Images, motion and memory

[Griff]

hmm... these ideas are a little too big for me.

There is a potential for increased empathy among these kids. Seeing herself wrinkled, purple, and wet from childbirth or naked covered in mud from head to heel, my older daughter can't help but identify with the feelings of younger children. Whether she is reconstructing the feelings from a video or simply constructing the feelings out of whole cloth, she's still better able to understand little ones.

We did make the decision early on though that we wouldn't let the camera rule the events. My oldest niece who has been under thumb of video always acts as if shes on stage because her Dad insists on rolling film constantly and intrusively. Mix this in with Brittany Speares and and the other fictions of mass media and you don't get a natural kid. Of course whats natural to us probably isn't even relevent to the rest of our society.