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

Jamie - It is likely that theatre experience compounded the problem as it does make for a much more intense experience of any film. But Nemo starts with a baby loosing their entire family and goes down hill from there, including themes about AA meetings (WHY???) and a crazed dentist (WHY??), none of these are themes my 2.5yr old needed to experience. After 9 months of obsessing and panic in public places, Nemo finally ended up being the only film my DD would watch for a while too (the final stage of her obsession and working through it). But I still think it is the classic example of "kids" films being made for adults.

Kids can and do have weird fears and each child is sensitive to different things, most of DDs friends the same age loved Nemo and had no problems with it. But it certainly drove home to me that for my child I needed to pre-screen movies carefully and to this day we continue to chose what they see with caution.

My middle daughter's great fear was public toilets, which made toilet training rather difficult!

I'd just not worry about it, TBH. My DS was also very easily scared by movies, and (at 7) still doesn't ever choose to watch them. He seems to be able to play playground games based on their characters nevertheless, and it doesn't seem to have been a problem! (Similarly, he's introduced playground games based on characters in books he's read and the other kids seem to have no trouble with them.) I think it's a lot too young to worry about cultural references. I let DS know from time to time that such-and-such exists and that I'm happy to take him to see it if he wants, and don't worry about it further.

We watch older movies. I won't show my kids the Incredibles yet either.

Herbie the Love Bug
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
Alice in Wonderland (the old animated one)
Toy Story 1 (but not the others)
Singing in the Rain
Pixar Short Films Vol. 1

I'll keep thinking to see if I can add to the list.

Netflix has awesome movie reviews called the "Common Sense Rating" that gives a huge amount of detail about things in the movie: what kind of language, what kind of social situations. I routinely use this as a way to xray films before showing them.

DeeDee

Older films are not perfect-- I was shocked that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has faux Nazis in it. (I had forgotten this from my childhood.)

Kids also liked The Rescuers... still thinking.

DeeDee

We had a bad experience in the fall with Willy Wonka. It was for movie night at school. I thought it was awful and scarey. But Dd6 got pretty upset and we had to leave.

Who thought that should be a child's movie?

She also had trouble, forget the movie, about a robot on a world that was destroyed. The beginning scenes were the destroyed city and DH thought the reason DD couldn't stay because it looked too much like NYC.

Otherwise, she loved UP -- mostly the dog scene jokes. Ratouille.

The lack of pop culture exposure can be a problem. The fact that DD has not seen Star Wars has been a bit of an issue for her at school. What we did when we ran into the same issue with Disney princess pretend play at preschool was we got her (non-Disney) books that told the same stories. I should get her some Star Wars books, come to think of it.

One of our tactics was to allow our kids to see a movie that might be scary only AFTER they had read the book. This, of course, only works when there is a book But there is something about the kid being able to put down a book at a scary part, then come back to it when they are ready that helps. And if they then want to see the movie, they know the scary parts of the plot line. I could definitely see using this approach with the Harry Potter movies (and heck, the books are better anyway, at least the first few are for sure... although the movies have gained some quality as they have gone along).

I did not like the beginning where the mom and siblings are lost either. What I did was not tell my daughter what had happened. She was more worried about the scary looking baracuda. After about 30 times watching the movie, she figured out what the beginning meant. I didn't like having to confront the death question before age 3, especially one involving a parent.

Old Dismey movies bother me even more though. They over play the good vs evil theme, too many wicked step mothers and even the idea that happiness for women is all about marrying some prince. I think some of the old black and white non-animated movies had better themes in them for children.

My daughter's sensitivities in movies seemed to be scenes involving what appeared like conflict between characters. Although maybe it was just the raised voices bothering her. She tends not to like louder type people as well, which is the same for me. My family are soft spoken.

At 4, she was going through movies to find one she had not watched and came across "Rocky". I warned her she probably would not like it and told her it was about fighting. She was willing to try it out and she loved it and then I got to see Rocky over and over. I guess the soft spoken characters made the movie ok for her. I wish I could remember the kid's movie she refused to watch at this time which I thought was mild.

Before having a child, I intended to be fairly open as to what I would let them watch. This was how I was raised. I did not however intend to allow movies I felt were just plain stupid like horror films. Then again, I also feel exposure to tv and music should be held back as long as possible anyway. This I feel is particularly critical in children at risk of having accelerated learning.

The same way you do, I guess. As parents we have to make choices of some sort regarding to what our kids are exposed, even if we're unschoolers and just strew things about the house; by this I mean that we don't just rely on our children's choices to choose okay material, we make educated guesses at least some of the time. I pick things that I know are in my child's emotional readiness range. We might differ about how big that range is or should be for kids in general, or whether we should err on the side of expanding or curtailing it, but we can certainly agree to disagree about these issues, especially where we don't know much about each other's children or their specific needs.


I agree with you. For example, imagery in the movie "Spirited Away" might be pretty challenging for a particular child, even if they're beginning to be able to handle themes of loss, hatred, etc. that are present in that movie. I err on the side of letting my son take in material that I think has great redeeming qualities (artistic, intellectual, or whatever) even if I think it might be near the edge of his comfort zone, because I figure he will let me know if he can't watch it comfortably. If he were to wind up with a nightmare afterwards despite feeling comfortable watching it, I would probably back off on that one for a while, but I don't think every nightmare is cause for concern either.

When I know something would be enjoyed by my son but has certain parts that aren't good for him, I will censor them out on occasion. For movies that would be skipping part or all of a scene; for a book, I probably just wouldn't let him read it; for comics, I just censor certain stories in some of the more grown-up ones.

One thing I didn't mention before, which governs my choices somewhat, is that I also think that it is good for a child's imagination to have powerful imagery lurking down in the subconscious. Along these lines, for example, my son loves the movie "War of the Worlds" (this is a good example of something I let him watch with hefty doses of censorship) and has for some time now. Just because something has elements of the strange, powerful, macabre, etc. doesn't mean it's necessarily bad for children in my opinion-- in fact the stranger the better, in my view, as long as it's still reasonably near the comfort zone of the kid. But here again, of course, you have to know your kid and her specific hot-button topics, etc.


And I respect and honor your choice. Odds are good that she will turn out just fine; I don't think for a moment from anything you've written that you're harming her. I also knew I would draw a certain amount of flack for what I wrote, but I still thought I'd throw it out there. I consider myself to be pretty extreme in what I will let my son watch, but it has been a long gradual process getting here, he is doing well with it, and he's now a sci-fi junkie which implies certain themes will be present in much of the material.

That reminds me that a few weeks ago, "The Ox-Bow Incident" came on cable. DS5 found it intensely interesting. I tend to agree with you in general.