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While I appreciate the amount of thought and effort he's putting in here, I'm not entirely convinced that its needed based on my own experience and childhood.
by tibbon 14y ago
While I appreciate the amount of thought and effort he's putting in here, I'm not entirely convinced that its needed based on my own experience and childhood.
The first movie I was ever exposed to in the theatres (note, I didn't say 'watched' since I was a whole 8 months old) was Return of the Jedi. During the remainder of the 80's as I grew up, I was well familiar with Star Wars. I had some of the action figures, and the original trilogy was frequently aired in our house. By the age of 5, I could almost recite the scripts.
Nothing was cut. Han shot first. Ponda Baba lost his arm in the Cantina. My father loved horror, scifi and fantasy and wanted to share it with me.
Parents today seem way too concerned with shielding their children from the world. I'm glad in the 80's that my parents didn't. By the time I was 6, I had my own pocket knife, soldering iron (lead solder too!), chemistry set, etc. My parents never censored/monitored my computer use (largely because they knew it wasn't possible). I was online in some capacity (BBS, Compuserv, etc) at a very young age. Never had any problems.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent. I hear things change when you are.
- rwhitman 14y agoAgreed. I definitely watched star wars in its entirety including the entire cantina scene at least by the age of six. The dark parts were disturbing but I don't think they were a problem. There's an important early lesson these helicopter parents are losing by not exposing kids to a little PG movie violence, that my parents explained to me well - its fantasy movie violence for entertainment and not real. God forbid one of these kids goes over to a friends house who has less supervision and they pop in a DVD of Hostel or something. With all the violence and gore in modern movies its probably a pretty good idea to prepare them for all the crap they're going to get exposed to later in life
- shanselman 14y agoJust a point, I did show them the Revisited fan edit in which, as the first poster alludes to, Han shoots first, etc. But also remember these are 4 and 6 year old kids. It's about balance. I'm not trying to "helicopter parent," on the contrary, I'm trying to provide context. We only skipped the burnt body and amputation. I think that's reasonable given what I know about my 4 year old.
- tibbon 14y agoPerhaps slightly OT, but I think its easy for us as adults to thing we'll 'know' what our children will find scary or disturbing. The two film scenes from me being 5-6 that I remember always scaring me were things that most adults wouldn't probably find that scary. They were Bruce Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk and the Jabberwocky scene from Alice in Wonderland. Children are complex, and I think rarely can we assume to know what they'll think. Its why we laugh so much when they say funny things- we can't predict them.
- shanselman 14y agoVery true. In this case I assumed that burnt bodies of parental figures and traumatic amputations were too much for a 4 year old. It's possible he could have not sweated that at all and been freaked out by the Jawas. Parenting is a gentle balance and a series of judgement calls.