Childrens films

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I wouldn't dream of actually going to a theater...Masyn is super sensitive to loud noises and who knows how Spencer would react.  It good either be a really fun time, or a total disaster and as we have to travel over an hour to go I'll wait until they are older.

[*Liz*]

Maybe I am being a bit over protective then? I will have to try a few more to see if he likes them - but I will certainly watch them myself first to check what is in them (and so I know where the scary bits are).

I've seen pinocchio so many times - but can't think what bit you are all talking about. So best refresh myself  .

Perhaps he is actually too young to really be scared yet?

Actually I worry about classic fairy stories as well - yk with wolves gobbling up littke red riding hoods gran etc?

I probably need to man up and help teach him that stories aren't real.

[clazzat]

TBH, they all have different thresholds for what is scary - and in my experience it is the very imaginative kids who are more likely to be scared (mine aren't imaginative at all, lol!).  One of M's friends can't even sleep with The Gruffalo book in his bedroom, so his films have to be pretty closely screened.

I think that in a lot of the Disney films, the scary bits are often quite vague - so we know that they are scary because they are meant to be, but if you don't have that preconception then it won't be so frightening, yk?

[*Liz*]

Yes I'm sure it is very variable, and DS does have a good imagination. But i doubt he really understand what 'eating a person up' actually IS either. To a child that should be a silly concept, rather than a scary one I guess.

[~inbalance~]

So far nothing has yet to scare T, but then again he is not very imaginative! 

[Deb_in_oz]

Maybe I am being a bit over protective then? I will have to try a few more to see if he likes them - but I will certainly watch them myself first to check what is in them (and so I know where the scary bits are).

I've seen pinocchio so many times - but can't think what bit you are all talking about. So best refresh myself  .


Actually I worry about classic fairy stories as well - yk with wolves gobbling up littke red riding hoods gran etc?

I probably need to man up and help teach him that stories aren't real.

we also have dumbo and pinocchio and am wonjdering which parts reomive it from peoples' list - in dumbo i know those stupid crows say dumb things...


i go with the teaching aspect myself (Bratz and anything overtly violent or realistic with the "bad" stuff (ie not amimated / pretend) are the only thing banned in this house). a lot of old shows have what was ok at the time (racism, sexism etc) but i always use that as teaching moments with my kids and they have a great understanding of how unfair judging people is and that we are all the same inside and being unique is a good thing etc.

we are currently watching loads of little house on the prairie which i watch with them as EVERY episode requires comments from me - this week alone saw us discussing the native american indians (which i then extended into the australian situation with Aborigines), poverty, literacy and access to education, consumerism (how they had only a  few possessions) etc. I was grateful when soemthing i was hoping not to have to explain got brished over by alex - someone sent a hooker up to Charles' room at a hotel during a conference (while Mary was there) and he had to send her away etc. Alex declares after the hooker goes "well that was an awkward meeting" without asking more questions about the clothes the woman was wearing or what she had said LOL  quite a lot of the more subrtle "bad stuff" goes over their heads.

[clazzat]

To a child that should be a silly concept, rather than a scary one I guess.

Exactly.  And a lot of the scenarios are so ridiculous I think that children will often see them as silly rather than scary.

[Mama2boys]

Liz, we are probably the only ones who do not watch too many...essentially only Cars.

primarily as I do not see the point of DS sitting in fornt of a movie for 1.5-2 hrs and also because DS doe snot like any hint of violence. So no mean/bully like chracater is accepted and make him sad and unhappy so we avoid.

We will go for Cars 2 in the cinema and he will be 4.5 by then.

As for DS's imagination its fortunately HUGE and not because of movies but because of books...

[Jaime]

Dumbo I didn't like because he gets drunk (on accident), which is when he has all those hallucinations/dreams, and I didn't want to have to explain why drinking something made all that stuff happen.  J is also a rather sensitive sort, and when she was younger the fact that he was separated from his mother would have really upset her; it would still bug her now.

Pinocchio, w/in 5 minutes of the cats showing up they are immediately calling each other 'stupid' & other names.  i didn't keep it on much after that, so don't have more specifics. 

i agree with teachable moments, and they have seen a wide variety of stuff.  for example, i only recently let them see beauty and the beast, and they loved it, and although there are violent parts towards the end, i felt that at their current ages they could understand better what was going on & could process it.  i guess what it comes down to is that IMO some things are better than others at presenting teachable moments; lessons can be learned w/o putting certain images into their heads....  i feel like i'm not explaining myself well....   

i do admit to being a bit gun-shy.... DH showed them the wizard of oz at a ridiculously young age (around 2 & 4?) when i wasn't home, and I was cleaning up that mess for months...

