again, I understand that show runners need a reason to try and suck in the female crowd, and they assume that by having a family, it makes the badass female lead more soft for them to relate to....
but just about every. fucking. show. that is a drama with "kids' that are supposed to be over 8 years old, completely fucks the shows dynamic up and always seems to force the leads to do unbelievably stupid shit to try and save their kid
Carl in the Walking dead is example 1, and until he got old enough to actually do shit and defend himself, he kept doing stupid shit after stupid shit. The Farm season and the Jail season are the absolute worst:
The Americans was also front and center of that problem. especially as the seasons went on and Paige kept fucking up more and more dragging the Mom away from her duties until she finally followed Mom to discover that Mom didnt fuck around and Elizabeth finally was forced to tell Paige they were spies.
The only 2 recently modern shows I can remember where the child actor didnt fuck up the show were because the actor was pretty damn good..
Mad Men with Kiernan Shipka starting at 8 years old playing Sally Draper (her brother Henry was played by 3 terrible boy actors), and Kaitlyn Dever who was 15 when she started her 15ish appearances on Justified as the self-grown assistant to Mags (Margo Martindale).