Writing children realistically?

Do you remember being the ages in question? Have you ever looked back at your childhood and remembered how you viewed things as opposed to now?

 

I found this link to be rather informative, and the site as a whole is pretty useful.

Writing Children - Springhole.net

 

From the introduction to Ender's Game:

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I recall a letter to the editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, in which a woman who worked as a guidance counselor for gifted children reported that she had only picked up Ender’s Game to read it because her son had kept telling her it was a wonderful book. She read it and loathed it. Of course, I wondered what kind of guidance counselor would hold her son’s tastes up to public ridicule, but the criticism that left me most flabbergasted was her assertion that my depiction of gifted children was hopelessly unrealistic. They just don’t talk like that, she said. They don’t think like that.

And it wasn’t just her. There have been others with that criticism. Thus I began to realize that, as it is, Ender’s Game disturbs some people because it challenges their assumptions about reality. In fact, the novel’s very clarity may make it more challenging, simply because the story’s vision of the world is so relentlessly plain. It was important to her, and to others, to believe that children don’t actually think or speak the way the children in Ender’s Game think and speak.

Yet I knew–I knew–that this was one of the truest things about Ender’s Game. In fact, I realized in retrospect that this may indeed be part of the reason why it was so important to me, there on the lawn in front of the Salt Palace, to write a story in which gifted children are trained to fight in adult wars. Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along–the same person that I am today. I never felt that I spoke childishly. I never felt that my emotions and desires were somehow less real than adult emotions and desires. And in writing Ender’s Game, I forced the audience to experience the lives of these children from that perspective–the perspective in which their feelings and decisions are just as real and important as any adult’s.

The nasty side of myself wanted to answer that guidance counselor by saying, The only reason you don’t think gifted children talk this way is because they know better than to talk this way in front of you. But the truer answer is that Ender’s Game asserts the personhood of children, and those who are used to thinking of children in another way–especially those whose whole career is based on that–are going to find Ender’s Game a very un-pleasant place to live. Children are a perpetual, self-renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves. And Ender’s Game, seen in that context, might even be a sort of revolutionary tract.

Because the book does ring true with the children who read it. The highest praise I ever received for a book of mine was when the school librarian at Farrer Junior High in Provo, Utah, told me, “You know, Ender’s Game is our most-lost book.”

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Then Card wrote Magic Box, where he fell into every trap he avoided in Ender's Game, because there's no limit to the ways in which he's devoted to destroying his own legacy.

 

You write children just like you write all people. They aren't some strange, different kind of being. They're just people who are still developing.

 

Hmm. I like how he explained it, even if I don't quite see it that way. I've never read Ender's Game so not sure if "gifted" means intelligent or having unique abilities (presumably the first since he speaks of reality, haha). What I've found most often to be true for all of the academically sound or gifted kids I went to school with is that they were socially inept, some to the point they made you question that intelligence only applied to a textbook. It may mostly depend on how children are raised.

Long ago children were treated with more maturity/responsibility as much was expected of them. There was difference between social classes and if some could even afford school, but they matured through work at home. Their diction was that of adults early on and their young minds were encouraged to think; this may be one huge difference. Schools now tell children what to think, what's acceptable to think and do not allow the chance to expand or question (unless instructed to). This depends on the teacher or parents, as well and how present the family is at home. We live in a society now where younger and younger are expected to take care of themselves since the mother can't afford to be home, but they are not being reinforced with the mindset to do so.

More to the post though, it may be harder for some of us to recall childhood if they are up there in years, but I still can recall most of it myself. Stupid decisions, lack of experience and what understand I did show and grew. It's not very hard for me to write about children since they are indeed like people and vary in degrees. They grow if the story takes place over time where adult characters are more set in their ways unless it is a point to develop another way.

 

I have two boys - one aged 10 and one 3. The 10-12 year age bracket is a very interesting one - children have one leg in childhood and one in adolescence. My 10 year old is starting to be interested (obsessed) with girls and finds teenage themes engaging, yet sometimes he just wants to be a little kid - he's aware that he's still in the wonder years and sometimes he even says "Dad I'm growing up too fast, I want to keep being a kid". He still loves the protection of his parents and yet is starting to push against us, to need a peer group.

I agree with the comments above - kids speak differently among themselves than with adults. When my son is chatting with friends he's trying to impress, entertain and give orders - he'll use foul language, talk loudly/excitedly, make fun of teachers and tell stories etc - with adults he's trying to keep out of trouble or get permission/favours for things he wants (adults are gatekeepers of all the goodies) - he is quieter and more mannered as this is what adults expect of kids. In past times I'd expect kids to be even better mannered as they were 'seen and not heard' and probably use 'yes sir, no sir' - but no such manners would probably apply when chatting with other kids.

As a 10 year old he is becoming more aware of the outside world, of what is wrong and right - its the beginning of a social conscience. With younger kids they are more self-centred about their own needs.

 

Huh. This is not how my kids are at all. The talk the same way among adults and among peers. Maybe it's because I've always talked to them like equals.

I think the thing is, that kids are A LOT more influenced by how they are raised than adults are. Adults have, generally, become their own person. But kids are still highly dependent on their family and their surroundings. How their parents treat them and the environment they grow up in are going to have a huge impact on their personality and behavior.

Of course, all kids are different. If they are given breathing room to develop themselves then it's noticeable from very, very early ages. I have 5 kids and they are all unique individuals. Their unique personalities started showing up almost as soon as they were born.

So there is no "this is how kids of this age group act". All kids are highly different. But, when you get down to it, they are just people who still have a ton of physical development ahead of them, who are still discovering the world around them, and who have a lot to learn, all depending on their inherent nature, their environment, what experiences they've had and how they are raised by the adults in charge of them. They're really just smaller adults.

 

a 32 year old man with a sword defeating an entire crew of pirates is equal unrealistic.

 

Not as much as you might think. Stede Bonnet once had a crew of 46 split between three sloops, leaving an average of 15 on each. Now consider William McBean, a Scotsman serving with the British during the Indian Mutiny, who was set upon by 11 men and killed them all with his sword, an act for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. And he was apparently 40 years old when that happened. Sure you need to fudge things a bit but with the right circumstances almost anything becomes possible.

 

Watch documentaries of or related to children. A good way to get an unbiased look into the mindset of multiple children and draw your own conclusions.

Even if the documentary came out last year but you're writing a story in the middle ages, quite a lot of the mindset is the same, even if the culture and experiences change.

i think the biggest thing to keep in mind is ignorance, naivity and curiosity. If the legends say that everyone should stay away from the cave at the edge of town, it is more than likely one brave, silly child will be curious enough to try and find out why, naive enough to fall into a trap and ignorant enough to have been blissfully unaware of all the warning signs.

Of course, that's just one specific example of a child.