So do you let your children watch any age inappropriate films??

[Lowfat]

DD(5) saw Jaws 3 on the telly recently and has bbeen nagging us ever since to let her watch it again.

She has been drawing sharks and we've got books fom the library both sotry and factual, but she really wants to see the fil again

It's not a jumpy film (compared with 1 & 2 which we will not let her watch) and she knows that the DVD's we have are all people pretending, so we are considering it.

On the flip side my friend let her DS(7) see Ironman with a friends and his parents. When my friend and I saw it afterwards she was horrified to see it was very violent and in places including a scene where a father is pulled away from his family and ordered to stand against a wall to be shot. And his parents thought the film was fine for the boys even though it was rated a 12 and they were only 7 - and I do disagree with it.

Do you think if a parent has seen a film and is confident in a childs ability to interpret it without becoming scared or upset etc then it should be up to the parent to make a judgement??

And do you know what? My DS completely understands when I say, 'no, I don't think it is appropriate and I think you may be scared' or 'no I don't want you to see it, there is quite a lot of killing/shooting/monsters' in it. I just don't want too many violent images engraved on his 8 year old retinas just yet. He has a lifetime of adulthood ahead of him so I will let him be a child for as long as he can be. And he doesn't feel that I am being mean about it at all.
Looking back at the thread I should have seen earlier that seeker was saying what I was saying.
So, wot seeker said

But a rating is a fairly arbitrary thing. For example, I let the children watch POTC (only the 1st film though), but I don't let them watch Dr Who, because I think Dr Who is far scarier. The first POTC is actually fairly tame - the 'violence' as such is pretty child-like - it's like 'bang you're dead' rather than any graphic images. And lots of sword fighting which the kids do themselves anyway.

I don't think it's a given that if they watch 12 films at 7/8 then they'll watch 18s at 12. Because it's not a blanket 'all 12s', it's more discretionary in our house. So again, Harry Potter is a no, because I think the concept of Voldemort is too scary. But Jack Sparrow is just a clown, as is Barbossa, there's no 'lurking menace' (in the first film). THe way I see Pirates is that kids all play pirates, and it's done almost as a child would play it.

I think it depends on why the film is rated the way it is.

Some films are rated higher because of swearing yet have no violence or sexual scenes, and vice versa.

I have let DD watch Drop Dead Fred because I was watching it and I don't think there are any scenes I was unhappy with her watching, the same goes for DS and Superman.

I think you need to take real care not to show them too much that is advanced for their age though. One or two films that would be 'family' films, fine, but it should be an 'exception' to the rule that they are watching older rated films rather than a common occurrence, IMO.

harder when you've got dif age kids. Ds1 aged 9 won't be happy watching bob the builder.Ds3 obv wants to watch dr who with his brothers.

It's more of a balancing act when you have older & youger ones

I would use my own judgment rather than that of the censor. Tbh that would probably mean no Jaws in my house.

On the other hand I did let dd (11) watch TopsyTurvy which is a 12 or a 15.

Total ban on Big Brother-type programmes which I think are far more morally corrupting than the odd scene set in a brothel.

On the whole, I tend to be a lot stricter than the censor, though not necessarily in the same areas.

IME some films get censored for the sort of language that kids hear every day in the school ground anyway (usually from the Mums), or from fairly mild sex scenes- on the other hand, far more violence and nasty behaviour slips through the censor's net than I would consider appropriate. So I don't think the age label is any excuse for me not to exercise my own judgment.

Sorry, but agree with ghosty and seeker, our DDs are 6 and 4 and we very heavily edit what they watch, all U films are obviously ok, we vet PGs for them, we agreed Stardust as it was a fantasy with princes, witches and pirates, but were appalled that they returned form our respective exes having watched Hairspray, Big Mommas House and Drop Dead Fred.

They are young children for such a short time, we want them to enjoy the fairy/princess/witches/ponies/general little girl fantasy stuff for as long as possible.

I wouldn't allow my four year old to watch Drop Dead Fred but Dd is nearly 8 and I was happy for her to watch it. The bits about love and marriage went straight over her head, to her it was a film about an imaginary friend who was mischievous.

DP was watching some Arthur film the other day though that I made him turn off because it had people hanging and eyes being pecked out by crows

I agree with whoever said about big brother. I wasn't too impressed to find out Dd was watching it on C4 at breakfast time when at her friend's house before school.

I've let them watch some with 12A and 15 certificates. But only when we've know them and are sure there's nothing that will upset our particular children. For example Blazing Saddles which is a 15 for some absurd reason.

It can be difficult once they are at school, and going to mates houses. My ds really listened to his older cousin, who , at the age of eighteen owned up to watching all sorts of horror and inappropriately aged videos at friends houses when he was 10-12. Just because he could, as their parents let them watch whatever. He really, really wishes he had never done it. As he said, once the images have been seen, it is very difficult to erase them.
The ages are on the boxes for a reason, just as you cannot smoke or drink or drive a car until you are old enough. Look at the amount of youth crime, and tell me it really has nothing to do with the rubbish kids watch.
Isn't it against the law?

(soapbox moment!)

DSD was taken to see an age inappropriate film at the cinema(not by us btw). It has caused a serious problem, she now has a phobia of going to the cinema.
So I would advise being very very careful about what you let your kids watch.
Its going to take some time to get DSD over her phobia...