[elf]

TBH, they all have different thresholds for what is scary - and in my experience it is the very imaginative kids who are more likely to be scared (mine aren't imaginative at all, lol!).  One of M's friends can't even sleep with The Gruffalo book in his bedroom, so his films have to be pretty closely screened.

When my DD was around 2.5 years she enjoyed watching the dinosaur movies like 'The Land Before Time', 'Journey to Big Water' etc but now is completely scared of any movie, and she is very imaginative.  She too has stopped reading 'The Gruffalo' and 'Going on a Bear Hunt' and other such books because of this.  She loves listening to the disney stories like Snow White and Cinderella though, but when I tried to show her a Barbie movie of Rupunzel she wanted it off because of this little green dragon in it.  At the moment her Kindy Theme for the term is 'Toy Story' and they do lots of creative art based on this and other activities.  Because she has never seen Toy Story I bought her a storybook of it which she loves.  I haven't told her it's movie yet as she keeps telling me that she will watch movies, 'when I'm older'...  One of her best friends is the same, and she too is very imaginative as well.  DD enjoys watching Dora and other TV.  For DD I think a lot of it is the dark shadows and the larger than life features on the different creatures, even some of the music.  I would imagine this is just a phase though.  Most children her age seem to love movies though - she is 3.5 years old...

[Ryan&HollysMom]

wow, most of you have such brave kids, lol.
we took ryan at about 2.5 and he was petrified. he didn't like the dark, he didn't like the noise, he didn't like the movie. the only thing he did like was the popcorn, hehe.
we're still stuck at winnie the pooh, though he loves the classic cartoons like tom and jerry and roadrunner and such. but finding nemo, shrek and all those are still frightening to him. i guess he's a bit sensitive. he didn't even like the non scary parts in shrek, just donkey and shrek talking set him off.
we've not been back at the movies and he hasn't asked. i'll go with his best friend next time, i'm sure he'll be fine. he IS almost 5 now... at home he just watches short shows like franklin, little bear, penguins of madagascar, etc.
if your son will sit through it and isn't afraid of loud noises or the dark, take him. he'll likely love it! and don't forget the popcorn! :-)

[*Liz*]

I do understand what you mean Jaime.

Actually J hates cartoons like Tom and Jerry (oh no mummy, bump down bump down, stop stop, hurt etc). He does like monsters and aliens in books but is kind of wary of them. Loves the funny bone books, but some bits need a bit of explaining, like them liking the monsters and ghosts.

He does have a wonderful imagination, no idea where from though!

[skatty]

It is funny at 2 Leorah wasn't scared by anything but after watching The Gruffalo film halfway we had to turn it off and we didn't read the book for nearly a year purely because she found the sound of the woods creepy! She understand so much more now and her imagination is wild though I would say books are worst than films for her! Leorah likes the baddies like Captain Hook and Cruella De Ville but hates the deep laugh Mr Happy has on the original Mr Men series, it is not always the obvious that scares them!

BTW even now Leorah doesn't sit and watch a whole film unless she has a huge bowl of popcorn  We will try out the cinema if somthing appropriate comes along though.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Pinocchio, w/in 5 minutes of the cats showing up they are immediately calling each other 'stupid' & other names.  i didn't keep it on much after that, so don't have more specifics.

Well, if you keep watching, when Pinocchio and the other boys get kidnapped and taken to Pleasure Island, they end up drinking, smoking, gambling, not to mention they all turn into donkeys, which they refer to as jacka$$es.  Not exactly what I want my kids to see!  DH of course did let her watch it partway through once, so I hid it on them.

Oh, and my kids never, ever sit through a movie...not sure if that is because we've watched them all a million times, or just lack of attention span. The only time they are a captive audience is in the van when they have no choice but to stay still!

[skatty]

My DH has banned Pinnochio from our house because as a kid it really freaked him out when they turned into donkeys, I must admit I don't remember that at all but I maybe saw it once, there was no such thing as video/dvd when I was Leorah's age, I think I was about 7 when my uncle got his betamax and the first film I saw on video was Texas Chainsaw Massacre