Should a child be more receptive to madness and horror than adults?
Probably.
>>46403576
Less conventions have been established or reinforced over time. What is seen as normal or possible is much for flexible due to a lack of experience.
I think so ya.
Ya
>>46403576
Children contend with forces beyond their lowly mortal comprehension every day. They already know monsters are real.
>>46403576
Children are actually less sensitive to horror indulcing crap.
Remember how many creepy-ass cartoons we had back then and as kids thought they were perfectly fine?
>>46403576
Probably not. Think how scared of shit you were back then that you aren't now.
Eventually you'd adapt to it as you grew just like we do with literally everything else but at first and for a while it would be pretty horrifying.
Ever have that fear that some monster was going to get you when you slept so you'd hide under the covers until you fall asleep from fear induced mental exhaustion? Well now you're an adult and sleep with one foot and your head out of the covers for perfect temperature control and you know that whatever that bump was it most certainly wasn't something to lose sleep over.
>>46403964
This. The way the child's brain works makes it far easier for said child to bounce back. Plus, they basically don't know fear yet.
Kids are often subject to horrible stances and they bounce back up, nothing really stops them.
But later on in life they might revist these moments and not think as fondly.
>>46403576
>more receptive to madness and horror than adults?
In the sense that their minds have an easier time incorporating the horrors into their worldview, as indeed their assumptions about the universe have not yet fully formed. An adult sees things which should not rightly exist, but a child just sees more funny-looking animals and shapes.
>>46403576
The "insanity" brought forth by madness and horror has more to do with what is considered normal for the one witnessing it, than age.
Is it an adult that lived inside a monastery and awas thaught to fear evil and only shown vague descriptions or pictures of it's minions?
Or is an ancient powerfull mage who walked all the realms of reality, including hell itself, and has reforged the iron of his mind so he is immune to effects of horror?
A child doesn't know what "normal" is. It doesn't even has a grasp on reality yet, reason why the easter bunny and imaginary friends are a thing. That being said, as a very young child I distinctly remember having a conversation with a great dark shadowing figure that was sitting in the corner of my room, which I awoke to. If that happened during my adult years, you bet your ass I'd be jumping out the window.
>>46403576
>Should a child be more receptive to madness and horror than adults?
Less.
Children are born slightly insane to begin with and simply and mature out of it once their brains have developed and they've picked up enough of the surrounding cultural expectations and manners.
Children born into horrorlandscapes would grow to rationalize even the most horrific madness if they were born into it.
Children don't really understand existential angst or mortality. No really, their brains can't process it. That's why they're such little shits who KILL YOUR GODDAMN FISH AND THEN OH I SHOULD FEEL BAD ABOUT THIS SHOULDN'T I YES YOU SHOULD GREG YES YOU SHOULD
Basically, lacking developed perceptions about the world, the best you can get is a basic panic/fear response. This is why so many children are afraid of the dark, because you don't know whats in it - mite b scury. Once you remove the possibility of immediate threat, you remove the reaction.
Basically kids are more succeptible to fear, but are utterly removed from the more complicated depths of horror or madness.
>>46403576
Mental health and what causes mental illness is a preeeeetty complicated subject, so it's hard to comprehensively answer that with a yes or no.
Some metal illness has a genetic basis and those forms tend not to manifest until at least puberty and quite often later in life, so those children would be okay. But the majority of mental illness is currently thought to be connected to life events and strong emotional and traumatic occurrences - which can happen at any time.
>>46403993
>don't know fear yet
>has never seen a child afraid of a new person or situation
>has never seen a kid get spooked from a movie
>has never seen a kid panic when he's lost his mom
>has never seen a kid want the nightlight to stave off darkness and the monsters that live in it
The only time we don't fear when we're young is when its facing seriously abstract concepts that we have to be seriously actively taught is bad.
For example: kid sees a grown man offering candy.
As a kid you'd think hes got the be the friendliest guy in the world.
As an adult you think back to how your mom scared the guy off and you shiver because you didn't know then what you know now.
