I'm looking for others' experience on how you balance information discussed with your sensitive kids. When I say DS6 is sensitive, I mean he is empathetic, concerned about the plights of others, and spiritually questing for his beliefs (we are not a religious family, so this has been interesting). He's not sensitive in terms of being easily upset or taking things people say to him personally. His sensitivity is focused outward toward others and the universe.

We struggle sometimes with the information he requests from us about current news events, deaths of friends and family members, the situations of those less fortunate. He's extremely analytical and logical, he requires details, and we often end up in discussions most would expect to have with their teenager, not a 6yo - I know parents on this forum can relate. We try to share as much detail as he requests at a particular time, but not more; although we don't always get it right. He processes over a period of days, weeks, or months, and asks questions as he's ready or needs more.

Yesterday, Bin Laden's death was a discussion topic with him. We tried to keep the details at the right level for the information he wanted, and for what he could handle emotionally. I worry though that learning about this is too heavy for him - things that roll off most kids' backs, he thinks about on and off for long periods of time. But I also can't pretend that world events don't happen either, and I can't keep my kid shielded from the current events around us. I don't want to. And he wants to know about them. So where does that balance lie? What do others on this forum do to talk to their sensitive children about difficult subjects like this?

I tend to filter. I don't think you need to keep it from them, but if you know something is disturbing to a child (especially at only 6 years old) there is really no need to go into detail regarding current affairs etc. If the subject comes up, discuss it, but in terms for a CHILD, not from the news. The news looks for the shock factor because it makes for good TV and it gets viewers (however, adult viewers are the target.) Again, just filtering and remembering the age of your child you can modify how the information is presented. My child is 9 and I don't let her watch the news. I may tell her about things that affect our country but not from seeing it on the news or hearing it from the TV. We talk about it and she learns about it in a controlled environment.

I know this struggle. One of the things I have had to deal with is that my child goes to school, so if I do not inform the other children inform. I would prefer that my child has my values and a chance to process before getting some other values or the shock through other lenses. We also do not watch the news. I made sure my kiddo never saw the footage of the planes or the twin towers for as long as I could. (She was much younger at that time.) However when she was a bit older we visited Ground Zero and she learned about what happened in a more real way. She has seemed able to handle a "real" experience better than some abstract discussion. She learned about the Holocaust through the Holocaust Museum.

I think my very sensitive child (now 14 yrs) used to self defend against current events. She didn't want to know. So we didn't tell her. My younger dd is more curious and will ask more questions.

To me, that your child is asking you for this type of information indicates that you have provided "just right" discussions. Not too much, not too little.

I agree that the TV can destroy this balance that you've created.

MON - I like the way you went about the Bin Laden explanation. I think I'll go back and talk with my DS7 a bit more about this. He heard the news on the radio on the way to work, so I explained what happened with the Twin Towers. Then so he could sort of understand, I said our government thought he was a "boss creep." I think I will bring it up again to discuss people's reactions.

I should say that I don't have the most sensitive kid in the world. I kept finding "sensitivity" on the list of GT characteristics and figured my son must not be all that GT...

I, too, have a sensitive kid (DS8) and I answer his questions simply and straightforwardly. (But, I think I have an advantage because in my profession (veterinarian) I have to relay bad news to people all the time. I've gotten in the habit of saying it straight, then answering each question as it arises.)

My son at age 6 also went through a spiritual questioning period and wanted to go to church and learn about god. We are athiests, so I found a very tolerant unitarian congregation that had religious education for kids. That seemed to answer a lot of his questions better than me saying, "It's just a myth."

My poor son just heard about ear cropping and tail docking for the first time and almost vomited. We have a stray Boxer-mix and DS kept saying how glad he was that our dog had been "wild" because otherwise he would have had his ears cropped and tail docked.

My son also takes several days to process bad events that he hears about. He absolutely won't talk about them until he is ready. So far, he is really good about asking us instead of just relying on what he hears from other kids.

My DD is 4.5 and a sensitive kid. She, too, ponders everything and will continue to ask questions months down the road. We have been able to shield her from most of the current news but I suspect that won't be for much longer. She has had some recent deaths to contend with in her immediate world and overall she has handled it well, but she definitely questions the afterlife and what is to become of the souls. We are a religious family which at least helps us answer her with what we feel happens. If she takes that as truth, I'm not sure. I'll be watching this thread and storing the knowledge for later when DD can't be shielded from the outside world.

We stopped listening to NPR when DD was 4 because the questions and concerns got to be too much. We avoid TV news and don't get a paper (would be our choices anyway, but they help). She occasionally hears things at school, but I do not bring anything up unless she asks. I don't think she knows about the tsunami, nor about bin Laden. It's just too much for her, and she gets agitated and worried and sad.

D21 is our more sensitive one, D16 not as much. We actually use NPR as a primary news source, and the only time I can remember ever turning it off so my kids wouldn't hear it was on 9/11. Also kept the TV off while they were around that day. And when the Oklahoma City bombing happened, I let them see about 5 minutes of the TV news, then shut it off.

