Non-Normative Childhood Development
With the exception of extreme unusual cases, all children undergo stages of development as they mature. And that is where the near universality on the subject ends since not all children develop at the same rate. Walk into any fourth-grade classroom in the world and one will find students who already look like middle-schoolers sitting next to a kid or two who could be confused as second-grader. Some girls are taller than all the boys. Treehorn brings attention to the fact that the term non-normative childhood development is itself a pointless indicator of progress since by definition there really is no “norm” above or below which standards of development can be measured. In also being presented as the ultimate case of the extreme end of the spectrum—he is actually growing smaller rather than taller—he is also representative of those children stimulating anxiety in parents concerned about their child excessively lagging behind his peers. The utter lack of anxiety in Treehorn himself about the sudden turn in his rate of development is a message to parents to focus more on the individual emotional development of their child than on comparing physical development to the kids of their friends and family.
Parental Involvement
Treehorn’s parents are presented as isolated and disconnected from their son. At first, they do not even notice he has grown smaller. When he insists that he is shrinking, they initially deny it and after accepting it as fact, attempt to implicate him as the cause. His mother literally equates her son’s suddenly reversing the process of physical maturation with baking a cake that didn’t turn out as planned in terms of what qualifies as a disaster. Treehorn’s father later muses to his wife that his son might be shrinking as a means of getting attention by doing it on purpose “just to be different.” This hypothesis is multifaceted in that it suggests both that his father wishes to disengage himself from potential responsibility and that Treehorn is growing up in a repressive atmosphere where being “different” is bad. Later in the story, an explanation will be forwarded as to the precise cause behind Treehorn’s shrinkage, but by this point events and dialogue strongly hint that the circumstances might be more metaphorical nature. Treehorn might be getting smaller because he is coming to realize that he means little to his parents. And, indeed, even the later explanation folds this concept into this presentation.
Gameplay and Development
Ultimately, the story identifies a board game as the cause of Treehorn’s shrinkage. He has been playing a game by himself in which the last move he made on the board before he stopped playing was to move his game piece several spaces backward. When he resumes play, he moves his board piece forward and with each moment begins to grow until he is back to where he was when he initially started. On the surface, this explanation is a thematic commentary on the influence of gameplay on childhood development. It is also a critique of the limitations placed upon board games and toys that come with recommendations for the age level. The inherent criticism is that players younger than the minimum age recommendation or older than the maximum age recommendation are being manipulated into accepting the entire myth of normative childhood development.
Isolation and Alienation
There is another level to this situating the board game as the cause of Treehorn’s shrinking, however. The front cover of the board game specifically has “Play it with Friends! Play it Alone!” written on it. Treehorn is playing the game all alone in his room both before he starts to shrink and again when he figures out how to start growing again. His parents have already been revealed as taking little interest in his activities and only two people are identified as Treehorn’s “friends.” One is a kid his age who is a complete jerk and the other is the driver of the school bus. The connection between the fact that his mother was focusing all her attention on baking that cake while Treehorn was initially playing the game and the intimation that he has no real friends to play the game is a very powerful commentary on the impact of isolation and alienation from other people.
