Child stars are child celebrities who have risen to fame with their pursuit of acting and are popular because of the role they play in adding innocence and charm into a story. Although these kids seem to have glamorous lives because of their fame, many face a case of “child star” syndrome. Child star syndrome is a term that refers to the heavy amount of child stars who deal with issues with mainly mental health, substance abuse, and troubling behaviors when they become adults because of problems they had endured when they were child stars. This starts the conversation on whether or not children should be allowed to be child stars, which should not be allowed.
Child stars work long hours and balance tight schedules which leads to emotional and physical exhaustion while they are still experiencing their development stages. These intense schedules are causing children to experience burnout, sleep deprivation, and miss important activities. Although there have been child entertainment laws that have been set in place that vary on where the child is working, many directors or casting directors tend to not follow these laws causing the child to still be overworked. Some areas do not even have these laws set, adding on to the problem.
Child stars have a lack of safety and privacy from the public eye. Being in the spotlight as a child allows everyone to share their thoughts and opinions on these stars. This opens a gateway for people to ridicule and even harass these children. Even though these stars are minors there are countless examples of the public often making demeaning comments, using inappropriate language, and even maintaining an unhealthy obsession with these children. Examples of this can be found in Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard who had both starred in the Netflix series “Stranger Things” ever since they were 11 or 12. Millie Bobby Brown had dealt with inappropriate behavior at the hands of the public at a young age. Many adults had made countdowns to her 18th birthday as a way to show their excitement for her meeting the legal age of consent because it would be legal to share their disrespectful thoughts about her. Adding on to that, on Twitter a former NBCUniversal executive tweeted “Millie Bobby Brown just grew up in front of our eyes.” with a picture of a leather dress she had worn on a red carpet event when she was 13 years old. When Finn Wolfhard was 14 years old, a 27 year old model had urged him to “hit me up in four years” as well as facing media hate for not stopping to greet and sign autographs for fans that had gathered around the hotel he was staying in. Child stars do not even get protection from this sort of behavior, causing the public to cross many personal boundaries.
There is a heavy amount of exploitation of child stars. Parents of these child stars often push their children to pursue their acting careers against the child’s wishes because of their personal gain. An example of this is former child star Jennette McCurdy who had starred in “iCarly” and “Sam and Cat” who wrote about her experience in her book titled, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” about how her mother exploited her in her youth. She had talked about her mother pushing for her to have a career due to her unlived dreams of becoming a star. When Jennette had told her that she had wished to stop acting her mother did not let her. During her whole career she had endured emotional and physical abuse from her mother because of it. Jennette McCurdy is one of countless examples of child stars who have been exploited. To start with, Alyson Stoner, who was known for being on Disney Channel, had said that she had been overworked to the point of her being malnourished. Secondly, Ariel Winter known for her role on “Modern Family” said she had been pushed into acting due to her mother’s dreams of being one. Lastly, actor Macaulay Culkin who is best known for his role in “Home Alone,” had said his father had controlled his schedule and pushed him to stay up late and memorize his lines.
Although people have argued that child acting is heavily beneficial for a child who wants to pursue acting in the future by starting and getting ahead early on, the abuse of children is not worth the risk when there is another beneficial solution without it. The solution for this is putting an age limit on when a child can star in movies, TV, and theater productions, and instead encourage more child acting classes in order for a child to learn how to act. This prevents children from being overworked as well as being in the public eye for anyone to abuse but instead learn the skills needed for an acting career when they are the appropriate age.