Disney Feral Children Analysis

Our experiences shape us into the humans we are today. While we were all raised with differing beliefs and goals in life, we all share critical developmental periods that need to be met, for us to grow and emerge into successful adults. Without proper parental supervision children will miss the window of opportunity for these critical periods, if these critical periods are not met abnormal behavior known as feral or wild will appear. Feral children have very little known of them, they’re brains are mysteries that researchers are trying to uncover. The public tends to use information that they have seen before to make assumption about uncertain subjects, most of the misconceptions about feral children and their realities stem from two Disney

A few of the misconceptions that people have of feral children stem from Disney’s romanticization of these movies. The films are praised for their fun and uplifting stories, the tales of boys who were raised by animals and eventually rejoined society, because they find the love of their lives. Although these are children movies and should not be taken as academic, most individuals are not well informed about feral children, so they tend to use Disney’s portrayal of feral children and try to apply it to reality. Within these classic childhood movies lies a traumatic reality for some children that are inaccurately represented, such as; In The Jungle Book, wolves raised Mogli, but he socializes with multiple species in the jungle. Wolves are pack animals they stick together, they may have slight interaction with other animals, but surely they would not leave their home for them. He was able to walk bipedally while only occasionally walking on all fours, this has never been true in an animal reared feral child. Animal reared children adopt the motor skills that their caregiver has shown them, so in Mogli’s case he should have solely walked quadrupedally. The last inaccurate representation is the idea that Mogli could form a romantic attachment to a human girl, because he was raised in the wild he has had no interaction with humans, he was not socialized

Perry has a Ph. D and is the senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy; he studies the long-term effects of trauma on children. According to Perry, both our genetics and environment play a role in how we become human. When it comes to the nature or nurture debate he states “humans are product of nature and nurture”(Perry, 81). One does not work without the other, they coexists together. The human brain is given most of the neurons it will use at birth. The first three years of a child’s life are arguably the most important; this is when a child’s brain is taking in new information about the world around them. Neurons in the brain are used to make connection from our life experiences; repeating these experiences cause stronger connections. The stronger the connection the easier it is for the brain to do that task or make variations of that operation. Neurons need stimulation, if they aren’t properly stimulated, or if they aren’t used at all, the neurons with make faulty connections or no connections at all causing them to die. Once a neuron is gone they are gone forever (Perry, 81-86). The loss of neurons makes the ability to learn very hard. When the brain has fewer neurons to make connections, it will not be able to function properly as one develops into human society. What happens to the kids that are not being raised in human