Friend letting 4 year old watch Ironman
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Anonymous
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This thread is interesting. We don't do any violent cartoons or movies, and I wonder if I'm sheltering my 4 yo DS too much. Eventually he'll be watching this stuff. Now I'm a bit worried that he'll be embarrassed in front of his friends.
Any thoughts on this? He's never asked to watch either the comics or the movies. He's more into watching NASCAR and truck-related stuff. |
Anonymous
hmmm...so you didn't really want to know what the "norm" was, did you? You just wanted to talk shit about your friend on an anonymous message board. Nice! |
Anonymous
When my 10 year old (going into 5th grade) mentions something his friends get to do, we listen. We don't immediately cave, but we also don't cut him off at the knees with a no or a diatribe. Sometimes we give the request a trial period, sometimes we stick to our guns. His teacher has already talked about how our kids are more sheltered than most (in a good way), but I don't want it to bite us in the long run. And if the answer is a no, than we explain our concerns or thoughts most of the time. |
Anonymous
Nah, you're fine. My kids aren't sheltered but are "behind" their friends on what we watch. Nobody notices. Just trust your gut and stick to your values and then let those values cave when your kid looks at you pleadingly and you'll be fine. 
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Anonymous
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OP, I think it's perfectly find to wonder about what most people do, whether it's a "good" thing, etc. I parent based on my own values, what I judge to be right for my child (and what she's ready for), and this is also informed by my experiences and observations of others. So I don't fault you for asking the question! It's a good one.
I have two daughters now, ages almost-five and 18 months. The almost-five year old is, like me, a "sensitive kid" who tends to prefer calm over chaos, quiet over action, and peace over agitation. However, she's watched all the Star Wars movies with her father, occasionally running out of the room when scenes got too intense. For the record, I don't like watching some of the scenes, either, and I'm a grown woman. Her father talks her through the plot and the action, which calms her down, and I think she actually really likes spending the time with him. She's a full-on Star Wars fan, now, asks lots of questions about jedi knights, the force, and, of course, Princess Leia. I advocated for holding off on Star Wars, as it struck me as being much too violent. But my husband said he wanted to give it a go. So rather than squash his initiative to spend time with his daughter by introducing her to things he loved as a kid, I let it roll. She seems to be handling it pretty well. No nightmares or anything. |
Anonymous
| Meanwhile, I thought you were talking about watching a triathlon.... duh. |
Anonymous
| 5 year old has not seen Star Wars yet. Have you guys seen this? Hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCjMGOvMghY |
Anonymous
Unless she is forcing your child to watch, it is none of your business. |
Anonymous
Too funny! |
Anonymous
I'm the 17:19 poster that you quoted. I think this is an approach we'd want to take. Right now at age 4, it's never been an issue. But, I know that it will eventually come up for sure. I don't want DS to start sneaking out to watch stuff. I'd definitely rather know what he's watching so that we can at least talk about it! |
Anonymous
This is so true. I have ten years between my older kids and youngest. My options are to ban age appropriate things for my older kids, not allow my youngest to be around siblings or relax my standards. I chose to relax. And, the nice thing is that my kids are all close despite the age difference and my older kids will watch princess movies and play dolls with my youngest. Seven years ago, I never would have imagined this. |
Anonymous
This is good advice. |
Anonymous
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Re: Younger siblings be exposed to more things
A few years back I was out for a girls evening with my friend. When I walked in the door our two year old DD ran up to me very excited and said, "Mommy, Mommy! On the tv, said Mad-Nes? Mad-Nes? Dis SPARTA!" And then she did a little kick. Yes, my husband and the older two kids let her watch the moive "300". My mouth fell to the ground. To this day we both cannot believe he let her watch that movie and that she loved it so much. She literally asked to watch "Sparta" every day for a month. Parent of the year! He's lucky she was so cute, because it saved him the better part of an ass chewing. |
Anonymous
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We don't really let the kids watch any TV and anything other than very family friendly type movies with no violence, sex, or swearing. I am too of the camp that I am not sure how it helps to fill their thoughts and minds with violence,sex and swearing. Those aren't really the things we value or want them to incorporating into their development. We don't expose them to those things in real life so why would I expose them to it in media. It isn't that we keep them super sheltered - we talk about the news, they watch hockey...but it is in context. They hear swearing at school but we tell them that isn't language we use. We talk about sex in a developmentally appropriate way and answer questions they bring from school but don't expose them to more than that. It really hasn't ever been an issue. Works for us.
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Anonymous
| I let my four year old watch the ironman, spiderman, and captain america cartoons, but not the movied. |