to want my little boy to enjoy being a little boy?

[thisisyesterday]

ds1 is 5 and a bit. He still quite likes watching Thomas with his little brother, building big railways with his wooden trainset, playing with mud and sticks in the garden, helping me bake in the kitchen....

but he keeps coming home from school saying "D and G say Thomas is for babies. they watch Dr Who, Dr Who is cooler"

ffs. thjey're FIVE years old! dr who??? really??
I feel so sad that he can't just enjoy being a little boy and doing stuff little boys like because his "friends" at school are telling him that it's babyish and that programmes aimed at adults are so much "cooler"

he's so easily led bless him, and he has never seen Dr Who in his life, but now talk is all on daleks and all sorts

I wasn't expecting this for a while yet

thisisyesterday: I think you have a bizarre idea of other parents to think they encourage their child to like certain things. g Not sure how you would go about that with a strong willed DC!!!

My boys certainly like what they like and that's that. As I said further up this thread my eldest developed an obsession with Harry Potter when he he was 2/3 and it was very strange as he was too young for the books or films. He used to go to nursery every day dressed as HP completed with 'scar' on forehead. In all honesty I'd have rather he'd liked Thomas or Bob as it was difficult to buy him HP related presents as HP is aimed at older children.

DS2, as I have said, loves Dr Who. He has long complicated (and IMO boring )conversations about the plot and tries to engage me in episode analysis. I certainly haven't encouraged him. I am happy that he has something which interests him and captures his imagination. I think it's more damaging and controlling to try and impose your will on a child as to what they should or shouldn't like just because of some preconceived ideas of what 5 year old boys should be interested in!

thisyesterday - yes that gender stuff drives me completely mad! and my 9yr old ds won't watch dr who because he gets scared but he loves me to tell him all about it and if you heard him in the playground with his mates you'd never know he hadn't watched it

There was a little boy in DS1's reception class who insisted on being called Ron for the whole year. Was v. funny.

TBH we do encourage DS to enjoy Star Wars and Indy and the other stuff, because we enjoy it. Not even the tiniest bit sorry about that.

My husband said if the boys didn't like Star Wars he'd have to disown them. He's a teeny bit obsessed.

My 3 year old said today "girls smell of poo". He doesn't mean it though, he has lots of friends who are girls at nursery.

Mine have tried watching Ben 10 a couple of times but it doesn't hold their interest - it isn't actually very good.

I wouldn't ever "ban" anything that was age-appropriate for the sake of it. My mum did that to me as a teenager - I wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill or Neighbours, for example. But I think parents of 5 year olds should have a bit more say. If only because they don't want to sit through another episode of Dinosaur King - which makes No Sense At All.

WTF is dinosaur king??

I have to admit DH and I were very smug when we influenced our DSDs' taste slightly. we introduced them to Fawlty Towers! they went home saying "I speak English well, I learn it from a boooook"... and doing the German walk, oops

quantcosta

ok then, so the children i know with no older siblings just developed a love for dr who despite never having heard of it before?
I don't think so.

they all like dr who at school
or pretend to

IME you don't actually have to encourage a child to like Dr Who, most (not all) of them quite like it once they have seen it.

As Alaska says even if they haven't seen this stuff they pretend to in order to keep up and the kids in the older classes probably have seen it so because they little kids think the big kids are cool anything they like is automatically cool as well.

It just doesn't worry me, DS seems quite well balanced despite enjoying a large range of stuff.

my ds 5.11 still loves Thomas, chuggington and cbeebies in general. He doesn't watch Ben10 etc and I was shocked when at an early years meeting once the year r teacher in his school mentioned the yr rs loving dr who, ben 10 etc. I was .

I think children have to grow up so quickly as it is (ds just finished yr 1 today) that what watching tv is the least of their worries.

morloth yes... "once they have seen it"

Im with the OP on this one my DS1 (5) seems babyish compared to some of the kids in his class who watch Pirates of the Carribiean and the later Harry Potter films, i wouldnt personally let DS watch these as there are a lot of violence in them, he watches SpongeBob and will hapilly sit with DS2 (3) to watch Humpf.. a few of the Mums at the school have commented on how much younger ds seems than thier kids even though he is the eldest in the class.

I dont really care to much he is a lovely, intelligent boy who is funny, curious and loving he will 'grow up' in his own dan time.

Or the big boys have seen it and have been talking about it and he wants to seem cool like the big boys so he pretends to have seen it. They all like to posture about, unfortunately this is not one activity they grow out of.

I wasn't aware there was a Dinosaur King show, my only experience of it was the stupid game at the playcentre, will be keeping that nugget of information to myself for a while.

You can't control what other people show their kids and you can't stop the other kids from talking about it. I know you haven't said you want to do these things but that is kind of how you are coming across. Short of homeschooling your DS he is going to be influenced by his peers and many of those peers are going to have much "laxer" parents.

None of the stuff that DS watches is any worse than the stuff DH and I watched at his age and in many cases is the same stuff we watched. We are happy with ourselves/upbringing so see no reason not to enjoy this stuff again with the boys.

I had a big discussion about the Grandfather Paradox with DS1 yesterday, it was really fun to talk about time travel and all the possible repercussions with my 6yo. He is great fun.

I think that understanding and accepting that you may choose to watch or read or play one thing, and another's choices are different but equally acceptable is a vital skill and an indication of maturity.
Insisting that you must be part of the mainstream pack and being unkind and exclusive to other children is something I would squash thoroughly discourage.
In the same way as mocking other children's lunchbox contents, clothing or toy choices is not to be encouraged.
There's room for Thomas and Spongebob as well as Dr Who.

