English Article:Cartoons and Kids – A Positive note | Duglas Joseph
My six year old daughter loves to watch cartoons. As parents, the general trend is to see the negative effects of watching cartoons because from different media we either read or heard a lot of bad things about cartoons. However, I have a different experience. The visible advantages catch my attention. I was surprised to find her ability to pick up language skills and the way she express her emotions and ideas. Even before she learned the alphabets and words, she started to converse in English thanks to the various life situations shown in the cartoons. Also I found her imagination skills blossomed and she creates her own version of stories having humans, animals, fairies and princes as characters. The billion dollar question of whether cartoons beneficial or not, brings a plethora of arguments on both sides. Now kids watch YouTube cartoons using tabs and mobiles unlike the olden days, when T.V and CD players were the source of entertainment. However 24X7 cartoon channels like Pogo, cartoon network, Disney and Discovery kids, still attract children.
Before I attempt to drive home certain benefits of watching cartoons, let me take an anticipatory bail that, watching cartoons in moderation can be a good thing and on the other hand excessive time spend before cartoons really undermine the benefits.
# Improve speech and vocabulary
Through cartoons kids are able to learn new vocabularies related to different occasions hence improve their speech and use of vocabularies in writing which is of great benefit in education. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I have found that, the versatile situations portrayed in cartoons such as a birth day party, at beach, a picnic, in a bus, at play round, at a festival, in a shopping mall etc. would help kids to catch appropriate words and sentences to express themselves in similar situations.
# Makes children happy
If carefully monitored by parents, to avoid unwanted stuff, cartoons are a good source of entertainment. Children like sounds, colours and fast movements depicted in the cartoons.
# Enhance imagination and creativity
Cartoons help to develop the imaginative and creative skills in children. As I mentioned in the introduction of this article, I have observed that, my daughter makes her own version of stories, having characters such as humans, supernatural people, animals and birds.
# Effective in School teaching
Many schools in kindergarten and primary classes use cartoons as tool to teach students. Instead of a monotonous and tiring atmosphere, cartoons create more relaxed and enjoyable learning environment.
Infant, toddlers and preschoolers learn so many thing from cartoon. By watching cartoons, children at every age learn so many things, they start knowing difference symbols, words and many other gestures, they also know their meanings.
# Aware of the social life:
Through cartoons kids familarise with social situations and they are able to grow with the knowledge of interacting well with people in the society. They will get a picture of a birthday party, a marriage ceremony, a school classroom, a picnic place, a beach and a shopping mall. The social value of cartoons are invaluable. I surprised to find my daughter’s description of things that are required to arrange before going for a picnic. I am sure, she picked it from one of the cartoons that she watched.
# Foster parent- children relationship
Another benefit of cartoons is that, it can foster parent – children relationship, when they enjoy an interesting cartoon film together. Kids will be very happy if you spend your valuable time to watching a funny cartoon with them. When you watch film with your kids, you can explain the meaning of a word, you can laugh with them on a funny scene, use the opportunity to teach values such as cooperation, tolerance, forgiveness, honesty etc.
In short, parents and teachers can use cartoons as an effective tool for education, entertainment, imagination and creativity booster and language development. However parents must be vigilant to protect children from cartoon addiction.
-ADVERTISEMENT-