Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Question for parents of sensitive kids

DS7 has a similar problem. He is concerned about others AND tends to get overemotional. I let him watch the news, but try to make sure he balances the bad with the good. For example, he was recently worried about my husband going to Afghanistan soon, because he knew about all the bad things going on there. DH sat him down with some pictures from the last deployment and explained that sometimes bad thing happen, but they also help build schools and hospitals, etc. It took a couple of days to sink in, but I think it helped. Now he has a better understanding that sometimes it takes sacrifice to do good things, and also that even if the news says nothing but bad things, there is usually at least a little good sprinkled in there as well. As a bonus, he became interested in middle eastern culture, and checked out a book on Afghanistan on our last trip to the library.
It will take a little research, but you can almost always find something to supplement a news story to make it a little less scary. The Bin Laden story is a tough one, since it's basically a celebration of the death of a human being. I told mine that it's always bad when someone dies, but now people who lived around him can be a little less scared. We found some interviews with the locals, and DS seemed satisfied that it wasn't too horrific.
I am adamantly against shielding kids from current events. I do, however, think it is important to take the time to explain it to them instead of just letting them watch the news on their own.

Really? There is nothing you wouldn't shield your kids from? Say you had a 5yo child who was afraid of strangers or robbers, and someone broke into a house down the street and killed a child. No shielding at all?

I just feel like in some cases it can be really developmentally inappropriate and unfair NOT to shield. Some children, like mine, are major worriers.

All this said, if DD ASKS about something, I certainly discuss it with her. If she heard about the torandoes and asked me if people died, I would be honest. However, I am not going to intentionally expose her or bring it up. I realize that this may bite me at some point.

Right. She's obviously not ready for that.

I don't want my child to enjoy war and cruelty, but that doesn't mean I want him to be paralyzed by them either. I want him to be calm and self-assured in the face of adversity. I'd like him to be able to understand things without being fearful of them.

The point about asynchronicity is a good one. We seem to have somewhat different approaches. I would like him to be comfortable thinking about anything he's ready to think about, and if I can give him coping strategies to enable that, so much the better. You seem to want your daughter to develop as naturally emotionally as possible, and allow her to be emotionally young while she's physically young. I'm not finding fault with your parenting approach; I mostly want to keep my son from experiencing too much psychological stress while he thinks about whatever occurs to him. I also believe in letting him see or read anything he likes, within reason, because I want him to develop as he likes.

Part of my thought process is that one may actually make an anxiety problem worse by supporting it, like keeping a knee brace on too long after an injury may weaken the joint. But that doesn't translate into a value judgment of how anyone here is raising their children-- far from it. Even if your daughter were my child, I would probably find that she wasn't ready for things in the same way, at the same times, or in the same order as my son. I might find that she wasn't ready for the film "A Clockwork Orange" until age 10, whereas DS5 just loves it. (I'm totally joking around here, although he does honestly love "2001".)

I just wanted to throw into the discussion that giving my son lots of little coping tools and working to expand his horizons a bit has apparently been working well for him. You have your own coping tools which you use with your daughter, in your best judgment as to her readiness level for different information.

Lucounu, I'm exactly where you are on this...

DeeDee

But how do you know what they're ready to think about? Not sure what you mean by that phrase.


Reading is one thing and seeing is another, in my opinion. Visual stimuli can be so overwhelming, and in my experience the brain can sometimes really perseverate on disturbing images. There's also the question of...well, how does one define "within reason"? I'm sure I don't know.


Yes, I do understand what you mean here. One doesn't want to wrap the child in cotton wool so much that the child ends up unable to function, or believes herself weak. We are slowly allowing tenser and more frightening material to reach DD. And even with shielding, the world is full of unexpected pain and sadness that I cannot protect her from, as we learn constantly.

In general, though, I guess I want to respect and honor her strong reactions to the sadness and pain of the world, not desensitize her such that she no longer is bothered. I do believe her intense feelings may well guide her life choices, and as a family, that is in line with the way we live.