I grew up in a household where kids (esp. girls) were not expected to know about current events. I was woefully ignorant on the topic when I went to college, and had a lot of catching up to do. It made me a bit of a news junkie once I figured out how dumb I was about the world.

So... we have made it a priority for our kids to know about current events. It means answering a lot of questions, and sometimes getting into discussions that are uncomfortable. It means comforting and explaining (as best we can) when something bad happens. But I think overall it has been good for them. For example, when the tsunami hit Indonesia several years ago, my kids came to me and said they wanted to contribute some of their savings to help (actually, they wanted to contribute ALL of their savings, but we settled on a portion of it and I matched it instead). D21 is working at the State Department this semester, and hopes to go into a career in politics or working for State -- if we had shielded her from current events, I don't think she would have found that passion.

Our son has always pondered and asked questions about death and other deep/advanced issues. We are atheists, but have sent him to church a few times with his grandmother to satisfy some of his curiosity about religion. At one point he was shaping up to be quite sensitive, like I was as a young child; for example, I remember being obsessed with stuff like nuclear weapons, to the point of being too distressed to sleep well for a long time.

I embarked on a relentless campaign to desensitize and toughen him up, which seems to be working. He can now watch the news, and has some pretty violent favorite movies that I think would distress many kids his age (I shield him from over-the-top gore and other troubling content). He remains intensely interested in ethical questions, but today in a lot of respects is an ordinary rough-and-tumble little boy who likes to play with toy weapons.

Can you expand on your desensitizing campaign? How did you go about it, and how did your son respond at the start? DS5 is still a no-Disney, no video game, no TV kid...

Okay, I do consider myself sensitive.

Five is still very, very young. I don't lie or anything, but I certainly don't see the necessity in wallowing in all the 'bad news' on TV. I know about current events - seriously, you can't hide from it - but I don't see the point in watching hours and hours of what is usually the same footage repeated and people talking about how awful it is. I know that already. There is enough sadness and pain in life without the magnifying it. Especially to the exclusion of some of the wonderful and beautiful things in life.

The world needs more sensitive people. These are the people who look at things that everyone takes for granted and ask the questions that make people's lives better. Sure, they need o learn to manage that, and we need to help them do it, but I think we can do that while still allowing them to be sensitive.

I just exposed him to increasing doses of reality and more mature themes in movies and other media. I've let my son watch lots of movies since before he could read well, and we would discuss different characters' motivations, why they sometimes felt compelled to do as they did, the difference between being aggressive and defending one's self or another, etc. At the beginning he probably would have had a problem with something pretty tame like "The Incredibles", but it was just a gradual process of expanding his boundaries. We don't play video games.

Oh, and another thing that occurred to me is that I imposed a strict moratorium on dumbed-down kids' programming. That wouldn't help a no-TV kid, of course. I remember specifically banning some shows, like "Caillou", that I thought might encourage a weak self-perception.

I would say that while I've decreased my son's sensitivity in the sense of increasing his ability to deal with hefty doses of reality, I've not decreased his perceptivity or empathy. Those are going as strong as ever.

I don't plan to shield her from current events forever, for goodness' sakes. But...she is 7, and has been known to cry in her bed and shake because she's so terrified of tornadoes *just generally.* I am not going to expose her to media coverage of recent and terrible tornado destruction.

A lot of this is part of asynchronicity, IMO, and trying to wish it or "expose" it away doesn't sit so well with me personally. I don't know. I am also sensitive myself. NPR can and often does make me cry, and I can't watch senselessly violent movies or TV, though I certainly do watch and read other distressing content that has redeeming value. I would never change this about myself. Truthfully, I want my children to be distressed by war and cruelty. It's distressing. But at this age I am also going to be careful not to completely overwhelm them.

I agree with you completely, ultramarina. My son is 5 (nearly 6), and is very sensitive. He does not like anything that is very scary, and he particularly doesn't like any shows or movies where there is a character who is mean to another one (he won't watch one Team Umi Zoomi episode because there is a dump truck in it who is mean to someone). I personally love that about him; he has been described by multiple parents and teachers at his school as being a kid "who doesn't have a mean bone in his body".

My approach is to reassure him at this age that things he hears about (tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, etc) won't happen to him or anyone he knows. At this point, he just needs reassurance so he doesn't have to worry; he doesn't need the grim perspective of unvarnished truth. When he is older he will get a better sense on likelihood and probability, and we can have more elaborate discussions. Right now, his worries tend to keep him from being able to go to sleep, so we try to help him work through why those things shouldn't worry him right now (e.g. no volcanoes in Florida, etc, which can go on and on ad nauseum). My husband was the same way and has issues with anxiety and OCD; I won't be surprised if my son ends up the same.

Exactly. There came a point when I realized that "Well, it's very, very unlikely, and furthermore, we live in a concrete house, so..." was not helping. DD needed to hear "That isn't going to happen to you" so she could release the thoughts and worries. We are now starting to get to the point where discussion of probabilities is more possible, but on some things she still needs absolute reassurance. I figure that if a tornado really does destroy our house, we have much worse problems than my promising it wouldn't happen.

Although now that I think about it, what I specifically promise is "I will keep you safe." I tell her again and again that it is our job to keep her safe and that nothing is more important to us. I think she needs to know that she doesn't have to be "in charge" of her safety should a disaster occurr-- that she can release that responsibility to us.

Exactly my thought!

We have tended to address issues when the kids ask questions. I usually listen to NPR in the morning but the kids tend to tune it out. My kids know there is a war going on but haven't asked too many questions. That changed this week. In addition to bin Laden's death, DD9's teacher's child is being deployed to Afghanistan this week. DD9 couldn't sleep last night because she was worried that Mrs. A's child might die in war. We had to talk about the fact that people in the military are at risk and that it is part of their job. Many people come home safe but some do not. DD grilled me this morning about 9/11, bin Laden and the war in Afghanistan. She was pretty upset that she didn't know enough about these events to talk about them at school. I tried to answer her questions and to give her the facts as I understand them. I also found that a lot of her questions did not have easy answers, i.e. why do some people get so angry that they want to kill people they don't know? how do you help your cause by killing yourself? I feel a little guilty that I couldn't wrap it up in a neat package for her so she could stop worrying about it. I think that we will be working through this over the next few weeks.

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.

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.

I don't watch most of what the people around me watch either, so I guess that makes me weird and unsocialised. *Shrug* oh well, I'm fine with that! I was fine with it as a child too. I knew that even if I 'connected' over something I didn't like, it was all so phoney anyway that it didn't matter. People who judge you over some TV show or movie, or whatever? Well, it wasn't much of a loss to me.

Jamie - my DD is not at all worried by loud noises or people but she had already experienced loss before she saw Nemo and did not miss the meaning of those first scenes... Our two children make a classic example of needing to know your own child and what is likely to be ok for them.

I actually agree with you here. I would love my DD to see Spirited Away--I love it, and I think she would too. It's possible that it would be okay...I should review the plot. Scary isn't the issue as much as things featuring cruelty to sympathetic characters or tragic parental death (so weirdly common).

I'm more willing to test something questionable if I think it's worthwhile artistically.


This may be the issue, really. Some kids seem to know this instinctively. DS will ask me to turn "scary" (we're talking a tense episode of Super Why here) things off fairly regularly. DD will see it through because she's interested and THEN be distressed afterwards. DS is generally a lot more self-aware than his sister, so this makes sense.

This last bit reminds me of The Uses of Enchantment: by Bettelheim. He felt that the old, dark fairy tales were of value for children..
To quote wikipedia:
Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Bettelheim thought that by engaging with these socially-evolved stories, children would go through emotional growth that would better prepare them for their own futures.

I don't think tragic parental death being common in stories is weird. Parental death, absence, or incapacity is often a prerequisite to set up the essential tension of a mythic story - that the protagonist is utterly alone and without ordinary aid, and must rely on his or her own resourcefulness, courage, and wits, and on unique inherent qualities, and overcome fears and perceived weaknesses, in order to triumph.

Stories are one of the ways that we teach children to become adults: I think that is important to remember. Most stories are intended to give people blueprints of how to live well, how to cope with difficult decisions, how to triumph over evil and adversity when it seems hopeless and impossible. It would be inappropriate to show children going off on adventures to save the world without consulting their parents if their parents were available. It would seriously violate social norms and the enculturating value of the tales to show parents failing to protect their children from evil or potential harm, and to show children acting autonomously without regard for parental wishes or control in the context of an intact family. For stories to serve those purposes effectively, children need to be able to identify with a character who is like them in important ways, but who has to make their own decisions and be responsible for their own actions and safety. If you don't take the parents out of the picture somehow, it is far more difficult to meet those goals.

I agree - so many stories just wouldn't work if there was parent hovering around!

I also totally agree that you need to know your individual child to make those judgements, and even then you might find things that scare them that you never thought would.

I think its always a balancing act!

I'm familiar with the argument that parents must be dispensed of for a good narrative arc, but I don't really buy it. I can think of all kinds of great children's stories where nobody's parents are tragically offed in the first 5 minutes. To wit: Harriet the Spy, The Dark is Rising series, A Wrinkle in Time series, E.B. White's books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Great Brain...all these have children going on great adventures often without parents, but without killing said parents off. Then we have wonderful family-oriented fiction like Judy Blume, Ramona, the wonderful Elizabeth Enright books, All of a Kind Family, Finn Family Moomintroll, Little House on the Prairie...

None of this is to say that I think parental death should be forbidden in children's books or movies. However, I have always found it a little odd the way this is done in material for VERY YOUNG children. Bambi and Nemo come to mind as examples of over-the-top parental death in films aimed at a young audience.