AIBU to not let my 6yr old dd watch Watership Down?

[CherryPie3]

Because my husband thinks I am.

She is prone to bad dreams and letting things play on her mind and I remember WD being a bit bloody...

YABU.

Let the girl love stories. A good story involves heartache. A life involves dealing with it.

Sorry to go against the grain, but WD is a wonderful story. If bad dreams, upset happens, time to talk. Maybe time to have a happy film afterwards.

Shite happens. Even for bunnies.

By the way I cried. I still cry. I LOVE the film and would have hated it had it been denied me at such a young age... because its part of my formative years, and I love it, cry to it, hate it, love it still.

I just don't get get what is so awful about a story that makes someone cry. Thats a good story in my view. Some of the best stories ever involve tears.

Even distress.

I hate hate hate this parental censorship of feeling anything uncomfortable. Stories should be the place for children to have that experience, safely. Not in the real world.

Grr.

Sorry again. but I'm not Children need magic. They need dreams, hopes fears, and though we shoud protect them from the real life horrors, we also have a duty to prepare them (beautifully) for the fact that life is not always bloody great, but also bloody brilliant. I think many of us overthink things. Grow up, let your children dream it all.

aldiwhore for me it's not that Watership Down is sad, it's that it's bloody and brutal in places, it doesn't pull its punches and could be fairly traumatic.

The OP said her DD is prone to bad dreams and letting things play on her mind. Also she's also only 6!

Plenty of time to watch Watership Down later (which, I agree is brilliant!)

Yes children need magic and making their world a place full of only happy fluffy care bears (or whatever the modern equivalent is - we're not there yet!) and Barney the bloody annoying dinosaur isn't doing them any favours.

But neither is traumatising a child unnecessarily.

Aldiwhore, I completely agree about there being nothing wrong with sad stories. I'm normally the one despising Hollywood and its saccharine ways when it eschews a really fucking awesome ending that might be sad and heartbreaking, for the safe, happy-ending ending.

Many a childhood film/cartoon/book had very sad parts in it - someone mentioned the horse dying in The Never-Ending Story. Oh my god, that broke my heart at 8 years old! And yeah the wolf in the garden was scary - actually, really scary, but there were also safe bits in it - the bits where you're heart slowed down, you stopped clutching your cuffs or the pillow, and you knew amongst these characters, you could relax for a while.

But there is something about Watership Down...maybe it's the trippy bits? Maybe it's the violence? It's not a children's cartoon. It's really, really not. I vividly remember the terror in Hazel's eyes, how well that was portrayed, in this amazing but awful ultra-realism - an ingredient that was completely missing in other children's films or books that did also deal with fear and death.

It's disturbing, and not because it's also sad. I'm not saying that makes it rubbish - I have a really, really, really high opinion of it as a piece of work. But it is scary, it is disturbing, and it is completely relentless with it.

I don't think any film that shows rivers of blood running over the hills is going to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy!

on the subject of horrendous pre-film shorts at the cinema, I went to see some kids/family film when I was young, and they showed a short film before called 'the perfect nuclear shelter' - about a man who has prepared and fully stocked his nuclear bunker, and boasts about it to his neighbour, then when the 4 minute warning goes off, the neighbour has stolen the key, and you see him closing the door on the man with an evil laugh. then the original man realises he still has the key to operate the air purifying system, so nasty neighbour is doomed.

nice.

I sobbed at that age for ages after watching it.

I'm 37 and couldn't entertain the idea now.

YADNBU

I agree that it's okay for children to experience sadness through films and books. However, I saw Plague Dogs when I was about 8 and I don't think I could process the idea that human beings could be so cruel. It scared and upset me so much and I don't think there was anything positive about it. I can remember some of the scenes so vividly 30 years later and they bring tears to my eyes. As for Watership Down, I've only seen a clip of what appears to be a bunny massacre so I'll be avoiding it. I don't know why those 70s/80s films were so tough on kids. I'm just thankful my son can watch stuff like Wall-E which is a beautiful film.

YANBU.
We have a copy of WD on our shelf. I haven't let DDs watch it yet.
More because I'd be in tears rather than them.
For the same reason I can't watch the end of It's a Wonderful Life. Gets me every time.

Jurassic Park frightened the crap out of DD1 last night. I had to study it as part of my MSc and it bores me senseless now (over exposure?)

But I really think 6 is too young for WD.

I've only watched WD once and then couldn't watch it to the end. Bambi is another horrific film. I can't understand why these are classed as ok for children.

Tbh it's entirely up to you - if you don't think it's suitable for your DC then don't let her watch it, if you do then fine.

