Reading time: 13 minutes
Does your child cry during an animated movie? Worry about a character’s fate? Rejoice when the hero triumphs? These reactions are not trivial: they reveal an emotional learning process underway. Well-chosen cartoons can be tremendous tools to help children identify, understand and manage their emotions. Let’s discover how this content, far from being simple entertainment, contributes to the development of our children’s emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence: An Essential Skill
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions, both one’s own and others’. It includes several components: emotional self-awareness, regulation of one’s own emotions, empathy toward others’ emotions, and the ability to manage interpersonal relationships.
This form of intelligence, long underestimated in favor of cognitive intelligence, is now recognized as a major factor in success and fulfillment. People with good emotional intelligence navigate their relationships better, manage stress more effectively, make better decisions and adapt more easily to changes.
Why Develop Emotional Intelligence from Childhood?
Childhood is a crucial period for the development of emotional intelligence. The brain is particularly plastic, experiences deeply mark emotional patterns, and the foundations laid at this age will influence the entire future life.
A child who learns early to identify their emotions, express them appropriately and understand those of others will be better equipped to face life’s challenges. They will have better relationships with their peers, succeed better in school, and be less vulnerable to anxiety and depressive disorders.
The Challenge of Emotional Learning
Learning to manage emotions is a challenge for children. Emotions are invisible, difficult to name, sometimes confusing or frightening. A child can be overwhelmed by anger they don’t understand, frightened by anxiety with no apparent object, confused by mixed feelings.
Adults play an essential role in naming emotions, validating them, accompanying their expression. But narrative supports, like cartoons, offer a valuable complement: they show characters who experience emotions, express them, and work through them.
How Cartoons Teach Emotions
Making Emotions Visible
Cartoons have the ability to make visible what is usually invisible: emotions. They use exaggerated visual codes, amplified facial expressions, visual metaphors to represent the emotional states of characters.
A sad character has tears in their eyes, slumped shoulders, downcast gaze. An angry character has a red face, furrowed brows, tense body. These representations, more pronounced than in reality, help children identify and name emotions.
Some cartoons go further by personifying the emotions themselves, creating visual representations of joy, sadness, fear, anger. These creations offer concrete support for discussing abstract concepts.
Identifiable Emotional Situations
Cartoon stories depict situations with which children can identify: fear of abandonment, jealousy toward a brother or sister, frustration at not succeeding, joy of friendship, sadness of a loss. These situations resonate with the child’s experience.
By seeing a character experience an emotion similar to their own, the child feels understood and less alone. They realize that their emotions are normal, that others feel them too. This validation is valuable for emotional self-acceptance.
Models of Emotional Management
Cartoons show how characters manage their emotions, with varying degrees of success. A character may first react inappropriately (yelling, hitting, isolating themselves) then learn a better strategy (talking, asking for help, calming down).
These narrative journeys offer models of emotional regulation that children can internalize. They see that difficult emotions can be worked through, that solutions exist, that one can learn to better manage what they feel.
Vicarious Empathy
By following the adventures of characters, children vicariously experience their emotions. They feel fear when the hero is in danger, sadness when misfortune strikes, joy when everything works out. This fictional empathy develops their ability to put themselves in others’ shoes.
Research shows that exposure to narratives develops empathy and theory of mind (the ability to understand that others have thoughts and feelings different from one’s own). Cartoons contribute to this learning.
Choosing Adapted Cartoons
Emotional Quality Criteria
Not all cartoons are equal in terms of emotional learning. Here are the criteria for identifying the most beneficial content.
The emotional richness of characters is important. The best cartoons present characters who experience a varied range of emotions, not just joy and anger. They express sadness, fear, shame, surprise, pride, tenderness.
Nuanced treatment of emotions distinguishes quality content. Emotions are not simply good or bad. Even so-called negative emotions have their usefulness and legitimacy. A cartoon that shows it’s normal to be afraid or sad conveys a healthy message.
Positive regulation models are essential. Characters must show constructive ways to manage emotions: expressing what one feels, asking for help, taking a step back, seeking solutions. Cartoons that only show explosive reactions or repression are not good models.
Adapting to the Child’s Age
The level of emotional complexity must correspond to the child’s development. Younger children need simple and clearly identifiable emotions. Older children can address more nuanced emotions and more complex situations.
Also pay attention to emotional intensity. Scenes that are too frightening or too sad can overwhelm a young child. Check age recommendations and, better yet, view the content before offering it to your child.
Examples of Emotionally Intelligent Cartoons
Some studios and productions stand out for their subtle treatment of emotions. Without making an exhaustive list, animated films that address themes such as grief, difference, friendship, family in a nuanced way are particularly recommended.
Series for young children that depict everyday situations (first day of school, birth of a little brother, fear of the dark) with empathy and constructive solutions are also valuable.
Accompanying Viewing
Watching Together
The educational impact of cartoons is multiplied when they are watched with an adult. Your presence allows you to comment on what is happening, name the characters’ emotions, make connections with the child’s experience.
You can ask questions: “How do you think the character feels there?”, “Why do you think they’re sad?”, “What could they do to feel better?” These questions develop the child’s emotional reflection.
