to say DS is still too young for Jurassic Park?

[QueenOfTheSkies]

DS1 is 7. He is dino mad - as in wants to be a palaeontologist, reads fact books about them, keen to learn the proper names of all the lesser known ones and has been the same since he was 4 - more than just a kids passing fancy basically.

He is desperate to watch Jurassic Park, which is a PG. DH thinks he would be ok to watch it, I still freak out about the dilophosaurus in the car and the severed arm etc. so think not yet.

However he has watched and loved and is not scared by: All 3 Hobbit films, all three Lord of the Rings films and the first 3 Pirates of the Caribbean films and the original 3 Star Wars films. We started him watching these by fast fowarding through the more gruesome battle scenes about a year ago and he was fine so then let him watch the full films. no nightmares, no worries, he watches them on loop on the evenings he's allowed to watch before bed. All of these he asked to watch, we didn't offer, and was started by his love of dragons (we originally just showed him Smaug from Hobbit and it developed from there).

DH says if he is fine with all of those he will be fine with JP. My worry is that all of the others are clearly fantasy. JP is based in the real world, dinos were real and its premise is they could come back through science - JP2 has the T-rex loose in america etc. I think this could cause issues.

DH is not pushing it at all, but DS looks longingly at the DVDs are keeps asking when he can watch them.

So AIBU to not allow him to watch them? Am i projecting my own jumpiness from when i first watched JP (as a young girly teen) onto the situation? What age did your DC watch JP?

Sorry its long, trying to give context of the type of kid DS is!

My DD loves Star Wars but was utterly terrified by Home Alone and we turned Jurassic Park off after the triceratops bit. I think that the "violence" in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings (against robots or CGI monsters) is perceived differently to movies about children in peril.

The children in Jurassic Park (like Kevin in Home Alone) are very realistic and sympathetic and they are in lots of danger throughout the film. It's different to watching a suited adult superhero blow up a robot.

I'd let him watch it, especially if your and/or DH watch with him.

Also see if you can find Prehysteria! was one of my favourite films as a kid. I had a crush on the little boy in it so must of been really young the first time, but I watch it every few years (maybe every 5, gawd I feel old!) to reminisce my childhood.

Loads of great dino films out there!

Morphene 😂😂😂

My 4yr old has watched some of it (daytime showing - gore removed!)

I wouldn't worry too much about the first one - it's not very gory, and isn't as intense as, say, Jaws. It'll be a real treat for a child who likes dinosaurs.

However, I watched Jurassic World with my 3 and 6 year old, and it's fairly easy going, but right in the middle there is an extremely violent, intense death scene, which comes out of nowhere and which, I thought, was really inappropriate for a family film.

Just googled and I was 16 when Jurassic Park came out. Love the film but it scared the crap out of me! especially when the cup in the car filled with water started to tremble, and the kids were flashing the light and couldn't switch it off and the dinosaurs came.
Then there was the man who ran into the toilet to hide only to have it ripped off and him left exposed in the open to be eaten.
7 years old is still young. You know what he's like but I personally wouldn't have shown mine Jurassic Park at the age of 7.

FFS let him be male will you

because if you're male you automatically have to be OK and tough with everything at the age of 7?!

My 5 yr old has seen the first film. Sat on my knee of course. He loved it.

You know your own child.
My DS (9) hasn't seen any of the Jurassic films. He knows the storylines because he has played the lego games but he knows he doesn't want to watch the films because CGI dinosaurs chasing real people are much scarier than lego blocks.
It's impossible to take back a terrifying experience so I always try to err on the side of caution.

I was freaked out by JP at the cinema, and I was quite a bit older than 7. Mind you, it wasn't helped by someone throwing a peanut at my neck during a quiet non scarey bit . I imagine that in their wildest dreams the rat who threw it did not expect such a loud and ear shattering response..............

I will never understand this place.

I think the key point is exactly the 'peril' aspect.

Most kids aren't fussed by gore and blood flying, and will happily watch a lion ripping into a zebra etc.

But they can be very sensitive to peril. My DD gets adrenaline surges every time it looks like a character in a kids cartoon is going to leave something important behind, or not carry out the task they are supposed to.

So she really wouldn't cope with the whole business in JP where they are told 'stay in the car' but then, like idiots, they get out of the car. People being eaten by dinosaurs wouldn't likely be a problem for her at all....

So I have a 6 yo who gets panicky every time there is the slightest threat in cartoons aimed at kids half her age. And I don't care if that makes her a special snowflake. She has another 10 years to learn to manage her fears, anxieties, to 'toughen up' for the real world and she will be doing it in her own time, at her own speed.

You know him best but it can be hard to call what will set a child off. Ds watched it at five and loved it. He was especially taken with the dino eating the chap on the bog but this is the same child who took a baseball bat to bed with him and woke up yelling about burglars. I couldn't work out what he'd seen but then it clicked he'd been playing The Sims where a baddie would wander randomly through the house.

Would also add dd watched the first JP with no issues but was utterly freaked (at 8) by the one where the dino goes round looking through bedroom windows. As I said, it can be hard to call.