Parents should know: How to choose a cartoon for a child?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Every parent knows how much children love to watch cartoons. Sometimes they are ready to spend even several hours in a row at this lesson. But unlike children, adults understand that not all entertainment is useful, and therefore they try to limit their children from prolonged sitting in front of screens.

The reason is simple - a child's development takes place, first of all, in movement, in creativity, in activity, and passive sitting in front of the TV is permissible only in a very limited amount, for example, when the child has been doing something and he has 15-20 minutes to rest. School-age children can watch longer cartoons, but again, going to the cinema on Sunday should be more an exception to the rule than a standard weekend format.

However, it is not only the viewing time that matters, but the content itself. After all, in fact, cartoons are analogs of fairy tales that we all loved to listen to in childhood. And hardly anyone will say that fairy tales have brought us harm, on the contrary - they awakened our imagination, taught us to empathize with heroes, instilled in us faith in goodness, justice, taught us to overcome fears, laid the foundations of morality. True, these tales were passed down from generation to generation, their content was refined for decades and was focused on the development of the child. With rare exceptions, they brought only positive effects to children. But modern cartoons can no longer boast of this - a huge part of them is created on the basis of financial interests and, as a result, sacrifices the educational component for the sake of entertainment, and often contains frankly negative aspects.

Therefore, every adult should be aware that the responsibility for what information the child will receive from watching this or that cartoon today rests primarily on his shoulders. In order for the choice to be more conscious and correct, you need to know two main criteria for evaluating cartoons and any other products for children - these are maximum safetyand maximum utility … Speaking about the "safety of cartoons", we take into account that a child's psyche is very different from an adult. Children are very sensitive and still cannot filter information, separating useful from harmful, which is why many things can negatively influence them.

Therefore, you should be aware of the frequently encountered disadvantages of modern animation:

• An overabundance of aggression and violence on the screen. A child can imitate cartoon violence in their life.
• Complete impunity. The bad deed of the character is not condemned, and sometimes even welcomed, because of which the child can form a stereotype of permissiveness.
• Blurry of ideas about good and evil. Black appears to be white, and white appears to be black, and sometimes there is no edge at all, and everything is seen as innocent individualism. In such cartoons, even a positive character can commit bad deeds for good purposes.
• Endowing a woman with masculine features of appearance and character and vice versa. This is reflected in the behavior, clothing, role of the characters. Sometimes it comes to the point that in such cartoons they even show negative images of mother and motherhood.
• Early sex education. This opens up a sphere of drives in the child ahead of time, for which he is not yet functional, morally and physically ready. In the future, this will result in difficulties with creating a family and procreation.
• Excess humor and stupidity. The abundance of humor suggests that funny scenes make up for the lack of useful content.
• Excessive emphasis on secondary sexual characteristics: clear relief of the chest, waist, hips, focus of the camera on the fifth point.
• Increased animation dynamics and acidity of colors. Watching too fast scenes and footage with acid colors overexcites the central nervous system and greatly contributes to the formation of clip thinking in viewers.
• Naturalism, when the processes of physiology are deliberately underlined: wounds, excretions, toilet topics, and so on.
• Inconsistency of speech with the age of the child. The heroes speak either in complex words, or their speech and emotions are primitive to the point of dullness.

This, of course, is not the whole list, but we recommend that you save it to your bookmarks or print it and hang it on the wall. So that you always remember what to look for when choosing a cartoon. If you know other shortcomings that permeate modern animation, be sure to tell us about them in the comments to this video.

Now let's talk about the second important criterion - we called it "Maximum utility" … To do this, we list the main points that must contain cartoons for the normal development of the child:

• A kind, caring attitude to the surrounding nature: to animals, plants, other people.
• Obedience, respect for adults, instilling honesty, love, mutual assistance. We are not talking about unconditional obedience, since adults sometimes make mistakes, and children can correct them.
• Interest in books, knowledge, self-development and improvement of their human qualities. It is necessary to show that knowledge leads to an improvement in the situation and the solution of life's problems.
• Ethnic wealth. We are surrounded by many nations. We all have kind and interesting tales and traditions.
• Correct Russian speech: without distortions, curses, without an excess of foreign words.
• A lifestyle without alcohol, cigarettes and other addictions. The appeal of a sober and healthy lifestyle.
• Shame and conscience. Conscience is an innate feeling that tells a person how to do the right thing. It is necessary to show from childhood that living in harmony with your conscience is the norm. Without shame and conscience, you cannot become a Man.
• A clear distinction between good and evil, good and bad behavior.
• Heroism. Its peculiarity is that it should not be based on strength alone. Heroism should be based on the ability to choose the right option, apply your Knowledge, unite with others, give the opportunity for evil to sincerely repent and change.

Surely you can name other positive meanings with which it is desirable to fill modern cartoons. Write them in the comments. The question arises - where to find cartoons that meet the voiced criteria … After all, it will take a huge amount of time to view all modern paintings, and it is not a fact that the result will be positive. Until recently, parents found themselves in a really difficult situation, since no one systematically carried out such work.

But today there is already a KinoCensor website, where users themselves evaluate films and cartoons according to the criteria of their safety and usefulness. As a result of this general assessment, which focuses on identifying the educational potential of the cartoon, the final rating of the film is gradually formed, after watching which parents can decide whether to show the cartoon to the child. Also on KinoCensor there is a TOP-100 page, on which you can already find pictures that have received high ratings from users of the resource. And to make this list more objective and complete, we urge viewers to go to the site right now and evaluate those works that you love the most and are happy to show your children. Thanks to your grades, other parents can easily find good cartoons.

Welcome to KinoCensor!

Source: KinoCensor

We also recommend that you familiarize yourself with the lists feature filmsand cartoonsfor children approved by the Teach Good Project: