to not be particularly pleased when ds comes home from nursery having read a book about all the monsters in Dr Who?

My children love watching Dr. Who. The youngest of them is 3 (almost 4 now). They also know it's not real just like fairy stories we read/watch.

Why does the Big Bad Wolf try to chomp Red Riding Hood?

How has granny managed to survive inside Wolfie's stomach which is now ripped asunder?

It is so funny, DD is the girliest girl you could ever hope to meet, her room is all lilac and butterflies but she is obsessed with Dr Who and has a HUGE dalek poster on her bathroom door (her choice).

oh mine love it now (age 5 and 6) but like DC said, you can't tell what they'll be scared of. Mine are terrified of one scene in the Care Bears Movie .

I tell you what though Franny, it's very impressive that he could remember the name of the villains/monsters and pick them out in a comic!

now beards ARE scary Tamum. They still give me the willies

I agree with DC I remember being really afraid of random 'non scary' things as a child (humpty dumpty on a milk advert being one!).
Children hear about monsters and ghosts in age-appropriate stories anyway. I don't necessarily think that because we feel the graphic pictures like in the Dr Who book are more 'realistic' that kids will see it the same way.

Ironically when I was small I used to love Dr. Who but the sight of anyone in a beard (not least Rolf Harris) reduced me to a howling wreck.

DD also has the mosters and enemies (or whatever it is) and loves it, she quizzes us on which monster is which.

DC - you're right. Wurzel Gummage used to terrify me.

DD is 4.5 and loves Dr Who. She doesn't watch it when it is on on Saturday nights (she is in bed), but we do record it for her and she watches them avidly.

No nightmares here

[bad mother emoticon]

ahh ok, I can see it. Dr Who Monsters and Villains (tis also on the book people).

mmm I guess it's because the book was brought in rather than the nursery choosing to show it to the children iyswim.

Dd and ds are scaredy cats and I doubt they would have been frightened by the pictures but would have been scared if they had been told a story involving the daleks trying to kill Dr Who at age 3/4 with the pictures - definitely in fact.

It's actually stupidly hard to work out what will scare kids. At 4, DC was reduced to tears by the chase scene in The Magic Roundabout film.

They aren't scared by Daleks at all AND The scene in the Adams Family where the baby is dropped from the roof made both laugh.

I think it's not as simpler as older=tougher.
Younger kids don't get that they are supposed to be scared by some things.

I don't think I'd have been happy either, tbh. DS1 (5.5) gets real obsessions about these things, and is mad for Dr Who, and has the Top Trumps, etc etc etc.

He saw part of an episode, once. On a plane. I think it's far too scary for his age. And anyway, he frightened DS2 a bunch of times with his Garlic impression, and I've said he's not allowed to watch it again.

I'm clearly in a minority here but yes, I would have been pretty cross. Mine have only just started watching it at 12 and 9 because they found the trailers scary for the first series (I didn't ban it, they just weren't willing to watch). I know that's really wet at their age, but some chidren are more worried about stuff like this than others, and I don't think nursery staff ought to prejudge the issue to be honest.

DS is 4 and I'd have no problems with him reading of the Garlics. To me the battle is not just to get them to remember the completely nonsensical "rules" of spelling, but at the same time make them enjoy it.
My kids love Dr. Who.
A lot.
Big heaps of love.
Anything associated with Dr. Who is in their eyes inherently good. Sounds like OP has a good teachers, who has latched on to something the kids like and is milking it.
Sadly in many schools, they'd latch on to sport, and instead of the wholly positive role models in DW, they'd be told that drunken wife beating footballers were "heroes".

I would say it was very unusual for a nursery to look in detail at a book like this, they do usually seem to stick to the well known and inoffensive children's stuff.

I wouldn't have liked this happening when ds was at Nusery, either. As you say, I wouldn't think it was the worst thing in the world but I might just ask the question as to their views on assessing the appropriateness of material brought in from home.

However i do think a book is a less immediate and scary way to see this stuff than on the screen. I'd bet a bar of choc (green n blacks, natch) that he doesn't have a bad dream tonight.

(incidentally, I've just noticed that you can get a whole set of Dr Who books for £9.99 from the Book People)

the books are not too graphic Franny and your ds obviously enjoyed it but I guess a very sensitive child may not have liked it (but then maybe they wouldn't have been interested enough to look?).

yes it would be unusual I wouldn't worry unduly

Depends on the child, I would say.

It's a difficult one, it's nice that children can bring things in and share them, I guess (although at the co-op, things from home are always put away, not out of fear of bad content, more to avoid the inevitable squabbles), but surely they should be checking them for content to some degree?

I had nightmares after seeing an episode of the daleks. I don't think a book would have given me nightmares. I was in infant school at the time, so must have been about 5

so trolls and giants and sprites and talking animals are ok

I think I'd probably have felt the same when DS was 4 .. he has friends who were allowed to watch Lord of the RIngs and Harry Potter at that age and he patently wasn't .. he's still not allowed LOTR at 6

it all does merge though .. and sometimes these things are what bonds children together

part of me says sooner the garlics than power rangers