How strictly do you follow age guides on films etc?

[IShotTheDeputyItWasMe]

Not talking about games.

My 14yr old son wants to watch The Last of Us and Squid Games. My partner says no because of the age rating. We've both watched TLOU. Partner has watched Squid Games, I haven't.

I think he is old enough to watch TLOU. We only have one TV so we'd watch it together. I think although there is violence, most of it is against mushroom people so obviously not real. The only episode I'm uncomfortable about is the one when Ellie shoots a dear. That episode is all a bit too real.

I'm a bit of a child with violence/scary stuff so I figure, if I can watch it, then it can't be that bad.

Plus, it not as if son will go from too immature on his birthday eve to able to cope on his birthday. Partner is a obsessed with dates though eg food dates and has no common sense with those.

YABU - age ratings are there for a reason
YANBU - if you have seen the programme and think your son can deal with it, then the ratings don't matter.

Are they 15 rated? If so I hardly think there's going to be anything shocking for someone less than a year younger than that?
If they are 18 then obviously there maybe be depictions of sex and violence etc. I'd say at 14 most kids could handle an 18, but it depends on your own rules I guess.

I make my own judgements. It depends on what you think your child can handle.

My 13 year old has watched Squid Games with me. He skipped over the sex scene in one episode. I wouldn't have let him watch it a year ago, he probably would have had nightmares. He's seen a few 15 rated things, usually with me or his dad. I haven't said no to any 15 rating thing he's wanted to watch yet. He asked about something 18 rated the other day, that was a flat no.
I haven't let my 10 year old watch Squid Games even though half his class has seen it apparently. He can carry on watching Mr Beast versions on YouTube.

Our son is 13 and has watched both of those (with us). I think you know your own child and I think at 13-15 there’s not going to be anything in them they haven’t already been exposed to somewhere. We watch a lot of stuff with our son and chat about things together, he’s very sensible and knows the difference between fantasy / reality / good / bad etc etc. We regularly take him to see 15s at the cinema (ie Quiet Place Day One) with us - he looks old for his age, we’ve never been questioned but obviously completely depends what it is.

Pretty strictly, especially if I haven’t seen it. We watched Squid Game as soon as she turned 15.

We allowed her to watch Stranger Things before she was 15, but we had seen it. However, she freaked out in season 4, which is proper full-on Omen-esque horror, so we stopped.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what will disturb them and what passes them by without dipping your toe in.

I would be more concerned with actual
horror movies as that has moved on from say, suspense and jump scares, to really sadistic stuff.

I'm not very strict. But a lot depends on the child as an individual. I don't like many 18 rated horror films as I find them very gore heavy and I'm not into that.
My eldest watched 15 rated films from 13. He's 17 now and has watched 18 rated stuff from about 15/16 but he's not into gory style horror films anyway. He knows himself what is too much for him and will turn it off if he doesn't like it. My younger kids have autism and one is behind developmentally so they have not shown interest in watching anything other than childrens' films. If they wanted to watch something much older I wouldn't allow it because I know it would affect them in a negative way.

It depends on your child and if they're easily scared or imaginative.. I tend to watch stuff with them. One of my teens went through a phase of wanting to watch classic 80s movies. That was fun but also surprising what I remembered vs what is shown!

Common sense media website is useful.
I've always been a horror fan. So has my own dad. Pretty lax about it growing up so I'm the same, even with games.