Sidetrack moment...why didn't my strikethrough work?

DS would be in big trouble if I found out he was picking on someone, for any reason.

Goblinchild you have to put the hyphens around each word.

I predate the internet. I predate the PC. Thank you for being a shiny little light in the darkness.

I agree with you. Different choices fine, mocking and being rude about someone else's choices, no. And when you're in primary, you tke most of your guidance from the adults, what they tolarate and what they pull you up on.

tolerate
I was given 7 bottles of wine today by different parents, and one is a rather nice red.

DS is five and a half as well and loves Doctor Who. He also enjoys Gigglebiz, Dora the Explorer, 64 Zoo Lane, fairy tales, playing with mud and sticks and baking in the kitchen. They're not mutually exclusive. He's never been heavily into Thomas, because I find it incredibly dull even in the grand scheme of preschool characters (the number of independent friends with children already whose main piece of advice when DS was born was "for goodness' sake steer clear of Thomas the Tank Engine" was remarkable ), but I don't think he considers it particularly babyish. He doesn't watch lots of films that plenty of his friends (including those who wouldn't be allowed to watch Doctor Who or Ben 10) are allowed to watch (not thinking of 12 certificates here (which would obviously be out of the question), just some PG films) because I don't think they are suitable for his age, and I don't let him watch Power Rangers. He's seen the old Star Wars movies, won't be seeing the new ones (I'm with Morloth), won't be seeing Lord of the Rings for several years yet, has seen the first three Harry Potters but will not be seeing any of the others for a similar period, won't be seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for a few years. I have no problem with Ben 10 but gently discourage Ben 10: Alien Force (which IMO is more violent and far less well-written).

In other words, it's not as though I am deliberately exposing him to "adult TV" or "adult movies". I am very carefully regulating what he watches. I am very carefully considering how much violence he is exposed to. I'm just categorising some things differently from you.

UQD, I think in many cases (possibly even on average) the Sarah Jane Adventures are more scary for children than Doctor Who.

thisisyesterday, this is what pisses me off, it only takes one family that allow the children to watch what we consider unsuitable/too old stuff and let them hear what I consider to be inapropriate adult views on gender, sex, race etc - and that automatically exposes my lovely little boy to all that crap way before he needs to deal with that crap. It's a tough one. I have been sorely tempted to talk to the teacher about it but have always been disuaded by other people in the past.

If it carries on in Y1 I might do (came very close with the "babies with brown skin" comment which was just before the end of term - you can see in his face now when he looks at people that he now notices skin colour). The parents have split up now and the father doesn't live with them anymore so I am hoping it will settle down. I don't want to be too precious either, we are not perfect, I just hate to hear him repeat these things especially the sexist stuff. Am never sure how to deal with it, I just say he's talking rubbish, or that's not true. DP says I have to give him a chance to use his own upbringing/intelligence to not develop those attitudes - he certainly does not hear it in our family and has positive role models.

The summer before he started school he loved peppa pig (still happy to watch it with his little brother) and he was desperate for me to get him some peppa pig pants! I looked for ages and found some George Pig ones in mothercare which he loved. Week 2 of Reception, swimming, piss taken out of him by same effing kid (and others to be fair) - now he only wears them at the weekend

Yellowvan - interesting what you say about social currency - I can see your point.

'Yellowvan - interesting what you say about social currency - I can see your point.'

My ASD son can walk the walk and talk the talk im many situations now. He knows what to conceal and what is OK through bitter experience at primary and secondary.
He's getting old enough, scary enough and big enough for his choices to be unquestioned by others.
But he hides a lot of the stuff that is important to him, and phones me to check what's 'Normal' when he's thrown a curve ball in a social situation I'm not part of. He has certain activities, watches certain programmes that are cool enough to pass muster, and others that are not.
It's a sod that he has to know which is which, or be laughed at and ostracized.

There's no actual death in SJA though, which I think is a key difference.

Andrea Yates died in Season 1, although she'd sort of been dead for thirty-odd years already, so it's a different sort of death. But you saw her fall (indeed, saw Sarah Jane fall as well, in the alternative reality) in the knowledge that it was to her death.

And there's off-screen death implied -- the Slitheen don't just knit those human bodies out of organic lentils, presumably, and it doesn't sound as though all of the children kidnapped by Kudlak will have survived to make it home. So the possibility of death is certainly there for a child who hasn't worked out the implications of a CBBC broadcast slot.

(Not actually for that child, obviously. That would be a little harsh. In the mind of that child, the possibility exists for the characters in the series...)

for me the bigger issue with SJA is that the acting is utterly, completely and totally pants.

preghead, it is going to be very hard controlling what other children talk about, particularly as some of those children will have elder brothers and sisters; parents can't snoop on every sibling conversation to make sure nothing is revealed that should not be revealed

btw when my pfb was the age of your ds we didn't even have a telly, because I thought it would be better for her not to be exposed to much television in her first years (we may even have been right- though tbh I'm not sure)- I told her stories instead and it was all very idyllic and Victorian

yet I wonder how you would have reacted if a parent like me had told your ds' teacher that he must not talk about watching Thomas because my dd wasn't ready for television and I didn't want her to grow up too fast

you'd have thought I was bonkers

and that is a problem- you are never going to find two parents who think exactly the same about what is suitable and what is not suitable viewing