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

moves. Knowing the truth about feral children can help our society grow into a stronger more understanding place. These children survive under unthinkable conditions, missing their critical periods cause, a delayed ability to learn, poor motor skills and an absence of social skills. Integrating these individuals back into human society is an undertaking that is not readily achieved, even with the use of rehabilitation.
The average individual’s perception of feral children, is warped by the inaccurate depiction of The Jungle Book and Tarzan.

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

while growing up causing the ability to form any attachment to a human fundamentally impossible (The Jungle Book).
Any successful depiction that Disney shared in The Jungle Book, were overshadowed by the inaccuracies in Tarzan. Tarzan lived with a band of gorillas. Throughout the movie, Tarzan had a hard time identifying with the gorillas. He felt different and could not understand why. Once Tarzan saw Jane he was interested to get to know the creature that looked like his kind. Jane taught Tarzan how to speak, and managed to do so fast. Tarzan and Jane ended up falling in love resulting in Jane staying with Tarzan in the jungle with his gorilla family (Tarzan). For a children’s movie it is a happy ending, in reality Tarzan would not care about the difference in appearance, because it would be all he knew. The probability that he would learn language is slim to none and especially not that fast! His ability to form relationships would almost be nonexistent, just like in The Jungle Book. These boys would exhibit more animalistic behavior, identifying closer with the wild animal that raised them. Although the storylines make for good movies, they were wildly incorrect. Disney’s romanticization of these boys lessens the severity of feral children’s realities. The human brain needs proper stimulation to be able to function. Contrary to what Disney portrays, being raised feral is traumatic abuse resulting in brain damage.
There are other misunderstandings about feral children; some people believe that feral children are born mentally impaired; usually these individuals are only looking at the failed outcomes of the recovery process. The label mentally impaired doesn’t quite fit; feral children brain’s adapt to their surrounding and modify itself to help them survive. Comparing feral children to the standards set for our traditional society is biased. Although these children survived, being feral has left them with a stunted ability to learn, inadequate mobility, and a lack of social skills. This causes problems with rehabilitation; adapting back into human society is an endeavor that is almost never accomplished by these children. Disney’s depiction of feral children has assisted people to believe in a distorted version of what it really means to be feral, However feral behavior can be caused by a child raised by animals and even extreme abuse brought on by neglectful caregivers.
Bruce D.

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

society?
The most common form of feral is to be an infant reared by animals (Zingg, 2). As for these children their lives are very different. These children are usually isolated from society early in life with very little human interaction. Again little to no stimulation at a young age will cause neurons to die. Their brains use the neurons that they do have to adapt to their new environment. The brain’s main job is to help us survive, before it can make any further connections, our basic needs of food, water and shelter must be met. The human brain is usually more adept to making connection of speech, mobility, and social skills, because it does not need to worry about survival, finding food, water, or shelter. In India in the 1920’s two girls were snatched away by a wolf when their mother was out working in the fields. Both girl being under two when taken were very impressionable, and although researchers do not know why the wolf did not eat them, they do know that the wolf treated them as one of her own. The girls were found when they were 3 and 5, their behavior was recorded to be wolf-like, they shuffled on all fours to move around, they would not wear clothes, and they would only eat raw meat. Their brains adapted traits that wolves have such as being nocturnal and the ability to smell a raw piece of meat up to 3 acres away. Neither of the girls recovered well. The youngest got sick and died shortly after she was rescued and the oldest one was almost housebroken by the time that she passed. Language was thought to be a lost cause the oldest learned to speak about 40 words with no capability to put sentences together (McCrone, 132). Researchers were shocked with how much the girl’s human brain seemed to act as though it were an animal’s brain. Instead of making social connection it made survival connections. They used what was around them, and in this case it happens to be wolves, to help teach them how to survive. They didn’t act as natural humans do, but that didn’t mean their brains didn’t function properly, these girls were making connections that no human brain has had to do before at such a young age. Animal-reared children are most commonly thought of when exploring feral children, however feral behavior can appear when a child is raised with extreme neglect from a caregiver.
Recent studies have shown that extreme abuse from a parent figure during a child’s developmental years can cause feral like behavior. The abuse that these children experience is considered neglect, but the federal law only defines child maltreatment, letting each state then define neglect in their own terms. According to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, maltreatment is, “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk serious harm” (Fong, 1).