Contents
Should you be scared if your child wishes death to a character in a movie, book or play? Where is the line between a normal interest in murder and death and something that should cause parental anxiety?
Last week we published the story of accursed_union, a blogger who attended a children’s interactive performance with his son and was amazed at how children reacted to choosing one of two endings: most of the audience of 5–9 year old viewers called for the killing of an innocent, friendly protagonist.
«Which ending do you want?» «Tragic!» — one after another repeated the young theater-goers, less and less doubting the correctness of such a choice. The father saw in this an indication of a mistake in education: it seems that we, the parents, are doing something wrong, since the children wish death on a pretty character on stage. Is there really something in this behavior of a child that is worth paying attention to? We asked child psychologist Anna Utkina and teacher Olga Lishina about this.
“It is better for a child to live this in a fantasy world than to painfully accumulate anger”
Anna Utkina, child and adolescent psychologist
There may be several reasons why the children in the theater preferred the «tragic» ending:
1 They May Have Been Driven By Curiosity — to see how it will technically look like an actor will play a decapitation. Children understand that if a hero is executed on stage, then it will be “not true”, “pretend”. After all, theater is a game. And children are good at distinguishing between the real world and the imaginary world. About this in his bookwrites clinical psychologist Deborah McNamara.
Thanks to this, the game serves as therapy for the child — he can do things that he would never allow himself in reality.
For example, cut into pieces a classmate molded from plasticine, who in reality teases and offends him; expel a doll playing the role of a younger brother from the house; tear off the head of a toy depicting a teacher, and so on.
Seeing such stories, do not be afraid. Let the child live it out in a fantasy world rather than painfully accumulate anger and one day throw it out in some unacceptable form.
2. It could have been a protest, the desire to do something across all the rules. Then the question arises: “What is the reason for this demarche? What do children disagree with and what do they oppose?
It is unlikely that at 5–7 years old a child is driven by the struggle of generations, because this is the age when you want to copy your parents and be good for them. Perhaps among the older children there were one or two “frondeurs” — lovers of such provocative behavior to attract attention to themselves. And the rest of the guys just joined their position, because it is so non-standard, bright. As marketer Mark Earls writes in his study The Herd,
Humans as a biological species are primarily social and are willingly infected by the emotions of the group to which they belong.
The story that the author of the post writes about is very reminiscent of the Gospel events, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in response to the question of Pontius Pilate, how he should deal with the arrested Jesus, shouted: “Crucify!” It would seem that just four days before that they solemnly welcomed him in their city, and he did them nothing wrong. But the very effect of the “herd” worked — an uncontrollable crowd that just wants to experience the strongest emotions possible.
3. If we consider the option that this is an example of child abuse, then I do not think that it originates precisely from the family. The roots, I believe, are even deeper — in human nature. Philosopher, zoologist, Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz in the book «”, drawing analogies between the animal world and people, shows that there is an innate instinct to show aggression towards representatives of their own species. This contributes to the preservation of the species.
In addition to the three functions of aggressive behavior characteristic of animals (uniform distribution over the living space, selection of the strongest in fights, protection of offspring), Lorenz identifies several more in humans.
In particular, he says that aggression maintains a hierarchy: “each individual of the group knows who is stronger than him, who is weaker, and can retreat before the stronger without a fight. And he expects the weaker one to retreat before him if they get in each other’s way <...> Thus, the struggle between members of the community is avoided.
To reduce the level of aggressiveness, you need to make the actions of group members predictable.
And this goal is served by the rules of politeness adopted in some social group (family, school class), in the culture of a certain country. Deliberate disregard for accepted manners, on the contrary, increases hostility. Here it is important to take into account that Sigmund Freud understood aggression as the energy of «Thanatos» (death drive), which, if not expressed outwardly, will destroy a person from the inside. So, it is more favorable if she still finds a way out.
I still believe that the families of the young viewers referred to in the post are likely to instill the right values uXNUMXbuXNUMXband quite a friendly environment. But in this situation, deliberately acting contrary to the expectations of adults, children may seek to separate from their parents or take a higher place in the hierarchy of their social group.
At the same time, children have found a way to show aggression in which no one gets hurt.
I see no reason to consider what happened as something frightening. The same children could go after the performance to save stray dogs. It’s too early to draw conclusions based on one episode. Rather, it was a manifestation of the natural features of the psyche. Children are aware of the difference between game conventions and reality, and their behavior in the theater says nothing about their cruelty.
What to read with children on the topic of cruelty
Olga Lishina, columnist for children’s literature, teacher and poet:
According to the retelling, it is not entirely clear how realistic and dramatic the performance was. Maybe this «kill» sounded more like a joke, or maybe I just want to believe in the best.
Of course, in many books themes of childish cruelty, respect and kindness are raised, and new works filled with warmth and peace appear all the time — where no one is killed, and very different ones. For example, the Rosman publishing house has a whole series of books for children aged 5-10 about Mortina (author Barbara Contini) … a zombie girl! Do not rush to get scared, Mortina, paradoxically, is sweet and kind, looking for friends in books and helping her funny relatives. And ordinary children do not drive her, but accept her for who she is.
For older children, there are wonderful books about understanding others and finding yourself — both realistic stories and science fiction, fantasy. I will cite as an example Masha Sandler’s book «Samson» (Abrikobuks publishing house), a fantastic future in which a boy decides to save an experimental animal from a biological institute, choosing between the life of an animal and the development of science. Here, adults will also have something to think about, you can also read to parents, and later, if you want, discuss it with the whole family.