Children, especially between the ages of about 10 to 13 have had a complicated relationship with adults when their stories are being told in film and on television. The tween demographic is a compelling one because so much is happening with these children developmentally. There is conflict, a need to assert independence and, of course young romance.Years ago, Walt Disney approached his stories about tweens by featuring orphans as the lead characters. Films like, 'Pollyanna', 'Toby Tyler', 'Tom Sawyer' and even, 'Cinderella' placed the orphan in a unique position in society and allowed spectacular and even unbelievable adventures to occur because there were no invested adults to interfere and no family structure to foil the plot. The orphans could get away with things that kids with parents could only dream about but Walt was always careful to show the lonliness and self doubt that his characters felt.
In the 1970's, 'Little House on the Prarie', 'Eight is Enough', 'The Brady Bunch' and 'The Partridge Family' and many other shows put the tween characters solidly back in the bosom of a lively and caring family. The stories involved parents and showed how families solved problems and still bonded as a family. The parents were part of the story line and the child's family unit was often portrayed as a fully developed character all it's own.My kids watch two television shows in particular that feature tweens who have very busy, uninvolved parents and who have virtually no supervision in school or at home. Shows like 'Zack and Cody' and 'iCarly' casts boring adults only as fumbling, babbling idiots who have no insight or experience and offer nothing (even a coherent conversation) to the child actors. The plots of these shows feature the kids solving their own problems in spite of the interference of the adults around them. The kids feed themselves, get themselves to school, call each other on their cell phones and put themselves to bed often for days on end without an adult in evidence.
Walt is probably turning over in his grave. Even Mr. Rogers is trying to channel the Children's Television Workshop (and his focus was on very young children).
In the book, 'Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters' by pediatrician, Meg Meeker, MD, we are advised to have a very involved role in the lives of our children right up through the teen years because teenagers "have not fully developed the ability to think reasonably and abstractly." When television marginalizes and downgrades the parent to further the plot, effectively causing the children to behave as though they really are orphans, a curious dynamic unfolds and the tween viewer envisions in the story the empowerment of self worth without paying the price of self doubt. In 21 minutes on a television screen chock full of ads aimed at blowing out their developing frontal lobes, kids rule and adults play the fool.
Mr. Rogers and Walt Disney are hopefully up in heaven right now negotiating a reincarnation.
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