Why Kid's Stories should be Darker

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We all know that classic children’s stories tend to have some darkness in their past, but there’s something even *darker* going on with children’s stories that, beneath the glossy, plastic veneer, has become sort of hard to see…

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[TheTaleFoundry]

Sign up for a free 30-day trial of audible and get any audiobook of YOUR CHOICE for FREE! Including CORALINE, which we talked about in this video! It's a great way to support the show for free!

[kelpiekit]

As a preschool teacher I'd say kids need stories with strong emotions. They don't experience quaintly. They're not angry. They're betrayed or furious. They're not sad. They're in despair and alone. They're not scared of their imagination. They're terrified of things that might be real. And, with them still learning their way out of ego-centrism, they are the only person who has ever felt like that. Stories give them a chance to experience a character fully feeling an overwhelming emotion and finding a way through it. They learn empathy, resilience, and emotional processing through seeing and hearing experiences like theirs and their experiences are darkly exaggerated, not lesser.

[mollywantshugs]

I think the Bambi example is actually a really good test of how to approach dark subject matter in children’s media: don’t show it, but by all means imply its presence. Let the story have the shadow of violence or horror, just not those things directly

[scottlife]

10:23 "Children aren't stupid. They just lack context" the greatest truth of human existence. Even babies are smart. They just have a frame of reference that can be measured in hours.

[aaronmyers]

This is something that's been itching me since I was the target demographic. Kids are a lot more emotionally complex than adults may realize. Yes, maybe they're not *as* emotionally complex as adults, but kids can understand concepts beyond good buys vs. bad guys, objective undeniable good vs objective undeniable evil. Hell, I'd wager to say that kids *need* more emotionally complex media to help with emotional and social development.

[hyperfocus]

"Children aren't stupid, they just lack context." This video is healing, thank you!

[Aaron-from-BroTrio]

There is a quote from Don Bluth discussing this topic. "If you don’t show the darkness, you don’t appreciate the light. If it weren’t for December no one would appreciate May. It’s just important that you see both sides of that."

You can really see that attitude in a lot of his films.

[RocknRoll]

No joke, the sheer ammount of sterilized content is one of the reasons I think there are so many edgelords. When I was a kid (and even as a pre-teen) I was very edgy, along with many of my friends and I think one of the reasons was the fact that we were from a full-time school. We would attend to classes in the morning and spend the entire afternoon under the school councelors watch. And the sheer ammount of sanitization of EVERYTHING was immense, specially considering almost all of the facility was composed of evangelical christians. One time a teacher even changed the symbol of our cultural fest for a symbol of another country because she said that the mask reminded her of the devil. This sterilization makes so that even children can't relate to really anything and they end up going for the extreme opposite of it as a sort of escapism from the flowery cotton candy world they are spoon fed since birth.

[davidci]

I think it's a good step that kids stories and movies are moving towards being more nuanced and serious. Granted, movies should never be an alternative to parenting nor should kids movies never be about happy stories anymore. But movies have a big impact on people, especially young audiences, and they can learn life lessons through them too. They should learn that life is much more serious than just constant dance numbers.

[SamuelSamuelSamuel]

That’s why spirited away and coralline are the best kids movie’s. It teaches kids to be brave and to hold their trust with themselves, and to not trust the judgment of someone just because they’re older.

Like seriously that’s the best way to raise strong kids. And when I have kids one day I will make sure to limit the black and white world shows.

[gabrielbruce]

This is also a reason to take issue with "it doesn't have to be good, it's for kids", I think. Because yes, it IS for kids. And kids are still people, they're not a monolith of fabricated innocence and bliss you have to maintain by only feeding them sweet sugary garbage. Kids WILL get bored of bad media, especially if you expose them to good media early on, and good media includes those darker and heavier elements without flinching at them.

[michaelriverside]

I would place Infinity Train and Over the Garden Wall right next to Coraline in Children's Horror, a real shame the first was cancelled on behalf of "being too dark and complex for children"...

Which is ridiculous, the whole point of the show is for Children and Teenagers to find a creative solution to their predicaments, while still growing into the best version of themselves by getting a better understanding of the world around them, a true shame.

[chowrites]

As a child I longed for this sort of content, not because "scary stuff is for adults/big kids" but because the dark and emotional was such a foreign concept in my media that I wanted to experience more of that. Gargoyles, BTAS, ATLA, and later Dark Souls were important in helping me heal and grow as a child as I experienced my heroes go through hard times and in a way it was both encouraging and comforting

[GreenGearStudio]

When I was 16 I did some charity work at a daycare. It mostly came down to playing the Pokémon TCG with the more shy kids. Sometimes, by a school's need of constant testing, I had to study. What was fascinating, however, was that always those same kids came over and begged me to explain what I was studying. And they asked questions. Questions that were always relevant to the subject and that went quite deep.

Kids are so much more curious than we often think. I'm afraid that the constant need of studios to sterilize their media is hampering that curiosity while we should be rewarding it

[Wren_BurnsHam]

My mum NEVER let me read Coraline. I never knew why, but when I read it at my friends house I realised it was horrifying, still I loved it.

[smay]

"The world isn't to be hidden from, it is to be found"
12:37
This quote gave me chills

[wahwahluigi]

I remember when I was little I was given a random book to read from the school's library. It was about a little girl that was given a pet worm by her crush. Something like a caterpillar. It seemed normal, until she discovered the worm would eat anything she disliked- from normal things, like a random rock she hit her foot with, to more abstract things like the dimples the popular girl in school had (nothing gory, mind you. They just stopped appearing). And with each meal, the worm would get bigger.

Spoilers ahead -

It's fun to think about it now because it was almost like off-brand cosmic horror. In order for the worm to eat something she needed to hate it first. And she started to hate one thing after another, each time bigger, it ate people, whole buildings, all trains and boats and airplanes. Until it eventually ate the sun, the starts and everything else. until only she was left. And sure enough, she hated what she caused, which made her the last meal of her pet.
But! She didn't die. nothing the worm ate really did. Everything was like at the beginning, but she had to live knowing they were all living inside a massive, giant caterpillar monster.

I remember being so confused when I finished reading. The ending wasn't completely sad, but certainly wasn't happy. Children deserve stories that can haunt them in the most unexpected of ways.

***Edit: Hello! Sorry for the late answer, I was looking if the book had an English version (couldn't find any) but you can find it as "Lucas afuera, Lucas adentro" (Lucas in, Lucas out). Amazon offers the soft cover, a kindle version, and if you live in Mexico you are likely to find it in almost any public library.
Someone mentioned the name was The Word Eater by Mary Amato and tbh I am not sure if it might be a similar theme, but I will try to fetch it to take a look at it!
Happy reading!

[mushroomhehe]

honestly, every kid should read coraline by neil gaiman. it's from the perspective of a kid dealing with adversary all on her own yet it doesn't feel like a parody of childhood. it feels genuine.

[TylerLarson]

I was friends with Don Bluth a few years back. Not super close; just the same community, same neighborhood, etc. So I had a childhood friend with me at a Christmas party and I introduced them:

"This is Don. You remember those movies like An American Tail and The Secret of NIMH, and all those? Don's the one who wrote and directed them and did the art and stuff."

And my friend says, "You wrote The Secret of NIMH? That movie scared the sh*t out of me when I was 6."

And do you know what he said? You know what Don Bluth actually said?

"Well, it was supposed to!"

Yep. Children's stories were a bit different back then.

[shortstackofpancakes]

When I was younger I actually remember always liking the dark scary stories, even if they frightened me, they were interesting unlike lots of other media that I was introduced to back than