My current job has me working with children, which is kind of a weird shock after years in environments where a “young” patient is 40 years old. Here’s my impressions so far:
Birth – 1 year: Essentially a small cute animal. Handle accordingly; gently and affectionately, but relying heavily on the caregivers and with no real expectation of cooperation.
Age 1 – 2: Hates you. Hates you so much. You can smile, you can coo, you can attempt to soothe; they hate you anyway, because you’re a stranger and you’re scary and you’re touching them. There’s no winning this so just get it over with as quickly and non-traumatically as possible.
Age 3 – 5: Nervous around medical things, but possible to soothe. Easily upset, but also easily distracted from the thing that upset them. Smartphone cartoons and “who wants a sticker?!!?!?” are key management techniques.
Age 6 – 10: Really cool, actually. I did not realize kids were this cool. Around this age they tend to be fairly outgoing, and super curious and eager to learn. Absolutely do not babytalk; instead, flatter them with how grown-up they are, teach them some Fun Gross Medical Facts, and introduce potentially frightening experiences with “hey, you want to see something really cool?”
Age 11 – 14: Extremely variable. Can be very childish or very mature, or rapidly switch from one mode to the other. At this point you can almost treat them as an adult, just… a really sensitive and unpredictable adult. Do not, under any circumstances, offer stickers. (But they might grab one out of the bin anyway.)
Age 15 – 18: Basically an adult with severely limited life experience. Treat as an adult who needs a little extra education with their care. Keep parents out of the room as much as possible, unless the kid wants them there. At this point you can go ahead and offer stickers again, because they’ll probably think it’s funny. And they’ll want one. Deep down, everyone wants a sticker.
This is also a pretty excellent guide to writing kids of various ages
i’m all for peter being portrayed as a teenager bc that’s just classic spidey, and if you prefer him being portrayed as a teenager that’s fine we all have preferences. my only issue with it is that people who only watch the spidey films and don’t read the comics are really missing out on some good adult peter moments. like right now in the comics peter parker is around 30 years old and watching him interact with younger superheroes is really heart-warming, because he’s been there and he gets how hard it can be, he feels responsible for these kids
and then there’s the renew your vows comic where he’s an actual dad married to mary jane, and they have a daughter who’s named annie may. and that series is full of really fun stories, plus it’s interesting to see how peter juggles being spidey and being a dad/husband and how those two things intertwine, also the dad jokes are endless
teenage peter parker is a timeless version, but that version is shown so much (especially in film) that it seems like a lot of spidey fans feel like adult peter wouldn’t be as good or true to his character which just isn’t true, so if you’re ignoring the adult version of peter parker then you’re seriously missing out on great character development/stories that show peter’s journey and his character more than anything
my great-grandfather had to leave italy in the 20′s because he hit a fascist with a tuba, so if you think I am going to take this sitting down you are going to have to catch these hands and also this tuba