Discussing After Viewing
After the cartoon, take time to discuss what you’ve seen. What did the child like? Were there moments that touched, frightened, or made them joyful? Have they experienced similar situations?
These discussions extend learning and help children make bridges between fiction and their own lives. They also create an opportunity to address topics they might not have brought up spontaneously.
Making Connections with Daily Life
In the following days, you can refer to the cartoon when the child experiences an emotion similar to that of a character. “Do you remember when the character was frustrated because they couldn’t do something? It’s a bit like you now, isn’t it?”
These connections help children apply what they learned through fiction in their real lives. They also give them language and references to talk about their emotions.
Risks of Inappropriate Content
The Effect of Overly Intense Content
Cartoons that are too frightening, too violent or too emotionally charged can have the opposite effect of the one sought. Instead of helping children understand and manage their emotions, they can overwhelm them, generate anxiety, cause nightmares.
Young children don’t yet have the resources to process very intense emotions, even fictional ones. They may have difficulty distinguishing fiction from reality and be lastingly affected by scenes that were not intended for them.
Negative Emotional Models
Some cartoons present problematic emotional models: characters who solve everything through violence, who refuse to show their vulnerability, who ridicule others’ emotions. These representations can be internalized by the child.
Be particularly vigilant with humorous content that uses mockery, humiliation or aggression as comic devices. These messages, even presented lightly, can influence the child’s social behaviors.
Prolonged Passive Exposure
Watching hours of cartoons passively, without accompaniment or discussion, doesn’t provide the educational benefits mentioned. The content scrolls by without being truly processed, without being the subject of reflection.
It’s the accompaniment that transforms viewing into learning. Without this accompaniment, even good cartoons remain simple entertainment.
Complementing with Other Approaches
Books About Emotions
Children’s books that address emotions are an excellent complement to cartoons. They allow a slower pace, pauses to discuss, going back if necessary. Shared reading creates an intimate moment conducive to exchanges about feelings.
Many children’s picture books address specific emotions or emotionally charged situations. Building a library of these books and turning to them when the child is going through a difficult emotion is an excellent strategy.
Games About Emotions
Board games, card games or educational applications specifically target emotional learning. They require identifying facial expressions, miming emotions, imagining what a character feels in a given situation.
DYNSEO’s COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES application offers educational games that develop various cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Its mandatory sports breaks every 15 minutes ensure balanced use. Discover COCO THINKS and COCO MOVES
Creative Expression
Invite children to express their emotions through drawing, painting, modeling, role-playing. These creative activities offer an outlet for emotions and develop emotional vocabulary through a channel other than verbal.
After watching a cartoon, the child can draw their favorite moment, the character they liked, or invent a sequel to the story. These creative extensions anchor learning.
Resources for Parents
Training on Screen Issues
Understanding how digital content affects emotional development helps make better choices.
DYNSEO’s training “Raising Awareness about Screens: Understanding, Acting, Accompanying” gives you the keys to distinguish beneficial content from problematic content and to effectively accompany your children.
Raising Children’s Awareness about Screen Issues
Children themselves can learn to make better content choices.
DYNSEO’s screen awareness workshop offers adapted educational resources to develop children’s critical thinking toward digital content. Discover the workshop
Frequently Asked Questions
My child often cries during cartoons, is this problematic?
Tears during a cartoon are not necessarily a problem. They testify to the child’s empathy and ability to be moved by a story. It’s even rather a good sign of emotional development.
However, if the crying persists long after viewing, if the child seems traumatized by what they saw, or if they ask to watch a particularly sad scene again and again, vigilance is required. The content may have been too intense for their age.
How to manage fears generated by certain cartoons?
Welcome the child’s fear without minimizing it (“it’s not real, it’s nothing”). Name the emotion: “I see that passage scared you.” Reassure them about the distinction between fiction and reality.
If a fear persists, avoid the content in question for a time, and possibly return to it later when the child is more mature. Some fears are normal and transient, others signal that the content was not appropriate.
From what age can cartoons have this educational effect?
From 2-3 years old, children begin to follow simple stories and identify with characters. Emotionally educational cartoons can therefore have an effect from this age, provided they are very simple, short, and watched with an adult.
The educational effect increases with age, as understanding and reflection capabilities develop. Discussions after viewing become richer and learning deeper.
Conclusion: Stories in the Service of Emotional Intelligence
Well-chosen cartoons are much more than entertainment. They offer children a safe emotional exploration ground, where they can observe expressed emotions, situations worked through, solutions found. They nourish empathy, enrich emotional vocabulary, and offer regulation models.
For these benefits to be fully realized, the role of parents is essential. Choosing adapted content, accompanying viewing, extending through discussions: it’s this accompaniment that transforms screen time into emotional learning time.
In a society that increasingly values emotional intelligence, giving our children the tools to understand and manage their emotions is a precious gift. Cartoons, used with discernment, can contribute alongside books, games, and especially daily human interactions.
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Find other articles on digital education and parenting on the DYNSEO blog. To deepen these topics, discover our comprehensive training and educational applications designed for healthy and enriching use of screens.