Children get scared, but that's to be expected; They don't have the knowledge or experience to have the world operate under as they expect.
They're mostly immune to horror however, as the more complex concepts simply fly over their heads and the less complex ones are accepted immediately and without resistance
Think of the brain as clay; As we grow older, we form ourselves into useful shapes and fire ourselves into strength; This makes us tough and resourceful, no longer distorted or twisted by vague forces like our nacent clay.
But then you are hit with something you've never experienced before; A monster made real, a concept without reason ETC. A metaphorical baseball bat It hits you hard and shatters the pot you've shaped for decades.
But the child? It looks rather bad after being flattened by it, but it remains whole, and with effort, he/she can shape himself again into a useful shape.
The adult? The elegant, strong and functional vase? It lies in shards, while the men and women around it wonder if there's enough glue to make it hold water again, much less be beautiful or practical.
In Stephen King's It was the opposite. Kids rarely reflect on things and it was only later in adulthood that all that shit started to haunt them and made their courage falter when they needed to fight the monster again.
>>46403964
Creepy-ass cartoons aren't very creepy, when you don't fully understand the concepts they're presenting you with (like the fucking headless chicken episode in Courage).
They're much easier to spook with body horror and cheesy slasher gimmicks though. I remember when I was a kid, I didn't sleep an entire fucking night after watching Jeepers Creepers. I'd seen a slasher before that, but the idea of an aerial predator that could tear through wood and metal to rip you from whatever shelter you took and carry you off to your grisly fate really fucked with me.
My mother got pissed, because I woke everyone else up at 5 am, screaming bloody murder because I heard birds walking across the roof.
>>46403576
> According to Christina Clark of the London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in Africa, children as young as nine are fighting and killing in Liberia. She says, “Often children are more willing to commit atrocities than adults because they are less developed mentally and emotionally
>>46405131
>They are also less demanding than adult soldiers, easier to manipulate and cheaper, as they eat less. A Congolese rebel officer had this to say about why “kadogos” (boy fighters) “make very good soldiers”: “...they obey orders, they are not concerned about getting back to their wife or family, and they don't know fear” (“Kalashnikov kids”).
>>46405157
>black people
Horror yes, madness no.
They scare easily but don't feel the fatigue of lasting dread.
>>46403576
No. Children are cruel
>>46403576
Depends on the type of fear really
Children are way more receptive of terrible looking monsters but adults understand the more subtle horrors that require more thought and psychological awareness
>>46403576
Children are much more robust. They have little experience to draw on and must face everything with an all or nothing attitude. They cannot distinguish between extreme events and normality. Or they face everything with the same extreme expectation because their normality has a very small scope.
But this also means that most experiences which have become routine to adolescents and carry little emotional impact for adults are, to a child, overwhelming and disorienting.
A child's mind invents the world (actually itself) new every day. As the scope of memories accumulated and integrated expands, this reinvention becomes less and less economical, until it almost ceases altogether.
Madness is dysfunctionality. But what counts as dysfunctional in an adult mind is perfectly healthy for a child. Children do suffer the same psychopathologies, but the symptoms and really the effects manifest differently. Everything has to be seen in the context of development, about trying out patterns and about feeling permission to do so.
Horror in turn is every threat. There is no need to undermine the assumption of safety with imagery out of context. A child neither has that assumption, nor the context. A mother out of sight carries the same terror as approaching zombie hordes, maybe more even.
So ultimately it isn't a question of quantity, but of framing. Should you roll SAN for kid PCs? Sure. But you could roll a hard check for not being able to reach the PC's parents and an easy one for encountering a flying cat.
A child's view of the universe is much more flexible. While horror would be much more effective, madness requires more effort. They don't understand the world around them as well, so when reality isn't as it should be they don't notice it as an adult would.
>>46403576
Children are much less consistently scared than adults.
Fairly mundane things (like the dark, clowns etc) will utterly terrify them. Adults usually lose or learn to repress these fears as they age.
Other things will totally fail to scare them, which is why children often love horror movies.
