to be a bit disturbed by this?

[CheerfulYank]

At the school I work at today, one of the students (he's a first grader, age 6) was going on and on about the movie the Unborn. I haven't seen it (don't like horror movies), but I've heard what it's about and am shocked that he's seen it.

Am I being overprotective in that I would never, ever let my 6 year old watch something like this? Some of my friends who are parents let their children watch anything they want and make me feel like I'm over-sheltering my son or something. Is it common practice to let small children watch graphic violence now?

And for the record, before I get flamed, I know the parents of the student in question and I am not judging them. It's just definitely not a choice I would make. Am I being precious?

i know one parent the would let her 2yo+ to watch 12 and 15 rated movies, hes 5yo now and has seen all the harry potters, spiderman, xmen

and also another mother admitted she let her 5 year old twins and 7yo DD watch the grudge the other night because the wanted too,

to say i was horrifed was an understatement! sat there wondering if i was on another planet. (i did ask if she ment the grinch but no its was definatly the grudge!)

my 5yo DS gets scared by harry potter when its on tv, so theres no way he could cope with an 18 rated film. and there no way i would let them,

why cant we keep children, children?!

sparkle, that's horrifying. My nearly three year old gets scared of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. We only put it on once, and she was so terrified of the lion (especially the bit where he gets angry at Belle) that we had to switch it off within fifteen minutes. Why anyone would thing x-men is sutiable viewing for a pre-schooler is beyond me [tut-tutting emoticon]

Definately NBU. My dad let me watch stuff I shoudn't have when I was nine and it still has consequences now.

I agree with the pervious poster who said the kid's talking about it to process it. Some of the images will be going around and around in his head, feeding into whatever other fears he has, magnifying them and blowing them all out of proportion and there's no way he has the development or the skills to cope with them.

Definitely get an adult to sit down with him and let him strighten it all out and then definately get someone to have a word with the parents. There are people who think, just because it's on the tv, it's not going to do harm but it can and it does, especially if the kid's got a good imagination.

I just feel, too, that to show a child so many violent images at such a young age will desensitize them to it, and that's horrible. The violent death of a human being should be a shocking and awful thing IMO, not just a run of the mill happening.

On the IMDB message boards awhile back someone posted that they had taken their 5 and 8 year olds to see 30 Days of Night (I think that's what it's called) which reviewers had said "contained the most realistic decapitation on film." Why, oh why, would you want such young children to see that? The poster was getting flamed and she said "oh whatever, they wanted to go." Um, my DS wants to sit around eating candy all day, that doesn't mean I'm going to let him do it!

30 Days of Night was quite possibly the crappest vampire movie I have ever seen. Not scary at all to an adult (cause it was just too stupid) but it would have seriously scarred my 5 year old for sure and he is a pretty tough nut.

YANBU

My ds age 7 has asked to watch the Jurassic Parks.

I haven't seen the films for years, but I seem to remember severed limbs here and there. I know many others his age have seen them, but I am a bit .

Kids are quite funny though aren't they. DS has seen the Jurassic Parks and loved them, but he got really upset/scared and cried in Finding Nemo and it had to get turned off.