity and that they largely deviate from reality. They should be strictly warned not to mimic cartoons, especially violent traits.

Parents should keep an eye on their children’s activities and be constantly on the lookout for any peculiar changes in their behavior. To make cartoons a healthy entertainment and a good and effective source of learning for children, parents should allow only selective viewing of cartoons after careful scrutiny.

By:Vaishnavi Girish