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Hoots : Is there any research on the effects of PG cartoon violence on small children? Our son is now at the age where we let him watch a moderate amount of children's videos to entertain himself -- all firmly G rated stuff. I have - freshhoot.com

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Is there any research on the effects of PG cartoon violence on small children?
Our son is now at the age where we let him watch a moderate amount of children's videos to entertain himself -- all firmly G rated stuff.

I have also been allowing him to watch some recent animated features such as Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (PG) and Megamind (PG) and the Incredibles (PG), with mild levels of cartoon / action violence.

I also rented some classic "Looney Tunes" and "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, remembering how much I enjoyed them as a child. But after auditioning a few, I was kind of shocked how much actual, real cartoon violence they contain, and I quickly backed off those. You see where Groening got his inspiration for the Itchy and Scratchy parody from, it's shocking how violent old cartoons really are!

However, even at the MPAA PG level, I am worried that I might be exposing my son to too much cartoon violence, and I am concerned what effects it might have.

Should I be concerned? Is there any research documenting the effect on children in the 2-4 year age range of watching a moderate amount of G-rated children's videos versus a moderate amount of PG-rated children's videos?

(Note that I am not asking for the effect of no video, just how risky is it, per any published research on the matter, to deviate from moderate amounts of children's videos at G versus PG)


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If you want to know what effect watching cartoon violence will have on your children, you need look no further than yourself. As you said, you watched Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes as a kid and you loved it. But you don't seem to have even remembered all the cartoon violence, (let alone been turned into a violent person by it,) or it wouldn't surprise you when you watched it now.


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Ohhh man! This is the oldest question in psychology. How violence affects our children. No matter what, like TV, or video games, or whatever.

If you want some research material on this subject, just look at the Google results for how violence affects children.

Now. Let me tell you an answer for this.

When I was studying psychology I had tons of surveys dealing with this problem. But the end result is always the same. It's about YOU!

You as parent must CLEARLY define the boundries between reality and animation / tv / whatever. Clearly I'm not saying that you should let your child watch a Japanese animated blood and gore serious like Blood+ or Naruto. You just have to wait with that.

But he is gonna be fine if he watches a few looney toons. You turned out right too ain't ya? It is always the parents responsibility what the child gets from a cartoon!! Always! You will tell him what the moral is. You will tell him that he ain't supposed to hit his friends head with a hammer after that. You will have to tell him what the borders are between reality and the cartoon he just saw.

There is an old saying. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. This applies here too. He won't get agitated if you won't let him. It is the parents responsibility. Many of us don't think so.

Many of us think that the tv should ban all this stuff. That the video game makers should ban violence. That what ever censorship should ban every violence. This is wrong. This is because they either failed as parents or are just plain lazy. These are the people who want the school to raise his child because they either work to hard, or just plain don't care.

Now don't get me wrong!! I'm not saying that the just should watch a horror movie right away!!!!! I'm saying that it wont hurt his ability to comprehend violence if you let him watch a Loony Toons movie.


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Some google-fu got me to the paper Cartoon violence and aggression in youth (pdf) from 2006:

Across the early and middle childhood, laboratory experiments
using cartoons with comedic violence
have consistently failed to
demonstrate significant differences in
person-oriented aggression. [...] Field
experiments have consistently shown
that aggressive behavior towards peers
increases following the viewing of
non-comedic violent cartoons.


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There is a wonderful book called Killing Monsters by Gerard Jones. It was a paradigm shift for me in terms of children and violence. He discusses the research and the value in allowing children to have fantasy violence in their lives. If you take the time to delineate between fantasy and reality (one of the chapters in the book), all will be well!


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