How firm are you with age ratings on films/games?

[BowieFan]

DS1 and DS2 are both 14 (15 in two weeks) and I've pretty much let them watch anything up to a 15 since they were about 11, as they were both sensible kids and most of the time they were watching the films with us anyway.

18 rated films are kind of an approval basis. DS1 is a horror nut and I have no issue with him seeing things like The Exorcist or Friday the 13th. Anything like 50 Shades of Grey, they'd have to come to me first to have a discussion on why it's not a healthy relationship and all that, and if they understood it I'd probably let them watch.

Games don't come up that often but I've pretty much let them have GTA and CoD since they were 12 as me and DP are both gamers and understand what they're playing. We wouldn't let them have horror games until this year though because we're aware they affect you differently to horror films.

How firm are you on age rating things?

Yes, we do still teach To Kill a Mockingbird. Not to Year 9/10 like we used to, we've moved it to Year 8 now as we have lots of copies and it's a bloody brilliant novel.

I found The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas quite harrowing and that's taught to them as well.

HeteronormativeHaybales

Yes, the ratings are a guidance because, simply, some kids are far more mature than their age. Equally, there are some 18 year olds who have the mentality of 12 year olds. You know your child better than anyone.

Ratings aren't too liberal. Pride showed that. I think every kid from 11 should be made to watch that, but it's a 15 because of gay themes and the fact that in one scene they go to a leather club and there's a dildo seen (no nudity, no sex, minor swearing.) Sorry, but that's wrong.

I wouldn't let my kids watch Jaws until they were a bit older, despite it being a PG, because I know it's quite intense and scary. But I had no issue with DS1 watching Evil Dead at 12/13 because they're gory, yes, but they're also incredibly funny and I know he could handle it.

My ds is nearly 14. He's allowed to watch things with a 15 rating that I have seen and think are ok (eg Hustle) and play games up to a 16 rating.

18 ratings are an absolute no-no.

Ratings can be a nonsense (the film Goodbye Lenin has a 15 rating in the UK and the equivalent of a PG in Germany) but they are a guide.

My youngest two are 6&7 and they've seen plenty of 12's, but with us, and depending on themes- I trust my judgement and knowing my children.
I would check with other parents for playdates etc though obviously as not everyone is the same, and of course I wouldn't know the other child as well as my own either.

My youngest two are 6&7 and they've seen plenty of 12's, but with us, and depending on themes- I trust my judgement and knowing my children.
I would check with other parents for playdates etc though obviously as not everyone is the same, and of course I wouldn't know the other child as well as my own either.

Depends on the child.

DD (7) is never scared of anything and so watches a lot of films that other children/parents might not be happy with. Dr Who, all the HP films, Indiana Jones etc have been favourites since she was about 5 and she's seen quite a few 15 films.

She very quickly tells me if she doesn't like something and just goes off and does something else. I can't imagine that I will limit what she is watching as a teenager in terms of mainstream media.

If other children are over then I tend to stick to ratings unless I know the parents are happy. I have nephews and nieces who are quite sensitive and even at 10 don't watch Harry Potter.

GTA at 12 ffs

Games haven't caused me much concern as they have always gone for civilization type building games. A few shooting games happen but Gfa hasn't been an issue.

My 11 year old has been watching 12a since around the age of 5, usually a super hero movie on in the background that his older brother was watching. We have had the odd 15 on with him around but read up first. He doesn't want to watch anything with sex in and we are careful about gratuitous torture and sexual violence.

Our policy for my 15 year old was similar until around 13. When he turned 14 he started on the Walking Dead, it's very gory but that didn't bother him and he loved the story lines. Programs like Game of Thrones were off limits, I didn't want him exposed to that level of sadism and sexual violence. He didn't want to watch them either.

Since 15 he has watched and love them, along with all sorts of box sets.

I assess on child and the film.
So the A-team set that I got that had just been upgraded to a 15 I was quite happy for ds (then 8yo) to watch.
He also has a 15 dsi game. Plants v Zombies believe it or not is a 15. he'd been playing it on the PC with no hint of a restriction.
He has also watched Black Adder goes forth (15) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (12).
But these are all films I had seen before and knew he's be fine with. He would watch more if I let him, but I don't think it's particularly good for him.

