NHK special on children

[RinoaRita]

Has anyone seen the NHK special where they surveyed children on the internet about their psychological well being?

Here are some intersting points I saw.

More and more children are losing touch with their real life friends and are turning to the internet for social support/as an outlet.

The children don't play all together like they used to. (Observation of the teach is that the groups of friends are getting smaller and smaller and group interaction is getting lesser and lesster)

When asked to draw a house, a tree, and people, children a decade ago would draw just a normal looknig house with a tree with normal looking people...now more and more kids draw fantasy words with ghosts, knives, monsters, twisted looking houses, etc.

Here's something frightening... when a teacher asked her 6th grade class about death and asked, "How many people think that dead people come back to life?" Over 90% of the kids in the class said, "Yes, dead people do come back." This might be anecdotal, as it was just one homeroom class surveyed, but it still is very disturbing. (and no, they weren't the speshul class )

It seems that the japanese aren't very big on counsiling (sp?) or therapy, esp. not in school. (more like non-existant...my aunt was diagnosed with a mental disorder and all they give her are drugs and not therapy or counciling)

Why do you think that these changes occurred? The strangest part is that nonoe of these things were really on radar before.

[Dekamaster]

Originally Posted by RinoaRita

When asked to draw a house, a tree, and people, children a decade ago would draw just a normal looknig house with a tree with normal looking people...now more and more kids draw fantasy words with ghosts, knives, monsters, twisted looking houses, etc.

Dunno. Might be an effect of too much violence in video games, animation and movies.

[misa.j]

RinoaRita,
Thanks for your interesting post.

Yes, Japan is way behind about mental health which sucks because there are a lot of people in Japan, who can use a help of a counselor or a therapist.

Do you know how old those children who have been on the survey? I have noticed similar behaviors in them when I worked with very young children in the US.

[RinoaRita]

They were any child 17 and under old enough to use the computer I guess. The youngest child we "met" was 9.

They said that another observation in the drawings is that the older children's drawings don't mature.

When compared, drawings of 6th graders a couple of decades ago were a lot more complex and mature as opposed to 6th graders today.

It might be reflective of stunted maturity and understanding.

[misa.j]

It seemds like Japanese education has a lot to do with children's creativity. I remember there weren't many good teachers for art classes in Japan, especially elementary & middle school where teachers should encourage and nurture children's creativity; I had a teacher who had criticized my drawing so harshly in front of the whole class.

I tend to avoid making a connection between children's imagination and cartoon, video games, or comic book, but when I think about specifically their drawings, I can see the influence from the art form around them, which is getting simpler and similar to each other. Like "Disney's" or computer animated cartoons look all the same to me.

[mabui]

Maybe the parents never approach the child about it.
You know, the mother/ child relationship?
Maybe it's being lost?