Kevin+Editorial

Benefits of Cartoons By Kevin Euceda

“Baby you’re killing brain cells by watching that garbage! You get nothing good out of that!” This or something along these lines is perhaps what a child watching cartoons in the living room of their home might here from a parent or adult around then. Well, don’t believe them too much. It is not to say that they are liars, just that they exaggerate things a bit and aren’t aware of the good some of these animated caricatures are playing in the development of their child’s learning.

I wonder if a parent that says this thinks the same about the sesame street vampire that teaches his kid how to count every morning? Or how about the other show on pbs about the reading lions that if I may say so, teach very good reading skills to kindergärtners new to this country and language such as I was. Apart from school skills, how about socially accepted morals and values? I see many cartoons such as The Book of Virtue on the Qubo channel that teach kids how to be better children to parents, friends, elders, and even animals. Seeing that kids of today pick up many things at school and many parents have to work, it is nice to have someone or something else reinforce those values we so strongly teach. Perhaps parents should sit with their children and watch the cartoons they watch before they can say that they get nothing out of it.

Now moving on to a different audience of viewers; teenagers. The cartoons these watch are a bit harder to believe that they are helpful since most provoke too much laughter from teens and too much laughter equals something bad right? Not necessarily. Just because a show is ruled by fart jokes and constant fun poking of various subjects doesn’t automatically rule it out. It is these same programs the ones that sometimes put a child ahead of another child in terms of social knowledge and situations going on around the world, since many teens are usually too busy to bother with watching the news. Cartoons such as South Park, Family Guy, and American Dad, raise awareness about things that could be wrong with society and become news with humor to teens. According to professor Dan Holt from the [|Davidson Institute for talent Development], humor can open a safe window through which a child can observe, understand and enjoy the human condition with all its imperfections. It allows for, even encourages, an enhanced awareness of the world, its passions and various juxtapositions and cartoons are a concise expression of those complex ideas.

With this said, parents let your children and young adults watch and enjoy their cartoons. However, don't let them spend to much time doing so because then they are so engaged and entertained that they become vegetables in front of the television screen and perhaps this is one of the reasons that arouses the perception that they are malignant. Also, parents, it is not that a cartoon is teaching your child bad concepts at a young age, it is only that the cartoon is probably just not the appropriate one for his/her age group and you are responsible for letting or not letting them watch it. Finally, cartoons are some of the fondest memories that remind us of our childhood once we are up in age. Let's not take those memories away.