Dd2 is 12yo and I don't think she has watched anything above a PG because she's much more sensitive. If she wanted to watch something higher rated then I would very much sit down with her and let her know the sort of thing she would see.

Dd1 is very much she is good at assessing herself and would have problem with switching off/walking out if she felt it was too much. She's 15yo now so I wouldn't worry about what she watched.

However I have occasionally come across the attitude of a parent who almost seems proud that they are "able" to watch things much higher rated. I had a conversation at the school gates (primary) with someone who was terribly proud that her dd loved the Hunger Games and understood it. That was one point where I fell back on saying that ratings were there for a reason.

But I know I am very sensitive to film-not to books, specifically film. If I'm ill I can still have nightmares about very quick snippets of things I saw when I was a child-and I watched very little out of my age range, very little above a 12 ever. I did have to be carried out of the cinema during Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but I was 3yo at the time.
I would rarely choose to watch above a 12 for that reason now. Disney is great

I'll admit I don't have this issue yet but DH and I are avid gamers, so I think with films I'll vaguely listen to the ratings (Ie if my hypothetical 14yr old wanted to watch a 15) or watch it first then decide if appropriate. With games it'll be on a case by case basis. Not all children are the same tbh, my sister (we're over a decade apart) is 17. She is a very 'old' 17, now lives alone, has her own flat... I did the same at 16. For us to have watched a 15 or even some 18's at 13/14 would've been nothing. But some 16 year olds are very young, not very mature, don't know much about the world, scare easily and can't do their own washing so I think it depends on the child.
that said I wouldn't let a child younger than 16 play GTA V (maybe one of the older ones, from memory they're quite mild) Gta V contains (in rough chronological order)
Someone involved in stealing cars as part of a scam, getting a gun put to his head and driving to a garage.
Jumping into a boat going about 100mph on the back of someones car to attempt to steal it back and failing
Attempting to do a drug deal that goes bad and ends in a fire fight, killing about 40 or 50 people from a rival gang.
a cut scene where Micheal (1 of 3 main characters) finds a lb or so of his lazy sons weed in the fridge.
Trevor securing a drug deal, Taking 2 men to his meth lab to show them around, finding a rival gang/group there and another firefight ensues. trevor loses the deal due to this and the men take a deal with aforementioned rival men, encouraging trevor to go to the rival gangs farmhouse, kill everyone there and pour petrol all over said farmhouse and burn it down...
There is also a graphic torture scene where you get in game awards at the end for using electric shock on torturee, pulling his teeth out one by one, knee capping him and using water torture. So if you have in fact let your DC's play GTA V since aged 12 I'm pretty shocked tbh.

i pretty much ignore the ratings and use my own judgement of my own children and what the can cope with.

DS is 11 but quite sensitive to scary things. dd is 9 and doesn't care. She watches Game of Thrones with me and doesn't bat an eyelid, but is terrified of charlie and the chocolate factory for some reason!

Common Sense Media is a great site for checking things out. It will tell you exactly what 'bad language' is used etc

totally depended on child, my eldest 14 isnt what I'd call sexually mature enough to play gta, however is mature enough to cope with horror films and war games. middle and younger children are barely able to watch wrestling without r-k-o-ing each other, so fighting games are strictly supervised and are not allowed to play with each other, youngest is barely allowed to play them at all owing to the amount of smash bro's bans he gets.

Both me and dp are gamers and check playability and how mature the mature bits are, needless to say, minecraft is still the biggest hit in this house.

Dp also plays online games with eldest so also checks for online bullying and grooming via game.

ds2 (10) plays online minecraft in same room as me or dp owing to online chat.

ds3 (8) is not internet safe yet so isnt allowed to play any chat type games yet.

ds 2 and 3 are not allowed to watch anything over a 12. They are way too innocent to be watching any 15s (did you know 13 ghosts is a 15???)

Ds2 once bought a game called naughty bear out of birthday money, rated 12 I believe. It imo was only rated 12 and not 18 owing to it being stuffing squirting out all over the place and not blood. Horrific game and was quickly restricted.

I use the age ratings as a guide. I watch things first if I'm not sure or haven't seen it, and then decide base on how I think my dcs will be with it.

I'm fairly vigilant - that's not to say they don't watch certain films (ie Star Wars with a 12 rating) that are a little over their ages, but I will watch first/with them and don't let them see stuff that is sexist/excessively violent.