Please don't do this to your kids. Please read this

sorry, will try that link again.

www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23528168-details/DR+ARIC+SIGMAN:+How+seeing+movies+like+Batman+c an+turn+our+children+violent/article.do

My 8 yr old does watch age inappropriate films but I would not let him watch Batman or anything with realistic violence. He's watched Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones and I'm surprised he doesn't find them scary.

However I disagree that ratings are the only indicator of how scary a film is. he was traumatised for months at age 3 by seeing Disney's Snow White and then again at age 6 by Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Were Rabbit (still won't watch it!) - both 'U's.

At least with films we tend to watch them en famille, at least the first time. What I hate are the Power Rangers/Pokemon/Ben 10 type cartoons on Cartoon Network and the like. They are so horrible and violent and I make him turn them off when I catch him watching them.

He loves Dr Who though - so do I (although possibly for different reasons )

We are pretty cautious about this. Ds is nine, we all love cinema, but he is yet to see any Bond films or anything with a 12A certificate in the cinema.
We have watched 12A stuff with him (a lot of Dr Who episodes are given this rating for DVD release I notice), but it has mostly been POTC and Harry Potter stuff.
He accepts our view that 12A stuff these days is classed as that for a reason. He's a clever boy and funnily enough has been more accepting of our family rules about it since we watched the astonishingly nasty Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on TV, which was given a PG on initial release .
Dd, five - well, until about 7pm and in the cinema she inevitably sees what we do. So, she has seen the Simpsons Movie , and Prince Caspian, and Bridge to Terabithia. Ideally that would not have happened. But I can't really put her in a box under the seat...I salve my conscience by telling myself there's no brutality in any of them and no blatant sex.

I read that article a day or two after my SIL had told me that her DH had taken their 8 year old son to see Dark Knight and I was to the point of not saying anything.

The most horrible part of that research is the part where it says "When watching Rocky IV, a section of the children's brains was activated that is also believed to hold long-term memories of traumatic events. It is where rape victims store memories of being attacked, for example, and where traumatised war veterans store their experiences in battle."

The fact is that children's brains are just not fully developed and there is just no way of knowing how far certain images can affect them. Why take the risk by exposing them to it?

I remember not being able to sleep for literally months after watching Poltergeist when I had just turned 11. It was at a sleepover for my birthday and my little sister who was 9 watched it, along with her school friend who had been invited. What was my mum thinking?! My sister and I had nightmares for months, and I can just imagine how my sis's friend's parents were when they found out she's watched it.

We will let ds watch documentaries and vintage comedy aimed at adults - Coast, Dad's Army, and Top Gear. He likes a quality whodunnit like Poirot occasionally!
We want him to understand that it's not grown-up stuff we are keeping from him, it's mindless violence.
Tbh am not quite so bothered by swearing or even "moderate nudity". It's guns, knives and torture/suffering .

DS1 is 5 and really "lives" what he sees. Our nanny brought the Power Rangers dvd (PG) home from the library, and when it finished both boys went into a fighting session. The DSs are happy watching violence, and tell me it is ok because it is just a story, but they are not allowed to watch it. Nanny is not taking out anything else marked PG....

Anything rated U where the notes advise scenes of mild peril is also too scary for our household - Happy Feet, for instance . We had to turn it off.

I agree with others - they are not little for very long, so keep them that way while you can. It must be hard where you have a large age gap between the children though.

I agree, Wordsmith. I think my son (nearly 5) is a bit oversensitive - he was in floods during the Polar Express (not sure why). And there is a Tom & Jerry film where a little girl gets separated from her dad and he was DISTRAUGHT watching that. He loves Tom and Jerry cartoons but when there is a sodding duckling/cute baby elephant separated from its family he is heartbroken.

A character in a TV programme or film only has to talk about feeling lonely or sad and I can see his bottom lip start wobbling.

He certainly won't be watching Bambi, Lassie Come Home, or even the Littlest Hobo till he's at least 18.

The other thing I always turn off immediately is boxing on Sky Sports. There is no way he'd understand that it's just a sport. Hell, even I don't understand that.

I would cry if I had to watch Polar Express.
I thought the animation on that was utterly sinister.

Yes, Marina, you're so right! The animation WAS bloody freaky. The fact that it looked so real, yet not quite. Probably the human brain gets messed up just trying to work that one out.

To the OP, if your daughter has got a genuine interest in learning about sharks, can she not just watch some natural history type programmes/DVDs? Or is it the thrill factor of Jaws 3 that she likes?

Ds ( age 5) watched POTc#1 when he had just turned 4, but now still only watches it with a parent present.
We have just let him watch the original superman ( 1970s with Christopher Reeve)
He has seen the first half hour of HP#1, as I think its magical, but turned it off as soon as the sorting hat had been on.
He does not watch any tv apart from cbeebies, or sometimes cbbc, certainly not Dr Who.
He gets scared at random things, eg hates the shark in Finding Nemo, and get scared when cars crash in Cars ( bizarrely).
One of his school friends, who turned 5 in June, was taken to see Dark Knight during the summer hols, and it did, if I am honest, make me question the mums judgement. I have tried, but I just can't get to the place that allows me to rationalise her choice.

Dd (almost 7) and ds (4) both watch Hairspray which is PG. The mild innuendo goes over their heads and ds has no comprehension of the black/white issue but it has been a good opportunity to discuss racial discrimination with dd.

Current certificated PG stuff is usually OK for me, islandofsodor.
It's surprising to look back on what got a PG twenty, thirty years ago.

Oh gosh yes. If you look at the difference between say Grease and Hairspray (both PG) Grease is so much more risque and adult.