Oh, I should explain--the social currency was very specific to meeting this boy for the play date. The boy had seen that movie. DS had not so I chose to show it to him to give him one more thing he could talk about with that boy. It didn't come into play on the first meeting. It'll probably help later on, I think.
I don't expect it to help him bond with kids he knows at school right now. I mean, he's going into full K next year, and couldn't move up before due to rigid age cutoffs in our public school system. He got exposed to HP somewhere because when I revealed the name of the movie I was going to show him, he said, 'Oh! Harry Potter!' He could well have read the spines of the books on our shelves--that was his previous favorite party trick/stalling technique at dinner.
The 'currency' I speak of = things that motivate him to do things he doesn't want to do. AKA bribes.
Interesting that you chose to introduce her to HP as a way of helping your DD explore larger, tougher questions. That is a good point. Right now I find them useful for showing him that school isn't always 100 percent fun and sometimes, teachers behave badly toward their students.
