my 5yr old son watched 'Scream'. worried it will harm him?

[castleview]

a few months ago me, my husband and 5 yr old son all fell asleep in the front room one night. when my husband woke up he saw that Scream had come on the tv and my ds was watching it. i asked him about it the next day but he didn't really say anything. then last night when he went to bed he said he had had a bad dream. i asked him what about and he said it wasn't a dream but told me what he had saw in the film. i told him that it was just a film and not real life. i feel guilty that he has seen this and i am worried whether what he saw will affect him and if i should mention it to a health visitor or someone? any advice would be great, thanks in advance

He will be fine. Sure it just went over his head most of our kids have seen something they shouldn't as a result of sneaking down the stairs at night or turning tv on in morning and flicking channel by accident.

It's not ideal but it happens just explain that it was people pretending on tv.

A bit hard to know how to respond to your thread as personally I think that's pretty bad, and you have to be so so careful what channels are showing on the tv - not leaving the room or turning off at ad breaks etc. Not sure how he ended up watching a horror movie although I do appreciate you could all have been watching Babe and fallen asleep during it, or something like that. Unfortunately you can't erase what he's seen, you can only apply damage limitation - and I think you need to have a proper chat to him about it as you said it happened months ago and he clearly hasn't forgotten what he saw. Maybe explain that there are very silly things to watch sometimes on tv and some grown-ups like to watch scary things that aren't very nice. So that film was just for those grown ups but obviously it was completely made up and those were just actors in silly costumes. Or something like that. I'm a GP and that's all I think the HV would say. Maybe mention it to them or to his teacher at school if he is having nightmares or if you're worried about his behaviour.

I understand why you're worried, but I agree with Wheresmycaffeinedrip. I really don't think you should worry tooooo much. Children experience a lot worse things around the world every day then by mistake watching a bit of a horror film, and they're very resilient.

If he mentions it again just say the people on the TV were just playing. Playing a silly game - and it wasn't real.

There's absolutely nothing you can do about the fact that he's seen it, so there's no point in beating yourself up about it. All you can do is make sure it doesn't happen again, and reassure him if he has another nightmare. Dwelling on it and bringing in other people could amplify the problem. However, obviously if his nightmares get worse, or he keeps talking about it, you could then think about asking a child psychologist about it. Until then I would just put it out of your mind. Hope the situation resolves itself.