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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 8:25am | IP Logged
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I am genuinely trying to understand a viewpoint that I currently do not :)
I would like to know what others see as the benefits of cartoons (shows, videos, movies) for young children - most particularly when it comes to historical facts and most-most-most particularly when it comes to the Faith.
To put this in perspective, I am right there with everyone who can sing "Oh Where is My Hairbrush?", "The Cheeseburger Song" and every. single. song from "Josh and the Big Wall" (Oh those peas!) --- yeah, we like Veggie Tales. But my son watched these videos in elementary, years after reading the stories from the full Bible (not even a children's Bible).
So, it's not that we avoid all things cartoony ;) I am just wondering about others - those of you who let your toddlers and preschoolers watch cartoons.
:)
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Mackfam
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:29am | IP Logged
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I do get what you're saying, and I certainly have particular tastes in cartoons, and we have made some decisions over our parenting years with regard to preferences.
In general, I like cartoons (whether faith, history, or character based) and find them light and enjoyable. I consider them "potato chips" in the realm of education - a little is fine with the big meal!  But we don't make a meal out of them.
We love the CCC of America cartoons here. I find those to be very well done, and all my kids have enjoyed them immensely! I catch my little ones repeating particular phrases from them all the time.
As far as benefits for a toddler or preschooler - my goodness, there are some days a busy mama with a houseful of children NEEDS a short break!! And allowing the little ones a few minutes with Little Bear, St. Nicholas or Liberty's Kids gives her a minute to freshen up, say her prayers, grab a bite to eat (since she didn't get to eat with everyone else because she was (1) cutting someone else's food, (2) nursing the baby, (3) reading aloud, (4) managing "table manners"). And if the kids happen to learn that George Washington wore glasses and his troops were inspired when they saw his great humility, all the better!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:31am | IP Logged
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Oh I think the benefits fall into things like.. tired moms needing toddlers to be reasonably still for 30 minutes.  Especially when mom is sick or pregnant or nursing a new baby or just trying to get too much done for the amount of time there is.
Other than that, it appears to be fun for the child to discover things that they know in tv shows.. or to find out something and discover that it's really real. Just one more connection to the world at large.
And considering the video I saw posted recently about adults not knowing what we celebrate on July 4th or who we became independent from.. at least if you've seen Liberty Kids or School House Rock, you'll have a clue.
Oh and speaking of which.. things set to music are really beneficial for people to remember that way. I would sing (in my head) school house rock songs and other older popular songs for names and dates for history tests when I was in school.
Now I certainly don't claim that screen time is the best use of time for a young child. But then neither are the things that they may choose to get into or attempt to do when mom is doing something else that needs to be done, like dinner, or a shower, or... 
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:39am | IP Logged
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Interesitng thoughts...
I am right there with needing the break once in a while. :) My son had Milo and Otis (talking animals, but they acted like animals); Black Stallion; the first little bit of Jurassic Park (only up until just before the scary part); two other horse movies I can't recall right now; several "how things work" type videos. I guess we didn't really get into the historical stuff until he was 5 and 6 and moving into the second plane of development where the child's mind "gets it" more easily.
We love School House Rock! Probably the only cartoon DVD we own ;) But that was in elementary too.
I'll clarify a bit - why cartoons over non-cartoons for the younger ages?
And I am more asking because of a comment made by an 11 year old boy I know - the other night he commented that cartoons are so obviously not real, that for most of his younger elementary years he didn't know that some of the cartoons he had seen were actually based on real events - and actually told historical truth.
Which gets me thinking "What is the other side to this?"
:)
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:47am | IP Logged
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CatholicMommy wrote:
| I'll clarify a bit - why cartoons over non-cartoons for the younger ages? |
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Frankly? Because the 2 year old likes them better.
If it is just my older kids, they would as soon watch Reading Rainbow or Wild America. But even my 4 year old will choose a cartoon if it is his turn, and I can't not give him a turn to choose if his brothers get to choose.
But if I need the toddler to stay out of trouble as part of the reason we are watching, he is MUCH less likely to wander away and wreak havoc if it is Little Bear or Magic Schoolbus.
Also, when your older children start having opinions and tastes, etc..., it becomes harder to control exactly what the toddlers and preschoolers are watching. You can't exactly tell the toddler, "No, I'm sorry, you can't watch Veggie Tales because you aren't old enough yet and you don't know the Bible stories like your brothers."
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stefoodie
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:51am | IP Logged
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Well, I wouldn't use them for "babysitting" purposes except in extreme situations (like if I need to tend to a sick child and there's no one to keep the toddler occupied), and I wouldn't use cartoons as regular "food" for the brain, but I've seen some that have been really helpful AND fun for the kids:
Two examples:
Pope Francis in 4 Minutes
How to Become Pope
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 9:57am | IP Logged
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Oh I get what you're asking. Well, for one thing, current movies and shows that are not cartoons are NOT G rated. Very very few. So that a lot of people think that cartoons are what young children are supposed to watch.
