Comments on: The Entertainment Conundrum

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By: Alice H

Alice H — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:34:04 +0000

Just on a side note, my husband took my son to see wall-e tonight. It was too scary. Apparently the female love interest gets a little too free with the blaster. I’m hoping they didn’t accidentally sit in on a showing of Wanted instead.

By: Alice H

Alice H — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:33:59 +0000

I’m there with you, our son just finished kindergarten and has not yet seen Star Wars, but he knows all about it from his friends.

We’ve had lots of talks with our son about what’s age-appropriate and what’s not, and he seems to be OK with the idea that he’ll get to watch everything eventually, but some things just aren’t OK right now. He’s seen The Wizard of Oz, but that was a little on the scary side for him. We’re thinking we might do E.T. next, we’ve been ramping up to it with several talks about how it has some language in it that’s not appropriate for him to repeat, but we had a setback recently when we were at a sports event and someone in front of us kept yelling “YOU SUCK!” at the other team, and we had a few days where we had to rein that in.

If there’s no exposure, ever, to anything that is questionable, there’s no chance to learn value judgments, but that’s no reason to go whole-hog and show your five-year-old your stash of Penthouse Magazines either. Well, not yours specifically, but YKWIM.

By: Aimee

Aimee — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:02:51 +0000

All great comments and suggestions. Thanks, everyone!

By: snoflake22

snoflake22 — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:24:03 +0000

I wouldn’t rush him. I don’t see any rush to desensitize kids, but I am one of “those parents” too. One good rule of thumb that has helped me is just to remember that the rating system is there for a reason. PG are appropriate for age 8 and up, PG-13 for 13 and up, etc. …..This helped me realize that I shouldn’t force the PG movies on my 6 year old if he’s not ready for them. I hope that helps. He’ll be ready in his own time.

I agree with the previous comment too, I think everyone is different. My oldest is really compassionate and empathetic, and has a hard time with movies with Drama, he starts crying, so we stopped trying. But those are great character traits to have, and I decided I didn’t want to trade those for a desensitized kiddo.

By: Lizzy

Lizzy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:20:19 +0000

You know, my husband to this day doesn’t like movies or TV all that much and refuses to watch anything that will play with his emotions (unless it is stupid slapstick comedy). Some souls aren’t meant for TV or movies and that is just fine.

By: nutmeg

nutmeg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:28:28 +0000

It’s the same with almost everything – like telling them about sex – he’ll tell you when he’s ready. I think it’s a first born thing too. Keira has been the same way – slow to get it, scared easily, hyper-sensitive. When we watched 8 Below, Keira just couldn’t recover. She cried for two days about the dogs that didn’t make it.

By: Dr.Cason

Dr.Cason — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:18:39 +0000

Oh I’m from http://drcason.org!

By: Dr.Cason

Dr.Cason — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:18:07 +0000

It’s sad isn’t it? My heart breaks when I hear my kids ask little innocent questions. Like…Babies die? Mommy’s die? Are you going to die mommy? Uh no baby. I’m going to be here forever.

Even sponge bob gets a little too much. So I sheltered Gabby and the first day of Kindergarten (just last year) she came home and said Mommy! I say flowers. Oh great baby. And she looked at me and deadpanned- There are dead people under there!

It seems she saw a cemetery and her seat mate told her all about it. – Lesson learned. You can only shelter them for so long and then they will be in the real world.

I teach her to pray so she always feels safe. I hope she does.

By: mothergoosemouse

mothergoosemouse — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:26:15 +0000

Ugh. I know what you mean, because I was kind of like that as a child myself.

The approach we’ve taken with the girls: Yes, bad things happen – in the movies and in real life. Parents protect their children, and they teach their children how to protect themselves. And sometimes, despite all the protection, bad stuff still happens.

Do you guys watch anything else with Dex? Even American Idol? Something where you can explain what’s going on, and it’s not too adult for him to comprehend – that might be another place to start aside from children’s shows.

But what do I know…we tried to show “The Incredibles” when you guys were here.