I have a friend who thinks my kids are "sheltered", however I remember seeing a horror film as a teenager that was absolutely hideous. It made me realise that as much as I might want to you can't unsee certain things and they can play on your mind. So damn right I'm going to do as much as I can to shield my kids from things like that. They are only young for such a short space of time and I don't want to be responsible for shortening that.

Maybe the question should be "why wouldn't you stick to ratings?"

I totally get OP's argument about why she wanted her DC to see Pride (I've not seen the film so can't disagree or agree with her reasons) although they were younger than the ratings age. But in most case there isn't a specific reason why a child would need to watch a specific film/play a game until they were the recommended age - so why not stick to the guideline? The trouble with thinking your DC will be ok, is that you don't know they aren't until they have an adverse reaction!

My partner is a gamer and I like to dabble myself every now and then. My parents were pretty lax about ages on things when we were kids.
But things have moved on a lot now. The multiplayer on games like GTA for me is okay for most sensible older kids/teens. But the story mode isn't allowed in our house.
We don't judge on age ratings but on content and context. Things like Pepper Pig are a no go (she's a spoilt brat and horrible to everyone especially brother George!) but other things that might be a PG or 12A we would let a child watch without issue. That said we don't yet have kids, but we have discussed these things as we have younger siblings and nephews/neices we often look after.

Btw, when I say driving 'to' a garage, I mean a sales type garage and he drives right through the glass window. you then beat up the sales manager...
Sorry, Brain fart.
I take no issue with people driving to garages, honest.

Oh my Goodness! Age ratings completely matter. I cant believe some of the absolute rubbish that is on TV these days before 9pm as well. I run a local youth group yr7- college, if we have a film night we wont show anything about a PG. There's so much trash in life already, they don't need polluted minds from films/games too

Babblehag

Well I let the kids play San Andreas and GTA III at about 12. They didn't get GTA V until a few weeks ago. Nothing gave me or DP too much concern when we played it first, but we did warn DP that any aggression or change in behaviour would mean we'd take it away and if they had any questions about what they saw, they could ask us.

They both have good common sense and, to be honest, them seeing some weed or cocaine in a game is hardly the worst thing in the world that could happen.

Sorry, the above post was for cocklodger too.

itsmine

"Parents like you"

Really? Really? I'm an excellet parent. I know what my kids can handle. They can handle things that are rated 15 and sometimes 18. That shouldn't impact your parenting at all.

Oh but I bet you're one of those parents who parents based on other kids, so you don't have to be the bad guy, aren't you? I don't care how I impact you if you can't even be bothered to explain to your kids that everyone is different and has different rules.

Dd (8) was too upset watching The Good Dinosaur but would gladly see a whole hour of decapitation of zombies. She tip toed downstairs to watch The Walking Dead and had apparently been there for a few minutes. Obviously I don't allow her to watch the programme as it's a lot more than killing a bunch of mindless "walkers".

I always check the rating, but I don't follow them religiously.

A PG rating specifically means that a film is unlikely to disturb the average 8 year old. So films that aren't suitable for the average 8 year old but are suitable for the average 9, 10 or 11 year old have to be rated 12A. And 12A specifically means that it's up to the parents' judgement whether or not their under-12 children should see a film.

We let DS (11) watch most 12A films (he's going to be 12 in three months anyway) without checking the content in detail. DD1 (8) gets to see some, but generally only if we've seen it first and think it's suitable (or, sometimes, if we've read a reasonably detailed breakdown of the reasons for the rating and are happy with all of it).

DS gets to watch some 15 films, but only things we've seen ourselves and think are suitable. So at the moment, for example, he's desperate to see both Deadpool and Suicide Squad -- we'll probably let him watch Suicide Squad when it comes out on DVD later this year (DH went to see it and we've discussed the content in relation to suitability for DS) but he isn't getting to watch Deadpool for at least a couple of years. He has a lot of friends at school whose parents just automatically let them watch any 15 film, though.

I'm much stricter on games, because it's not realistically possible (in most cases) to check out all the possible gameplay before letting a child play a game (and even where it is you'd have to invest 40+ hours in doing so). So I'm happy with anything up to a 12 but 16s and 18s are out (out in terms of buying them, anyway -- I know he's likely to end up playing them sometimes at friends' houses) until he gets at least close to those ages. Again, many of his friends routinely play 18 games.