Preschoolers
ruby gospel -- Saturday, July 06, 2002 -- 02:33:15 AMOlder than toddlers, but not quite big kids.
This thread is tagged: parenting, kids(All users will see what tags exist for a thread. Please tag carefully!)
Ha ha ha ha ha! I can just hear Kirk saying it exactly that way. I love that movie.
I'd just like to announce here that Fang! got into preschool - yes, the one across the street that she didn't "qualify" for.
Hehehe.
Squeaky, wheel, grease, etc.
Yippee!
I remember that, Ad. Good for y'all.
I remember you talking about that! Good for you.
We're really, really happy about it. And she's positively trembling with excitement. She has visions of riding the school bus, backpack slung over her shoulder.
Don't know how to make her understand that she isn't going to get to ride the bus - we live across the street, for cryin' out.
I get to go SCHOOL SHOPPING!
(remind me of my excitement a few years from now when I'm bitching about school shopping AGAIN!)
This weekend is a tax holiday in NC (I think in GA and SC too), so the back-to-school shoppers will be out and ruthless I'm sure.
Liam starts daycare next week. He's excited as all get-out, which is encouraging.
TERRILYNN!!! I've missed you! It's Shelly D from Chapel Hill!
Okay, back on topic now...
Milo's 3.5, but a VERY YOUNG 3.5 - he has a speech delay, so it's only just recently that we've started having two sided conversations. But right now we're potty training and he moved to a big boy bed two days ago.
Okay, I'm not sure how to ask this without sounding more judgemental than I feel, but how in the world do you know when your kid is old enough to see some of these kinds of movies? Milo's only been to three movie theater movies: Shrek, Ice Age and Monsters Inc, and he was perfect at all three. But at all of them were violence that was upsetting to -me-, esp Ice age and Monsters Inc. And if the TV is on and Milo's up, it's always on something very childish like Polie Olie or Jay Jay, etc
Hmm....so maybe my question is, is it okay to just keep him away from movies that I think might be 'not right' for him, even when society is rating them G? Am I A) dooming him to a life of unhipness, and possibly B) aiding his speech impairment by not exposing him to more complex media?
How in the world do you know when it's okay for them to see scary things? I -so- don't want to take him to something "rated for kids" and then have him be terrified in the middle of the night.
I saw JAWS at the drive-in when I was 3 and had insomnia for the rest of my childhood, no kidding.
Am I A) dooming him to a life of unhipness, and possibly B) aiding his speech impairment by not exposing him to more complex media?
You could be. Also, you don't mention whether or not he was scared, only whether you were.
yeah yeah yeah. That's pretty much a given. Though I did see Signs this weekend and loved it. That was a big step for me.
He didn't seem scared. But then again, he didn't seem anything other than thrilled to be in a movie theater with his own tray of popcorn. He didn't talk about any of them afterwards, but that's the norm for him. His topics are airplanes, excavators and trains. Anything else you have to drag out of him.
But then again, he didn't seem anything other than thrilled to be in a movie theater with his own tray of popcorn.
What is it you are looking for, exactly? A neon sign blinking over his psyche, saying, "No Fear"?
They have teeshirts like that.
He didn't talk about any of them afterwards, but that's the norm for him. His topics are airplanes, excavators and trains. Anything else you have to drag out of him.
This is not the sign of an overly sensitive child, prone to fears. That doesn't mean you can just take him to anything, but it means that any G movie is just fine.
Chappy, I am more like you -- wanting to avoid violence, even cartoon violence. But. At about a year ahead of you with my boy, I think you'll find that you are fast approaching the age where you can't maintain the bubble anymore. And, importantly, kids are often ahead of us in what they can absorb without harm. Especially worry-warts like you and me.
Kids are all different, and all scared by different things. The only movie that ever scared my oldest was Little Mermaid. He was probably 4 when we saw it in the theater and had nightmares about it for weeks. My youngest is much more easily scared in movies, and often has to sit in my lap, but doesn't seem to bring the fears home with him at all.
If you push the envelope with videos at home you can always stop them if he gets scared, and you can figure out where his limits are.
Hi Shelly!
I must confess that Liam (3.5) has never been to the movies. We rent videos or get them from the library, but he rarely watches one all the way through-he just doesn't seem to want to sit still that long.
Maybe it would be different in the theater, in the dark, with popcorn, but whenever we've mentioned going to see anything, he's just said no thanks.
(This post probably made Cal pass out, between the never seeing movies and the mention of videos. Sorry!)
You are depriving that child! No, seriously, if he's not interested, that's different.
That said, 3.5 is a good age to start getting him to have the attention span for movies and such.
I think I've told this before:
Spawn, at about age 3, wanted to watch Ghostbusters. He asked over and over, so I sat down with him through the scary librarian sequence at the beginning, and he didn't blink. I went back to doing whatever, figuring I'd check back in with him when they fight the ghost at the hotel.
Suddenly I hear screams and Spawn is crying. I go running out and it's the kitchen scene, where Sigourney Weaver's groceries get possessed.
He is utterly freaked, and it taught me a lesson about what scares kids. Ghosts are ghosts. But eggs are not supposed to do that.