MOVIES EFFECTS TO CHILDREN
For one, Disney movies provide children, parents, teachers and daycare workers with a little breathing space. While the children are busy watching these movies, parents and others can complete chores, etc. Moreover, these movies can help strengthen children’s communication, language, problem-solving and coping skills. Some Disney movies can even teach children words in foreign languages. Furthermore, these movies are used as a social tool, in which parents and children can come together over a common interest or activity.Some parents feel the need to provide their children with regular or constant entertainment or to indulge them with what they feel makes their children happy. For others, it has almost become reflexive, “Disney is for kids”, movies have become an American way of life from childhood, and of course, this does not exclude other countries.
However, there is evidence that child-based movies have become significantly more violent in recent years and that parents have increased the amount of time they allow their children to watch them. In the past, children watched a limited amount of television and movies. Most children in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, tended to go to the movie theater to watch child-based movies, but since the advent of the VCR, child-based movies are a constant. In fact, in the past “going to the movies” was an exciting event for most children. Why? Not only tto watch a movie, but it also gave them a chance to socialize with friends. With the VCR and CDs, Netlix and the like, movies can also become a solitary, isolative way of life.
It is important to note that a passive lifestyle that consists of spending large amounts of time watching movies and television can influence a child’s thoughts and behaviors. If a child sees violent, sexual and/or unrealistic child-based movies and cartoons, he or she may internalize these images and concepts and this can contribute to acting them out in school or at home. Emotions from movies and music can also be internalized.
Belief systems in children and teens are also influenced by movies, especially in the absence of an already established belief system. Many times present-day, child-based movies and cartoons are based on an element of aggression, which counteracts what the children might learn in school or at home. It is this extreme or constant attachment with television and movies that can lend itself well to depression in particular, but other mental health issues. Not that it is necessarily causal, though in can be in some instances, but it can be one contributing factor among several.
Moreover, DVDs and internet-streaming, child-based movies and cartoons are readily accessible, which means that some children watch them over and over again, every day. In fact, child-based movies and cartoons are often used as “substitute babysitters.” According to a 1996 survey, eight out of 10 child-based cartoons are violent in nature.
Why are these violent and/or aggressive movies and cartoons shown to children? Primarily because children often lose interest in tamer movies. Movies with at least some violence have more “hook”. Violent, or aggressive child-based movies and cartoons, or child TV programs or movies spiced with a little sexuality, may hold a child’s attention longer so that is what the market sells. Sexual adults create children’s movies, so if a little sexual innuendo finds itself in a Sponge Bob movies for children, or a Dreamworks kids-flick, it shouldn’t be surprising.
As for violence, even many 5 and 6 year-olds are familiar with horror movies like the Chainsaw Massacre, Scream, Friday the 13th and Chucky, standard staples on cable television,and in some communities, the vast majority of children ages 8 and up.
