Why Children Need Superheroes

Everyone who has kids has been exposed to Superheroes in some fashion. Whether it's Superman, Batman, Spiderman or the Power Rangers, you've heard of them. In the cases where children have developed a fascination with Superheroes, rest assured, this is not a bad thing. Superheroes have important messages to impart and the kids are listening!

I'll use my son, who is Autistic, as an example. He is completely and totally fascinated by heroes such as Spiderman, Superman and the Power Rangers. Not to mention Transformers and the Justice League. Now, for him, it's something of an obsession, but to me, it's a good thing. Frankly, I'd rather have him scripting snippets from Superman Returns, than Sponge Bob. Although, in all fairness to the Sponge, Matt has learned that swearing is not a good thing! This Sponge is no Superhero, but Matt got that message.

More often than not, these messages are visual because most Superheroes you'd see would be on TV or in the Movies as an animated character. Although, in recent years, many of our favorites have been brought to life on the big screen. Superman, specifically, has been both an animated character and a live-action character brought to life by the formidable Christopher Reeve. The message that my son took away from the movies was not about good battling and winning out over evil, but one about smoking.