More About Children Understanding

Many people have been blogging about the capacity and depth of childrens' understanding of the world and of messages conveyed through media. How much do they really get out of things? Should deeper meanings and themes be placed in children's art forms if adults believe they will not understand it or interpret it the way that the adult wants them to? How much censorship of the hardships of the world should be placed on arts made for children?

I believe that no matter how much we think a child will comprehend, we should always give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they will get the whole message out of things. This way, even if they do not, they still might get something deeper than if a deeper message is left out entirely assuming the child wont understand. In the reading, Masters of Animation: Freeing the Spirit, they talk about how in The Sand Castle, the sandman is a sort of creator figure. At the end it also explains how he gets everyone inside the castle before the sandstorm comes and is then himself victim to it. Children might be able to see how him creating life, in a way, could tie into a god-figure and they might only get out of it that being creative and making things i good! Either way, whether they get a deeper meaning or whether they only get a more surface message, no harm was done from inserting the symbols and themes into the story for the child to potentially pick up on. Children think in a more simple way than adults, and this sometimes allows them to get the big picture, or theme, easier because they don't have all of the other thoughts and connections and symbols flying around in their head to get in the way. They just watch something and take out of it what they think is most important and that is all that maters to them. This is a beautiful thing to me, that a child learns about life in a way that makes sense to them.

 

Referring to the questions on censorship, like Sam said in class, children are going to be presented with and come in contact with hardships and the less "happy and warm" things in life anyway, so why try to hide them from it. By not censoring children focused things as much, we can help guide the way they are introduced to and learn about the "bad things" of the world, this way they have a more healthy understanding of them.