To not let my seven year old watch The Goblet of Fire onwards yet?

[Marianne1234]

My seven year old daughter is a huge fan of Harry Potter, as are her pals. Her Christmas presents were all HP-themed. I’m also a huge fan so I am absolutely loving this. We have read the first three books, and seen the first three films.

Obviously she is desperate to see the fourth one (Goblet of Fire) - basically she wants to see it through. Of course she does. But it seems very dark from there onwards for a seven year old.

I’m thinking things like Cedric Diggory being killed by Voldemort. Harry bringing back his body and his dad’s reaction etc. I’m just not sure she’s ready for that.

I grew up with HP. I was older than she is when the goblet of
Fire came out. So to be honest I hadn’t really thought about it when we started watching it.

I just wondered what others do.

DS(7) has read the first 4 books but I have been holding off letting him read book 5 for about a year. His 8yo cousin has just lent him her copy and he's so keen I don't want to discourage him or let him feel left out. He gets very easily scared by films (Up and Toy Story are both on the list of films he won't watch) so we've not watched any of the HP films, but he seems much more able to cope with scary scenes in writing so fingers crossed!

I made mine read the books before the films.

Goblet of fire was a 8+ book.
I wanted to keep the DH for 10+ but they found it in lockdown and had secretly read quite a chunk.

I wouldn’t show goblet of fire to a 6 year old. My DM was terrified when I took her to see it at the cinema.

I think you're right. My nearly 9 yo has read all of the books, and was happy to watch Goblet of Fire onwards, but a year or so younger she would have found the later ones too much.

In fact, even though she's read all the books, she recently turned off the penultimate film half way through as it was a bit too scary; and hasn't been keen yet to return to it. I should expect she will pick up the last two films again in a year or so, but I don't expect her to before then.

I know of a lot of parents who have imposed a break between the earlier books and films 1-3 or 1-4, and the later ones - you certainly won't be alone in that.

Let her watch them all

My DC is 6 and he has watched the Goblet of Fire but I fast forward some of the more gory scenes.

Depends on the kid to some extent. I can’t remember the ages mine were now, but probably 8+ for the later films. My older two weren’t frightened at all, but my youngest was scared of Voldemort and still is at 10!

My 7 year old has read (with me, no way can he read them himself yet!!) 1-3. We watch the film after reading the book. This seems like a good way to do it as you can anticipate the scary bits and process them together. I wouldn't let him watch the film without reading it together first.

We are planning on starting it in Feb and it'll take over a month to read so by the time the film comes around he'll be 7.5.

We intersperse the books with other ones so he still keen and enthusiastic but we aren't rushing them. We finished no 3 at the end of Sept so about 4 months between books so he'll be at least 8 before we start book 6. By then I'll probably let him loose on the last ones!

I let mine watch it at 7, in fact they've watched them all. None of them found it scary.

Read books 1-3 with mine at 7/8, then watched those films, made him wait until he is almost 9 for book 4 and he’s not allowed to watch the film yet. He has peers who have been allowed to read/watch them all but also plenty of parents have made their children wait, especially for book 4 onwards.

My DD aged 6 (7 next month, year 2) has got into HP in the last couple of months and watched the first 3 films. I won’t allow her to see Goblet of Fire yet, it’s too dark in my opinion. Not sure when I will to be honest but certainly not anytime soon.

'Kill the spare' is the darkest bit of all the books, IMO. I think a child not scared/troubled by it doesn't understand what's going on.

We had a "read it before you watch it" policy, which means that any scary bits are less scary because the outcome is already known. We also refused to read the fourth(?) one to her, because we thought she was a bit young for it. She started it a couple of times, but only managed it at the third attempt, by which time she was that bit older.

When I was 7 I was watching IT and Nightmare on Elm Street . But then my parents did just sort of leave me to raise myself 🙈.

I agree with PP, I would wait. Does get a bit scary after film 3.