We have a large family so it would be impossible to have the elementary kids watch something and have the younger kids not see it. (the older kids can stay up late to watch something not appropriate for the younger) But they also overhear the books read aloud, and the discussions.
But live action movies are just as unrealistic as the cartoons. Maybe less obvious to the kids though. My kids love watching the movie magic specials they put on the dvds that tell how the special effects were done for the movie.
But how the parents deal with tv (is there any discussion?) and the personality of the child (some children can be so literal that even if there's a discussion that the story is real, they'll still maintain the idea that it's a cartoon and it's either real or it isn't and there is no middle ground) are probably the main reasons for situations like you describe.
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 10:10am | IP Logged
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Well, the issue of "reality" is just as relevant where "real actors" are concerned so for me whether the show is a cartoon or not is not important in this regard. For me, the bigger question with regard to the 11yo is do his parents explain that some things are real and some things are not? How does that boy know that a video with real actors is "real" or that a book he is reading is "real?" (Even some fictional books are based somewhat on real events.) My kids ask when we read if what I'm reading really happened (or I explain if they don't ask). We do the same thing with videos when necessary. Obviously, Looney Tunes isn't real and my kids know that. They also know that Veggie Tales and CCC videos *are* based on real events.
As for why we watch cartoons -- some are truly educational, some are just plain fun. It's not all we watch or even most of what we watch, so why not? I don't see cartoons as "worse" than anything else just because they are cartoons. But then I allow comic books right alongside The Hobbit and Narnia too. And, come to think of it, this is similar to reading picture books like Time of Wonder and Blueberries for Sal with picture books about the Wright Brothers. It's true for both tv and books -- young kids might not know what's "real." Sometimes it doesn't matter; sometimes they will figure it out on their own; sometimes we will tell them.
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SallyT
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Like anything else, some cartoons are well done and some aren't. We've always allowed "classics" like Loony Toons, just because they're brilliant in their own right, alongside things like Magic Schoolbus and Wild Kratts, which my 9- and 10-year-olds love even now. We haven't had a tv since my oldest was 5 (almost 15 years ago), but do use our computers as "tv" on an "as-needed" basis -- which is a matter of constant negotiation in our household, but oh well.
And it is fun to see the kids do the "reverse allusion" thing -- I know the music from a particular Bugs Bunny short is from The Barber of Seville, or Wagner, or whatever, but they hear it on our classical music station and go, "Hey, that's from that Bugs Bunny cartoon -- about a barber! That's really funny!"
I've never loved Veggie Tales all that much, but my kids liked them . . . and yep, whenever something gets lost in our house, we all sing, "Where . . . . Is My (Whatever)?" And they really haven't been that confused about whether or not the people in Ninevah slapped each other with fish, or King David was an asparagus. I've never noticed, even in my really little children, a particular tendency to confuse a cartoon with real life (or a fairy tale with real life, for that matter), though occasionally, on watching a Roadrunner cartoon for example, they might have said, "Can you really . . . fall off a cliff and not die/strap rockets to your feet and fly/whatever?" There would be that doubt in their mind -- is this representing something that could really happen? But it was always a doubt. I think they got on some level that things could be represented in cartoons that would not work according to the laws of nature. So I've never personally had someone try to jump off the roof or anything like that, because they saw a cartoon character do it. But maybe I just have born skeptics in my house? :)
Sally
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SallyT
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| Posted: July 08 2013 at 11:20am | IP Logged
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I will add that I'm more inclined to expose kids to cartoons as an art form in their own right-- I really like Loony Tunes. I really don't like, and would never go out of the way to show my own children, the didactic EWTN cartoon about First Communion that our (excellent and beloved) DRE puts on for my students before their First Communion Mass every year. I have no objection to the basic content, obviously (which in any case is only what I've been teaching them all year). It's just an artistically kind of cruddy cartoon with a clunky story line, and we're all agreed that the only reason it's on is to keep everyone from rolling around in the ground in their First Communion outfits while we wait for the whole class to assemble.
On the other hand, Magic Schoolbus is fun, well done, and good science. We don't watch it schematically, but on a rainy afternoon or a sick day, when nothing else is getting done, I'm happy enough to turn it on. Ditto Wild Kratts, though it's a little more action-y than I really like. Ditto Liberty's Kids, though we haven't seen that in a long time, or the David Macauley documentaries, which feature cartoon story lines. I've found a lot more of that kind of thing that I like, admire, and would use as enrichment, than I've ever found in a faith-related counterpart. Granted, my exposure is really limited, but I haven't found anything as good even as Magic Schoolbus for faith formation. Certainly nothing as high-quality as the books we read. But then, we've never watched the CCC of America cartoons that Jen mentioned, so I think I'm going to preview those -- we do like our potato chips from time to time!
Sally
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Topic: Benefits of cartoons?
