The Tom and Jerry Effect

“How cute it is when they fight, banging each other’s head, throwing out of mountain, put fire on tail, cut body into parts”. Just imagine if a curious viewer of the show imitate the same thing with his/her siblings or friends! You can think of it as an over imagined idea but this is a proven theory in communication.

The whole purpose of this article is not to restrict your children from fantasy but to create an understanding about fantasy and reality in real. Children have various interests according to their mood but when it comes to cartoons they have a unanimous curiosity and if it is Tom & Jerry, it’s always a thumps up. There is no harm in watching Tom & Jerry as it provides ultimate happiness even to elders. But the reach or impact of it is the matter. 

As the theory says, the child cannot differentiate between reality and imagination, for them it is what they see. When they watch Tom & Jerry, they see the cat jump from the top of the tree and fall into well or fire or sometimes on nails and walks in a damaged manner for a while and the next second get back to normal. The impact this image creates in any kid’s mind is very deep and they tend to think of trying this prank on their friends or others. Because they don’t understand the fact that only “Metro Goldwyn Mayor” can give rebirth.

So the possible solution is to generate understanding in children about the situation and develop their analytical thinking. In India, especially in South India many related issues happened with kids as a result of the over influence of cartoons. In this scenario other than parents, teachers can persuade the children more as they fell connected with them in their daily activities. There are many schools in India, especially international schools in India who provide several orientation classes to children which help them in creating critical thinking quality and better understanding of existing social situations.

In our metropolitan cities like Hyderabad, these kind of incidents report in high level as the reach to media is much more in cities. But there are many international schools in Hyderabad like Oakridge International who propagate holistic education which include the personality and mental development of each child. They have incorporated many programs to their curriculum which emphasize more on the mental development of the child through various workshops on image building, critical thinking, qualitative analysis etc. This will help the child create awareness between fantasy and reality.   

The problems neither lie in the child nor in the content. It lies within the understanding of things. Not only cartoon but everything happening around us is related to this theory. The problem arises when there are differences in understanding and way of thinking.