How to write realistic child characters
We are all familiar with the common child characters as portrayed in media. They are either ten going on forty, who speak and think like miniature adults, or perpetually stuck in toddlerhood, the stereotypical caricature of a helpless (and often annoying) baby. Well-written children in books are like a unicorn. Hard to find, but an amazing experience when you do.
The most common advice that authors receive when writing children is to “not make them wise beyond their years” and to “not write their lisp into the story, even if that is how they speak”. While this is great advice as these often arise from poor writing, we feel that it is better to look in to the psychology of children and how we can use that to inform our young characters.
What is the difference between an adult and a child character?
Experience.
When we are born, every tiny thing that happens is new. At the infant stage our world only extends to our parents and our home. As toddlers we start to learn that the world can be different outside our door, containing varied experiences, people and places. Naturally, the capacity to process these experiences grows along with us.
So where a toddler may react to a new toy with screams of delight, a child might clap their hands and a pre-teen just smile and thank the person that gave them the gift. By the time we become teenagers, most of us have mastered smiling politely whether or not the gift is something we enjoy instead of crying hysterically for not having received what we wanted as a toddler might.
This is just a small example but can be applied to characters who are children in your novel. A three-year-old will be easily overwhelmed by their emotions -positive or negative- while an eight-year-old will have, through their experiences, learned how to handle the world around them better.
And yet, not all children have the same capacity to process their emotions, as they are taught how to do so by their environment, their parents and past events in their life. This makes it particularly important for us as authors to consider what our child character has lived through and how it has shaped them. Children will mimic their parent’s behavior in many cases, so having angry, violent parents vs. parents who model healthy emotional control will influence the actions of the child. For an older child, what neighborhood do they live in? Who do they associate with? What is their family’s socioeconomic status? These are all things to be considered when writing them.
Another important thing to remember is that children are individuals with their own personality, preferences, likes and dislikes even as infants. It’s very easy to write a generic child character whose only personality traits are being cute, annoying or dumb. Their personalities are as varied and diverse as those of adults and you are doing a great disservice to your story if you do not acknowledge that.
The easiest way to learn how to write children is to spend time around children. Take your niece/nephew/3rd cousin’s little brother/neighbor to the park and chat with them. Observe the way your own children or those of others play and relate to each other. Notice how they talk and how their ability to communicate changes depending on their age. No matter how much research you do there is no substitute for actually spending time around children if you want to learn how to write them properly.
Do you have child characters in your story? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
