The Benefits of Watching Cartoons
Cartoons are the very first novelty that small babies and children begin to watch on television. Mom’s begin to place their babies in front of the television when they are around 4 months old because they are able to see and be distracted by the vivid colors and the movements of the characters. Babies can have an attention span for close to a half hour when they first start watching cartoons. This can help new mothers grab a few things if they are going on an outing or have a few minutes to pick things up or take a phone call. There are many good benefits for people of all ages to watch cartoons because it’s relaxing for smaller children, school-aged children and even adults love cartoons. Small babies start to process these colors and characters that they see on a screen and eventually as they turn into toddlers. They also begin to learn how families fit together, how people come from different cultures and also see that families all live in some kind of housing and celebrate different holidays including birthdays.
Vocabulary
When children begin to watch cartoons they start learning how to process words. The exchange of vocabulary between a child, cartoons and their parents help children how to learn what different objects are, who different people are in relation to the family. They also are able to to see how people live in different areas of the world by watching cartoons like “Dora” and “Diego”. They are able to learn words in Spanish that are simple and are the same meaning in English. These cartoons are beneficial because children learn that people eat different cuisines. This also might open up a great conversation with questions about how people live in other countries between parents and children. This is also able to understand words in Spanish.
Cartoon characters
Children also benefit from watching how characters interact with each other on cartoons. They can watch animated fairy tales, learn about animated animals like “SpongeBob Squarepants“ and learn all about the different sea creatures that live beneath the oceans. They also can learn social skills by watching these sea animals interact and display various emotions like happy, sad, mean, silly, funny, tearful, love, etc. They can learn from these cartoons how these characters solve their problems when they are having problems with their sea creature friends. Children and adults can benefit from learning how to live in harmony from watching cartoons.
Positive effects
Cartoons help kids jumpstart the learning process. There is a positive influence that cartoons have on kids and especially educational cartoons. These cartoons teach different things like shapes, numbers, and colors. These cartoons teach kids in a way that is fun but helps them interact so this becomes very enjoyable for them. Kids like to see visuals that are moving and talking and this is what piques their interest from little on.
Cognitive benefits
Cognitive benefits can also be gained from your kids watching cartoons on television. This works with long term memory, attention spans, reasoning, and logic skills, visual and hearing start introducing them to the senses.
Creativity
Cartoons also help your children develop their imagination and creativity. Cartoons help children start thinking of new ideas that they saw on cartoons, so they start coming up with their own stories and become interested in artwork by watching cartoons.
Laughing and stress
Everyone finds cartoons humorous and this might be the first time you hear your kids laugh out loud because the characters are doing silly stunts. Laughter has always been good at breaking up stress. Laughter also is great for the immune system and helps release the endorphins that create positive feelings.
Educational
When you expose your children to healthy cartoons, they can learn about their own local customs, traditions, history, and myths. There are cartoons about Indian culture from India, and children learn about mythology about India and their beliefs. Aesop’s fables is a good cartoon for teaching good morals, kindness, empathy, and compassion.
Negative Impacts
There are many cartoons with positive impacts on kids, but there are also some that have the opposite effect on children. This affects their behavior and development. Here are a few examples of the negative effects that cartoons have on kids. Some cartoons encourage violence and teach children to use violence in real life. Sometimes kids can believe that no one ever suffers hurt or pain because the characters always escape without being hurt after a violent escapade. These are the cartoons that are over 50 years old where people didn’t realize that violence affected our children. These are cartoons like Tom and Jerry, The Roadrunner, and another cartoon by the name of Oggy and the Cockroaches. These characters are always hitting each other and pushing each other down from tall heights without suffering any real consequences.
Many cartoons demonstrate characters being rude, not obeying authority or disrespecting their elders. Children can start to demonstrate this kind of behavior and can start to challenge their parents and teachers if they are not suffering consequences for inappropriate behavior.
Bad language
Some cartoons have inappropriate language that children pick up on because they are still young and mimic what they see and hear. Parents should monitor what their children watch on television and take advantage of parental controls.
Antisocial behavior
There are many cartoons that demonstrate antisocial behavior and send the wrong messages. Some cartoons make sexual innuendos, use aggression, sassy and arrogant behavior. This type of conduct can also affect your children and suddenly they start to act like the characters.
Cartoons still are a good learning tool for children and there are still many benefits that they will learn from watching different cartoons. Parents should sit down and watch cartoons with their children to make sure they are learning positive skills instead of negative skills. Parents can choose parental controls to weed out the bad cartoons from the good cartoons. If you are going to encourage your children to watch cartoons, try to find some cartoons that they will learn from. Don’t choose the cartoons where there is bopping on the head with bats, fighting, pushing, name calling, pinching, biting, etc. This is only going to cause your household problems in the long run. In addition, this will also cause problems at school and you wouldn’t want your child to be a bully when they first attend school. This is a negative label that can make their first year at school a challenging opportunity that should have been a positive and memorable opportunity.