Children

I'm planning Taylor's acting in preparation for thumbnailing and I've run into a problem. I want Taylor to be a happy and energetic child so he can contrast with how shy and reserved Twitch is. I've changed my acting choices for Taylor to support that, he'll be making faces with Twitch, he'll jump off of his bed in the beginning, etc. The problem is I'm having trouble coming up with how he'll do those things. I've never really liked little children and have avoided having to interact with them as much as possible. As a result, I don't have a library of childish actions to draw from. I'm looking online at video clips of children doing various things but I'm having a hard time deciding what to use. One reason I think I'm having trouble is it's difficult for me to gauge how old the kids in the videos are. I can tell the difference between a baby/toddler and an older child, but I don't remember what a seven year old looks like. That's bad since I've found a few clips that I like but I can't really tell if a specific action/gesture is too juvenile for a seven year old or not. I dont even know if seven is too old for Taylor. Maybe five's a better age? I just want him to be a little kid but old enough to be able to stay on track with helping Twitch/pursuing his goal of scaring his sister.

I wish I had access to a little boy around Taylor's age. Then I could just ask him to jump off my bed, watch his favorite movie, jump out of the closet, and make faces in a mirror, lol pretty much everything I need Taylor to do in my short. Then I'd be able to take note of how the child does those things and use them to make Taylor's performance more sincere. Sadly, that isn't really an option since I don't know any little children or know anyone with some. For now I'll have to settle with asking my guy friends how they would have done those things when they were that age. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get one of them to actually perform some of those actions.