I remember my Dad used to have an old Cine Film projector and WD was one of the films he had for it. I watched it as a kid and cried buckets - I don't think I am exaggerating too much when I say I had many a soaking top from crying during that film. It also gave me a few sleepless nights where I would hear 'that song' and see all the dying rabbits and yet... It was one of my favourite films and I was always asking to see it!! (Love the book also.)

Now I come to think of it, loads of my favourite childhood films were ones that made me cry buckets...
Small One
Bambi
WD
Muppets Xmas carol
Goodnight Mr Tom
Fox and the hound...

Maybe I'm just weird! (Still love and cry at all those films now to the amusement of DH! - but even he cries at GMT!)

(remember that my fave tv prog at about 6 was 'Murder She Wrote' FFS! Dunno how that came to be, cos can't imagined parents intentionally letting mr watch it. I was never traumatised by it though and it doesn't seem to have affected me in any way.)

Christ no, that film is terrible. Not the bright eyes bit (I couldn't care less about that) but the bit right at the beginning, where it tells the story of the origin of the rabbit, the animation in that is deeply creepy and distrubing. And then 5 minutes in 'the fields, the fields, they're covered in blood' bit.

Awful. I still wouldn't be able to watch it now.

DSS1 woke every night for a month crying about the 'bad bunny rabbit' when he was 6 after watching at his DGM's house - the film is banned in our house to this day and he is 15!

YANBU

Me too, chub

I wept like a baby snivelled a bit at Bolt the other day when he went back to the studio and Penny was petting another dog. And I'm not a particularly emotionally exhibitive person. When it comes to animal sadness though, I'm a wreck

There is a child-friendly TV series of Watership Down. I think most of the episodes are available online.

My mum kept Watership Down (and Black Beauty) well away from me and my sister, knowing that we were both hugely sensitive to animal suffering and also because we had two bunnies of our own in the garden that would probably have wound up living indoors 'for safety'. I think as a sensitive, over-thinking child I couldn't cope with the idea of seeing huge, uncomprehending animal eyes, and not being able to tell them it was going to be all right, as you could with a human being in a similar perilous situation. Even The Littlest Hobo was a bit touch and go, sometimes ("Mummy, is he lonely? Who is looking after him?" "What if he gets ill in between families?" etc).

I do agree that children need to experience the danger/resolution journey through stories, but you're the best judge of how able they are to process it. My clueless, child-loathing first year English teacher at school made our class of 11 year olds read White Fang, complete with scenes of dog fighting, and animal cruelty. I've never forgotten it and not in a good way.

Oh, and no Bambi or Dumbo either. Although the latter was Mum's own personal ban, as she'd been so upset by it, on seeing it in 1940whatever, that she'd had to be carried out of the cinema, distraught.

Wildfig I think you must be my sister.

The Littlest Hobo is so sad . Why does he keep "moving on"?

its the music omg just thinking about it...

vivipru I think you are me. Do you have to change channels when the War Horse trailer comes on?

YANBU. It is horrific. I don't remember crying but wouldn't even watch it now (the bit where they rip the rabbits ears ). We watched it a few times as kids and remember it being put on at primary school too. Horrible film, should hever have been made.

I read the book in my 20s and found it really gripping - one of the few books I've read under the desk at work!

helly The Gruffalo was our movie night stalwart for ages - quite a lot of getting eaten in it but not in a scary way if that makes sense. Maybe watch it first. Gruffalo's Child is a bit scarier imo as it's all in the dark. Also The Snowman = not scary at all but possibly a bit unseasonal.

Vivi are you secretly Phoebe off Friends?

possibly... I grew up wondering what on earth lions ate when the wildebeest always seemed to get away (little did I realise the channel was discreetly and skilfully changed seconds before the bit where they were brought down in a frenzy of claws and blood)

And don't get me started on The Snowman. It was my first Christmas with DP when I realised saying "I'm not allowed to watch this" (and wholeheartedly meaning it) sounds a bit weird when you're 25.

I think my Mum must still be censoring my viewing by proxy as I have no idea what the War Horse is... [afraid]

DD2 gets upset at the end of the Snowman.... but she's only 3.
I'm thinking about getting them When the wind blows, which moved me far more.

I am quite at most of this thread. I'm with Aldiwhore, I watched WD aged 6 at school and it started a lifelong love of both book and film. I'm even trying to persuade dh that we should call dc2 Hazel! I've never liked the more sickly sweet cartoons though; give me seventies realism any day!

I do remember my mother criticising the film for not being 'realistic' enough though. I dread to think how she would have had Woundwort portrayed.

Isn't the war horse out now? I'm sure ds2 mentioned it being on at the cinema today