1. Stories can stimulate social intelligence
As they watched, children used their social intelligence skills to make sense of the feelings, motives and behaviours of the characters in the film. They also developed these skills when they were challenged to make sense of the story.
Their new insights included awareness of others’ motives and feelings, but also awareness of their own feelings. Children were often excited when they gained a new insight (which often happened during the interview). For many children it was a challenge to understand the scene where one of the characters – Bing Bong – sacrifices himself by jumping out of his rocket. The children wondered what exactly happened and why he did it. They were often thrilled to learn that he jumped on purpose to help others.
Many children were able to recognise the animated emotions in themselves, which helped them to understand their own inner lives. For example, children expressed that when they are angry they feel as if the top of their head bursts into flames, just like anger.
2. Stories are a way to experience (moral) beauty
Another way in which Inside Out proved meaningful was as an opportunity to experience moral beauty. Children mentioned that they appreciated seeing acts of compassion, kindness, love and bravery in the film.
Children also found Bing Bong’s self-sacrifice beautiful, but only when they understood why Bing Bong did it and when they were able to experience mixed emotions. Just like adults, children may experience tears, moist eyes or goosebumps when they experience moral beauty.
The results of our study suggest that feelings of moral beauty begin to emerge around the age of eight.
3. Stories help children gain insights into life
Our findings also showed that as children watched, they were encouraged to follow in the protagonist’s footsteps and gain the same insights as she did. Throughout the story, Joy discovers the importance of sadness and ends up working with sadness and the other emotions. As the children followed Joy on her adventure, they also discovered that sadness is important and that all emotions need to work together to live a full and happy life.
When children said they learned something from the film, it was often related to what Joy learned. If this is true of all hero’s journey stories, it means that children can learn many important lessons from many different films.
4. Stories can inspire children to never give up
Children also admired the protagonist’s perseverance. One of the children in the study even said spontaneously that Joy had inspired her to never give up in her own life.
The more insight the children gained from watching the film, the more meaningful the story became to them. Talking about the film or watching it again helped them to gain further insights. (This is one of the reasons why children often watch films repeatedly).
Overall, the results of our study suggest that stories can be an accelerated way for children to gain life experience and wisdom.
How to help children learn from films
Parents or other adults can help children gain new insights from a film, TV show or book by asking open-ended questions.
To encourage children to understand the emotions and behaviours of characters, ask: “What do you think […] feels?” or “What do you think changed his/her mind?”.
To find out what they found challenging about the story, ask children what made them think: “Was there a part of the story that made you think about it?” or “Who did you think about the most?
If the film contains acts of moral beauty, ask: “Which part of the film did you think was the most beautiful? “What do you think of […] doing that?” and “Would you have done that?”
It’s important to always respect children’s answers and remember that sometimes they’re too young to understand everything.
Inside Out is a great film to watch together, as well as other critically acclaimed films. You can also look for films that children watch again and again and that make them think. By watching and discussing such films together, you can turn screen time into an opportunity for growth and provide children with rich experiences outside of their everyday lives.
