Writing for Children

I have had a lot of experience writing for children, as most of my ensemble cast is under eighteen in both The Secret Portal and School of the Legends. I also wrote a lot of old drafts as a kid, so I can see the way they think by comparing my drafts side by side.

But I have also taken a lot of psychology classes, so I'm also very familiar with child psychology. I thought a crash course would do some good.

If you are writing for someone under the age of eleven, you need to remember that children this age are concrete thinkers. They struggle to think abstractly, even if they have a strong imagination. If your character is eleven or older, they will likely be able to do this (although some people do struggle with abstract thinking; it doesn't apply to everyone). It's important not to underestimate kids who are middle-school-aged, because it is very easy to do, but that's the age where they are beginning to think abstractly. Below is a table for more general detail.

I also think it's important to select an age-appropriate character arc, if needed. The "coming of age" arc is so common because it surrounds adolescents, which are a popular age to make characters as they figure out their identity. However, if you're writing for younger children, or older adults, this would not be a suitable arc. School-aged children are more focused on their achievements, or lack thereof, than their identity, for example. The following table outlines the crisis each age group is in, and what is developed if they achieved the former part of the crisis. If they don't achieve, then they are in the latter part, and don't develop the virtue.

If this table is too vague, which I think it is, check out this site that breaks down the stages even more into detail:

https://pmhealthnp.com/eriksons-stages/

It's also important to know where children stand morally. Of course, when writing for a morally corrupt character, or someone whose morals deviate from the norm, that's completely different. But, generally speaking, here's how one develops their moral compass:

It would be interesting if you want to have a character whose morality does not match their age range, due to whatever reason you want, but here is a general guideline.

And here's a general stage of language development when writing their dialogue, or their narration:

(image source: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/THE-HYPOTHESES-OF-FLA-AND-CHILDREN-LANGUAGE-Susanto/019797d5db076ac24b9f5587afd417703fa87e24)

I think it's worth noting that this source sites age 10 as mature speech, so this once again reflects not underestimating what kids know.

After reading my old drafts (which I read aloud on my TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander?lang=en ), I have a general knowledge of how I saw the world then. One thing that was very prominent, at least to me, was how much knowledge I "flexed" that I knew. In Draft One, I showed off that I knew 0.6 kilometers was a mile, and that I knew Roman Numerals. In Draft Two, I showed off that I knew Cibola, or that I understood time zone differences. If your narrator is a preteen, these random bits of knowledge that they are Very Proud of knowing can be slipped in. This aligns with the psychosocial crises I mentioned above, as I was very proud of my "industry," or my knowledge.

Although I don't recommend doing this, old drafts were very dramatic, and unnatural to how people, even kids, would act in real life. It was a skewed and innocent view of the world, where something terrible would happen and the most my characters would do is "uh-oh." In a frightening experience, kids would not act like this, as they are well aware of what's going on, and will be terrified. However, it does mean that children do have a harder time comprehending the reality of some situations that they are not a part of. If they are, even if they struggle to understand what's happening, their concrete understanding of the world would take over, and they would understand that much. And not being able to comprehend a complex event doesn't mean that a child won't be affected by it, but that's a deep psychological dive into research that I'm not going to cover today.

My overall point is that understanding the basic psychology on how kids think can help write dialogue, narration, or actions for them, before diving in deeper. The main takeaway is to not underestimate kids, but also understand where their thinking differs from adults. Of course, not all kids are conforming to this, and in that case, further research will have to be taken. This blog post was simply to serve as a basic guide.

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