Ethan Rauch

In our current era, children’s books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men are being banned for their more mature themes.

But according to Penn State Abington Psychology Professor Dr. Vivian Hsu, whose specialty is in children’s psychological development, the banning of certain books might not have the intended consequences.

“There’s always going to be some way in which mature themes are going to come into our children’s lives,” Hsu said. “Whether that’s through books, or videos, movies, tv shows, games, adults talking things around children. I think it depends, like the books that are banned, or whatever media you want to talk about. Banning them I don’t think will necessarily change the trajectory in which a child will go.”

“In other words, if I eliminate x number of books, does that mean the child is not going to have access to them? Not necessarily, they could still get access to them. In fact, they might get access to other things that are even worse than what’s been banned.”

Despite efforts to keep mature themes out of children’s view, lots of popular media works to help them understand difficult topics. Children’s shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender that tackle mature themes and cater to a younger audience are becoming more popular than ever. In its first 60 days on the popular streaming service of Netflix, Avatar appeared on their top-10 TV series chart, becoming the longest show to ever remain on the list as of the writing of this article by Newsweek in 2020.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a Western American children’s cartoon created by co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. It aired on the Nickelodeon television network from February 2005 until July 2008, and to this day, it’s audience remains active in online subreddits, Twitter communities, and podcasts that discuss the show and its cultural impact. As a show, Avatar tackles many mature themes, including sexism, genocide, grief, abuse, and stereotypical masculinity.

I reached out to Dr. Hsu to try to understand what the effect of  this kind of mature messaging in children’s media can have on the psyche of a child. I learned that being exposed to mature topics, like the ones illustrated within the Avatar universe, can in some cases have an impact the mind of a child. But what matters even more than simple exposure, I learned, is the way a child’s parental figure(s)/role-models choose to convey these topics to them.

“I think that television shows can certainly play a role [in having a long-term impact on a child],” Dr. Hsu said. “I don’t think that they play as big of a role as just the family unit. And how those kinds of things are portrayed within the family.”

“Roles of masculinity vs. femininity, what are the boundaries, if you will, of one or the other,” Dr. Hsu said. “That’s much more likely to impact [a] child, or impact individuals when it’s seen in the house or within society. I think what TV shows can do is reinforce certain belief systems, about what men and women can do. I would say cartoons, unless this is something that is constantly consumed, they’re always watching something, I think that’s the next layer out. Because cartoons do have a quality of ‘it’s not reality’ [and] ‘it’s a drawing’.”

In addition, I asked Dr. Hsu also about if she considered the amount of time children spend viewing certain media an important part of how certain concepts resonate with them.

“Amount is part of it. I think the way that something is portrayed also feeds into that as well. But it’s, maybe the emphasis is more on how much does the portrayal match what they are actually experiencing in real life,” Dr. Hsu said. “So if it seems to support that… if [a child] is watching a show that’s kind of reiterating [what values they’re taught in real life] they might adhere to that strongly.”

“I don’t think it’s necessarily the quantity, I think it’s more about what’s being portrayed and how does that match with real life. And do those two things work together, and if they do, maybe they support one another, and if they don’t work together, then maybe that stuff is not correct.”

On the other hand, in the case of the child abuse theme, Dr. Hsu conveyed to me that victims of abuse can potentially learn more about what’s happening to them through what happens to certain characters on the screen.

“If it’s done in the right way, it could teach them effective strategies of dealing with abuse that’s happened to them,” Dr. Hsu said. “So as much as it would be ideal not to have this negative [abuse] portrayed to children so that they can see it, there is potentially some benefit to seeing the resolution of it.”

Two more of the main themes in Avatar are death and emotional grief. Dr. Hsu explained the importance of discussing these topics with children.

“In a perfect world we wouldn’t want children to ever have to deal with, or know about death, but it’s also really important for us to realize that death is a part of our human cycle,” Dr. Hsu said. “So even though we’re talking about it in the context of a TV show, a cartoon, it can still have a lot of impact on the way children are understanding emotions.”

In the case of grief, Dr. Hsu conveyed that she didn’t believe it was too big of a complicated idea for children to understand. But according to her, it would have to be simplified.

“We would have to put it into words and actions that [the child] can understand,” Dr. Hsu said. “So it might be something as simple as when we lose something, let’s say you lost a toy, how do you think that would make you feel? If we can put it into a concept in which they understand based on what they currently have, and they know in their world, then it might be easier for them to eventually grow into understanding what the concept of death really means. It’s not just that we lose a toy, it means that toy is gone forever.”

Dr. Hsu reiterated to me that she believes it’s better to have children/adolescents be exposed to mature themes in a more controlled environment.

“Having caregivers monitor what’s going on, and also not being shy about talking about those kinds of things,” Dr. Hsu said. “I think children will very easily pick up ‘uhm, mom and dad don’t want to talk about this, so there must be something even more interesting about it, something taboo about it’. So we do want to have a good balance of being honest with kids, especially about these difficult topics. But we also want to recognize that younger children are not necessarily going to fully understand, so we bring it to their level.”

Finally, Dr. Hsu emphasized to me that parents shouldn’t want to lie to their children about mature topics.

“Once we start [lying], when it comes to other mature things they’re not necessarily going to believe you… I think it’s really important that we do recognize that mature content can be found in lots of different areas, but also as parents, as caregivers, as people who are in an adult capacity, we do also have to recognize that we can’t shield our children from all these things. But we can give it to them in a way that can hopefully help them to understand it better, and we want to be honest with them about what it is.”