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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47520
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47520
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When you present the story as a character experiences it, it's third person limited, or third person subjective PoV.

When you don't do that (but still use 3rd person), it's third person omniscient PoV, or third person objective PoV.

It's ok to switch from one character's PoV to the PoV of another character. In fact, one way to categorise a story's major characters is to talk of "PoV characters," i.e., those characters whose PoV's we experience the story through.

Although we can argue nothing is "wrong" in storytelling technique if you manage to pull it off, there are some major issues to keep in mind, such as clarity, consistency, pace, and style. In general, it is considered bad practice to switch PoV's in an undisciplined way, because the story tends to have trouble with all these issues if you do. Instead, the standard advice would be that you very clearly signal to the reader when you are switching PoV's, and don't do this too often. So, for example, it works well if you switch PoV's when you start a new chapter, but never within a chapter. If 99% of the story is from one PoV, you could include small "interludes" or other clearly separated scenes, in 3rd person omniscient, to provide information the PoV character simply would not have.

Alternatively, you can find clever ways to stay in a single PoV. E.g. in your case the child hears grownups talking about something, and you clearly separate his understanding from the reader's: the reader gets useful info, but the child is merely vexed that his parents are talking about "grownupy" things he does not understand or care about.

If you skip around between PoV's without discipline, you can hurt--

Clarity: the reader isn't sure what's going on, because she has been interpreting the narration as telling her what is going on inside a specific character's head, yet this interpretation now fails

Consistency: maintaining a limited PoV is a convention the reader buys into, and when you break the convention, the reader may feel lost

Pace: A PoV change can have an impact similar to a scene change, it is a break in the narration, and if you do this at the wrong time, you can hurt the narration's pace

Style: At the end of the day, we're used to good stories following the "rules" of PoV, and, if you break them, unless you do so very creatively and competently, it will probably just seem amateurish

Original score: 8