Well, looks like it's that time

[changeyourstars8]

Earlier, about the only attention Kaylee would pay to the TV was when we were watching That 70s Show and the theme song came on-- she'd crawl right over to the TV, wave her arms around and squeak, and then as soon as the song was over head right back over to her toys. But now if something loud happens she'll pay attention for a few minutes, and whenever a commercial comes on with a dog or a cat, she won't take her eyes off the TV. She's really starting to take those things in, which translates into one thing:

Time to go through our movies.

Chris and I went through our shelves of movies last night and divided them into "things it's okay to watch while Kaylee is awake" and "not unless we want to traumatize her for life".

We'll be adding and taking away things soon based on how she reacts to things once she starts talking. Right now all we have to go on is whether she starts crying or something in response to what's on the TV (which so far she hasn't done). So since she can't give us many cues yet, our criteria is pretty simple: no violence, and not much language. Things like Stand By Me will be added once she's learned the "do not repeat this word" rule. ;-)

Scrubs is okay (the show rarely takes a serious turn, and for a medical show there's very little blood) while M*A*S*H is not (that one deals with some pretty heavy stuff, especially in the later seasons).

RENT is okay (some language, but not nearly as much as the stage show, and what little violence there is happens off-screen) while Man of La Mancha is not (off-screen or not, anything with a rape scene is on the To Wait list).

And after a discussion, we decided that anything with vampires and demons and whatnot would wait until she's older, even with something campy like Lost Boys, just so we can be sure of what she's able to handle/what she's interested in.

Because I'm nosy curious, for those of you who are parents, how did you handle this one? What are some things that you thought your kid would handle just fine that caused a freakout, or that you thought would cause a freakout but they just brushed it off?

Comments

[abydosangel.livejournal.com]

For my three, I learned (as I went) that the bigger a deal I made of something, the bigger deal it was.

So.

By the time this last one came along, we had:

Adult: "Oh. The two year old just happened to see the zombie bite that woman's arm in half. Here, baby - want a cookie?"

Baby: "Cookie!" :D

Moral of the story: You do the parental control thing, but if something comes on/she wanders in and sees something you prefer she didn't, let *her* guide the freakout level. Most of the time, mine didn't react unless they were guaranteed a standing room only audience for their effort.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

the bigger a deal I made of something, the bigger deal it was

Yeah, that makes sense-- it's how Chris deals with it when she does something like fall over or take a spill off the couch. He said if we rush right over to her and are obviously panicking over whether she hurt herself, she'll get scared and cry. But if we keep smiling and say something like, "Great landing, kid!" then 9/10ths of the time she'll giggle and get right back up, and if she cries anyway, then we know she's actually hurt. He's had a bunch of nieces and nephews to get used to this with; I'm still learning. LOL

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I have no kids, and wouldn't know where to start either, but that sounds like a very sensible approach to me. And when she gets older, keep in mind that the best way to make SURE your kid reads something is to make it off-limits. (After all, wouldn't you do that? I know I would.)

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Heck yeah, I did that all the time. "Okay, Steph, you can read this Stephen King book, but not Pet Semetary yet." "Okay dad!" *sneaks off with Pet Semetary asap* ;-)

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

"Cold Comfort Farm is totally off limits DO YOU HEAR ME?"
"And you better not read Harry Potter!"

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[finniscs.livejournal.com]

kelse watched Aliens with me when she was four.

She was also obsessed with Soldier when she was 5 and watched it every day for weeks on end.

watching homeward bound (cant remember if it was 1 or 2) gave her night terrors for two years because she was afraid the house was going to burn down.

I remember being worried about her watching The Mummy because of the scary looking mummy guy but it didnt bother her at all.

I think shes okay with the sci-fi because its so obviously not real where with the kids movies where something bad happens, she can relate to that.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I used to read horror/sci-fi novels all the time when I was a kid, and few of them bothered me very much . . . and then I read a Goosebumps book (Goosebumps, for Pete's sake! lol) where the setup is this girl who died in a house fire but who doesn't know she's dead and that freaked me out for a week.

[shadefell.livejournal.com]

I don't have kids yet, but someone whose blog I read was talking about watching Dr Who with her kid (who is, I think, seven?). He was fine with most of the first season, including violence and scary looking monsters/aliens/robots. But the world ending? Planet Earth dying? That really freaked him out. He'd never THOUGHT about it before, and he started thinking about death and loss in general. He was very shaken for several days.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Yeowch. :-P

I'm not sure where I read it, but I do remember one woman talking about how she brought her kid (about 5 or 6) to see Monster House and it freaked him out so bad they had to leave the theater. Less than a month later, she woke up in the middle of the night to see the kid sitting on the living room floor watching Jaws-- she was worried he'd have nightmares for a month, but he loved the movie and wanted to watch it all the time after that. Guess you never know.

[shadefell.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

I read another anecdote about a mom who read her little kid (2 or 3) a bedtime story about a kid who lost his blankie and had to find it. It was an age appropriate story, but the little kid woke up screaming from a nightmare where his blankie was OMG GONE and he'd never be able to get it back (even though the character in the book got his back).