A lot has been said and written about fictitious superhero movies marking a negative impact on kids. Reason being that a child’s brain, being in its nascence can easily start believing the otherwise unreal stories and getting caught up in them. So is the common belief.
Let’s roll back a little and see… do they really? Why not think of it from the positive side, of course everything that has an upside has a downside too –it’s just how we look at it. Referring to the first paragraph since at a younger age the brain of a child is under development, its learning new things, finding out what he didn’t before; isn’t it just the right time to introduce the child to “imagination”? It is often quoted that imagination is like a muscle that needs to be used, and what could be a better time for a human brain to use this muscle than the time of youth.
Let me state two factual findings in front of you: One, human beings are best at learning during their childhoods. Two, it is very tough to hold a child’s attention if the subject is not interesting enough for him/her. Now if, we look at the aforementioned together, with a little twist of the mind one comes to the conclusion that children should be presented to things that they are interested in & then add learning elements to that thing. Looking at the statistics, there remains no doubt that kids love superheroes! Instead of being a skeptical about it, we should realize the need to engineer the subject into a less damaging and more beneficial thing.
Apart from the fact that topics like such can be a profitable aid in a child’s learning process, we should also acknowledge that they are a learning source. For example, when children would watch a positivity focused superhero like the Superman or the Batman, they would most definitely pick up the superhero’s basic traits, i.e. bravery, honesty and care. Putting ourselves in a child’s shoe we would also find that movies would help them learn other skills, like communication, socializing and whatnot.
That being said about the upside, we must also stay aware of the downside –movies nowadays do not always portray positive characters that could be taken as ideals; for example the Spiderman from its third movie shows an utterly villainous character inside a person that most of our children have come to dote. In order for things like these to be used in the best interests of the kids we must ensure that such issues are handled. A tamed mode of movie making for the purpose of children’s entertainment can surely become their greatest source of learning if used in the right way.
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