Age Appropriate Films, Advice Please?

[RetroBetty]

Hi, I have just found out that my stepchildren have been allowed to watch what I feel are age inappropriate films. The youngest aged 8 has been allowed to watch Hunger Games 2, she has relayed that mum is now going to let her watch The Boy With The Striped Pyjamas some time soon. I taught this at school with 11 year old group and felt uncomfortable doing so even at this age.

My other step daughter aged 14 has watched a film called Hard Candy!!! when we discussed this with the mum she was shouting in the background "It's ok I've watched it and it's very empowering"

My daughter aged 10 is extremely close to her stepsister aged 8 and she has a birthday party coming up the end of next month (a sleepover with films that are I've been told are aged 12's) I'm very worried about her going given mums lax attitude.

Advice please?

I'd have thought in general a 10 year old would be fine with a 12 certificate film, but I'd want to know what the films were before saying OK. My children used to have issues with nightmares and I'd want to avoid films that might trigger them if at all possible.

I would suspect that quite a few 8 year olds will see Catching Fire and not be particularly traumatised. There are a couple of scary bits, but on the whole I'd have thought that the issue would be more that they might get bored with the wordier bits. I think they'd do better to wait a few years and then really enjoy it.

Hard Candy is an 18, and deals with sexual violence, and is described as 'incredibly intense and disturbing'. I've not seen it because I hate horror movies, but it does sound interesting and was reviewed quite well, I guess I can slightly understand where the mother is coming from. Having said that my 13/14 year olds are not ready for 18s and I doubt will be for a while, we're looking forward to sharing some of our favourite movies with them. I have no problem watching 15s with them though.

The 8 yr old is prone to nightmares unfortunately, she come into us in the middle of the night ocassionally. I just cant help thinking these films have a rating for a reason, a little innuendo yes but children get murdered just doesn't sit right with me in either of the films :-(