Appreciate the civil conversation.

sorry, double post

What would you all suggest as first movies for a 5y who hasn't watched many at all and found Monsters, Inc and the Incredibles very scary, so much so that he chose to stop watching? I did try to talk through the Incredibles a bit with him before he wanted to stop, as in "this is a movie for children and the story is about this family, so nothing bad will happen to them, even though it seems scary". My feeling about the Incredibles is that it's fairly violent! I worry alot about him having images stuck in his head, and maybe that's a bias from knowing some people who are plagued by very vivid and horrifying nightmares, and may not be relevant to how DS's brain works.

While I'm ok with having him be an outlier at the momemt with regard to TV/movie experience, I don't think it's a good idea for DS to be the only 6 or 7 year old (in 1-2 years) who hasn't watch the movies everyone in his class will have watched. I don't want him to be poorly socially equipped for cultural references, conversation. Sorry for the stream of conciousness, would appreciate any more thoughts on this!

Beak - I took my eldest to see Finding Nemo when she was about 2.5yrs old, it was my first experience taking a child to the movies and I naively just believed all those people that raved about what a great kids film it was. I naively believed that kids films were made for kids! It was utterly traumatic from the very first scene, but even at 2yrs old DD understood that it must be going to come to a good resolution, so for an hour and half she would get up and walk out of the cinema, then turn around and go back in, sit through a little more then leave, then come back, then leave, then come back. We saw the whole thing, apart from the bits when we were leaving and returning.

As if that wasn't bad enough, for the next 9-12 months Finding Nemo was EVERYWHERE. Walking down the street if you passed an electronics store every tv in the window was showing Nemo, everywhere we went it was either playing or there were marketing materials. We were members of the aquarium and went every week, but half of each visit was spent with her hiding behind me and peaking out at the big bank of tvs up above the entrance playing, you guessed it, Finding Nemo (mostly the shark footage of course).

That experience burned us both so badly that I have been extremely strict and careful about movies ever since. We don't watch the news (because I can't tolerate watching the news so I hardly think my kids should be watching it). I try not to take them to movies I haven't seen unless I am very confident of the content, and they watch no commercial TV. I still feel like I let them watch "too much" and yet DDs peers watch all sorts of things I would never in a million years let me kids watch.

And you know what, I am fine with that. When DD9yrs (she of the Nemo debacle) asks "Why can all the other kids in the class see Harry Potter 7, but not me?" I give her the same answer that I do regarding car restraints - "The other parents get to decide what to do for their kids but...[we believe M rated movies are not suitable for 9 year olds]". It's just part of life in our house that we don't let our kids do what their peers are doing simply because their peers are doing it.

DD#2 has been much better at self filtering. She just gets up and wanders off if something bothers her, rather than watching in growing horror. So she has been exposed to stuff that DD#1 would not have been at the same age, but we do still limit anything that we know is inappropriate for her.

My daughter is extremely sensitive about certain movies as well. However, at 2, Finding Nemo was her favorite movie. She would watch nothing else. I am sure I have seen it over 100 times. The sharks were not her favorite part though.

Sounds like in your case, you brought your daughter to a movie theatre. I heard similar stories about young children being bothered by supposedly children's movies and in a lot of cases, the movies were seen in a movie theatre.

I really can't help but think the problem could in some cases be the additional anxiety from the big screen and/or the sound system. It could even be the result of already having a bit of anxiety due to the crowd or the fact the theatre is dark. Movie theatres may be great as an adult, but a lot of children may find them particularly unpleasant.

Another issue to watch out for is a child's mood will vary from one moment to another and is sometimes not obvious. The timing of when a child sees a particular movie the first time can determine how they will react to the movie. One day they can handle a certain movie or the next they cannot.

Some children are also sometimes bothered by something that you would never expect them to be bothered by. It could be particular shapes, colors or anything. A child may be scared of the grass in the movie and not the lion standing on it for instance. I had a niece who was scared of grass. When I was young, I was scared of toy people and just made all toy people or toys with toy people in them disappear without letting on.