When your DS6 bawls his head off for hours at the emotions in.... The Lego Movie. Yes, we can't take him to see any of those popular kids shows. We have no idea what the whole Frozen hysteria is about and probably never will. Because just about every movie that attempts to capitalize on any sense of emotion will completely short circuit his mind.

We have a very similar situation with our DS6. He has primarily been raised on documentaries since he can't handle dramatic tension of fictional movies or books (although he is doing a bit better). He has no problem watching a lion take down a gazelle, but if the gazelle talks, then we have a problem.

He has left a trail of unfinished books because they just became "too intense."

DD6 sobbed her way through Kiki's Delivery Service! The dirigible crashing and endangering people's lives didn't bother her at all, but the idea that Kiki would leave her cat alone for the night was too sad for her.

The "scary movie" known as Cars. The moment when Lightning McQueen wakes up on the highway and can't find Mack. And many, many years later, we still haven't gotten past the opening scene of Finding Nemo.

Kind of funny, kind of wacky, just needed to share it: My wife was carrying on this conversation with our dd 2 1/2:
dd says "mommy, daddy, (her name) and (dogs name) can swing from the trees like monkeys."
Mommy says "(dogs name) might have a difficult time with that."
dd says "(dogs name) can use her mouth instead of her paws."

DD4: "I bet you didn't know that I didn't know that you could do that."
Me: "What?"
DD4: "I said I bet you didn't know that I didn't know that you could do that."
Me: "What are you talking about?"
DD4: "Are you having trouble with the double negative?"
Me: "What?"
DD4: "Oh Mommy, never mind."

I still don't know what she was talking about.

lol@ Mana

I have three to share -

DS' first grade teacher telling me that when she was preparing to give the lesson on the universe, she took care to get all her facts straight and up to date because she didn't want DS to be disappointed in her.

DS was very interested last year in factory farming and the poor eating habits of most Americans. I saw one of his teachers from last year and she said he made such an impression on her, her whole family changed how they ate.

DS has also been interested in viruses and bacteria and immune responses to these invaders for a long time. A kindergarten classmate was diagnosed with leukemia this summer. His mom told me she felt that what her son learned from DS last year really helped him process what was going on and made it less scary.

So some nice examples of how being intellectually curious and excited to share your knowledge can have a bigger impact than just high test scores.

For us, this is the scene in a particular Teletubbies short in which one Tubby is being chased by the other tubbies (for refusing to share the some item of clothing or something, as I recall). We had to fast-forward through it when DD was tiny-- her distress was pretty extreme.

(And no, in my defense, we did NOT actually encourage our 13-18mo DD to watch a lot of television... until she was virtually immobilized for two months by an RSV-penumonia one-two-punch, that is... at THAT point, Teletubbies were fair game as a means of keeping her quiet and resting.)


I was curious-- I looked it up after asking DD about it-- she still remembered it well.

(Recall-- this is my 15yo DD, and this was WELL before 9.11.01-- about a year prior, in fact)

http://youtu.be/C5t-qSMP-pI


Even then, my DD hated the idea of others forcing their will upon someone else and found it intolerable. Wow. This is still one of the few things that really rouses her to overtly aggressive/agitated behavior; stripping another person of agency/rights/autonomy. I hadn't ever thought of it in those terms, but this has apparently been a thread that stretches back to even THEN.

HK we tried to teach our first child to watch TV after an unexpected surgery at 18 months old, when we were told to keep her quite on the couch for a week or so. We failed, miserably. And then actually did actively teach it as a skill for next time we needed her to be able to be still for a while.... It felt weird and took a long time.