DavidBrennan said:

I agree with Zombie that he was miscast and did a mediocre (not bad, in my opinion) job, but he did have an aggressive, rambunctious look to him as a boy which was probably the reason for his hiring. Really, I think that the character should've been AT LEAST 13 years old, for a variety of reasons. (Most especially that it's hard to say that an eight year old is "too attached" to things. Virtually all kids that age are very, very adaptive to whatever crazy situation they have to live through.)

But I also think that it's probably wrong of people to have such pity on anybody. So he was teased for this. Fine. We all get teased. God forbid you're ugly, or fat, or socially inept, or stupid. Kids get teased. Hell, ADULTS get teased. Instead of telling kids that they should live in the past and attempt to "heal the scarring" or whatever the psychological fad of the day is, we should say, "Ah dude, that sucks. I remember being teased for my acne and that my mom cut my hair. That really hurt me. Well, that's life. Let's move on."

It just sets a bad example for current kids (and adults) that they should let every tease (real or imagined) dictate their life. "Sticks and stones", remember.

The line between teasing and outright psychological bullying isn't very thick.

I saw a documentary on TCM a while back about child stars, and it's a miracle any of them who were interviewed survived to become normal well adjusted adults. We all remember the names of the one's who didn't.

Jake is going to have this movie following him around the rest of his life. Most kids don't have that to deal with on top of the usual pressures of growing up and trying to fit in. So you might want to cut him some slack?