What do yall think is a good age to expose a youth type to the greatest of all genre’s!
I have a six year old so there are two things to keep in mind.
One I want him to enjoy the experience as much as I do and not have nightmares.
And Two I don’t want my Ex to murder me!
What do yall think is a good age to expose a youth type to the greatest of all genre’s!
I have a six year old so there are two things to keep in mind.
One I want him to enjoy the experience as much as I do and not have nightmares.
And Two I don’t want my Ex to murder me!
My oldest daughter was about 6 when she first saw “Scooby Doo on Zombie Island” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166792/), and she was fine with it. She’s a huge fan of Scooby Doo, reads Goosebumps, and is rarely intimidated by fiction. Spiders on the other hand…
All of my kids - however - are atypical as they know that it’s animated or makeup (they watch Labyrinth, the Star Wars movies, etc.) or that’s it’s all just make believe. They love Halloween, play “dress up” running around the house in skeleton, Darth Vadar, and Disney Princess costumes, and I’ve even gone as far as to allow them to watch parts of “The Making of Thriller” to show them how makeup effects are applied, and how “really scary” all of that looks on the small screen while there are 200 people standing around with boom mikes, cameras, and coffee cups.
My kids make home movies - plots and themes depending on their moods - but have made “spooky” Halloween-themed stories (most of the time involving a masked baddy who’s scaring off the rest ala Scooby Doo). They get the “movie magic”.
That being said, we closely monitor what they watch, read, etc. My movies are sitting at the top of my entertainment center (I don’t even think my kids know that I have any horror, action, adult-comedies, etc.).
I’m letting each one of my children (I have 4) find their own way. If there’s an interest, I’ll nuture and direct it as a parent the best I can. The worst thing I can do to my kids is both let them stumble onto something that I haven’t age-and-personality-appropriate eased them into or force my interests onto them. My oldest son loves Nascar (shoot me in the head) and my youngest son Star Wars.
Outside of the very basics (any parent knows this stuff - so I’m probably preaching to the choir with the above babble), I think it’s specific to each child. You know your own child - what they like, what they don’t like, and what their reaction to seeing something in a particular genre will do to them.
The last thing you want to do is scar your child!
I can remember having a bunch of my daughter’s friends over to the house around Halloween for a group play date. One of the girls started crying hysterically, and I finally found out that it was due to the “spooky character” on the Oreo cookies that I put out for the kids to eat. She came from (what I would consider) an almost Carrie White-like church family who (I later find out) tells their kids that Halloween is when Satan walks the streets and steals your souls. They spend Halloween night (specifically the trick-or-treating hours) at their church, and won’t send their kids into school on “Halloween Parade days” - where kids can dress up in G-rated outfits and go classroom to classroom getting candy.
My son is 4 and he’s seen zombies since he would go through my DVD collection or the other thing he has done is get out of bed once I have put him to bed to come out and see me watching a zombie movie… so I think he might be one of the youngest.
Thanks man!
Yeah Toby has seen a good few of the cartoons with zombies in them. And has no problem with those. It’s one of those learn as you go things.
Here’s a better question, at what age did yall start watching (and enjoying scary type movies.
Here’s a better question, at what age did yall start watching (and enjoying scary type movies.
I’ve been watching them as long as I remember… If you can say original Doctor Who was my gateway drug to everything dark and dangerous since at the age of 4 getting into the other room and changing the channel when my parents weren’t watching and then in turn scaring the crap out of my younger sister…
Thanks man!
Yeah Toby has seen a good few of the cartoons with zombies in them. And has no problem with those. It’s one of those learn as you go things.
Here’s a better question, at what age did yall start watching (and enjoying scary type movies.
My father picked up a several-year-long part-time job as the delivery guy at a Chinese restaurant right next to a West Coast Video. I was that kid that would take his allowance over to the horror section and pick out the coolest sounding (I even knew then not to go off of the cover!) horror movie.
It got to the point that the regular employees would know me by name, and my father had given them the okay that I could rent anything that I wanted.
I was probably in single-digit age at that time (I want to say 9… maybe?), but I was the kid that didn’t get scared.* I knew it was all movie magic and would watch the movie first to experience the story, and then a second time to see if I could get an idea as to how they did it.
Now, I’m not saying that to say “Yeah, I was the horror-god-child who rocked the world!”... I was a kid, and monsters - whether in film, book, or gameplay - absolutely fascinated me. It was the one thing that I did pretty much solo - obviously my friends were too young to watch these movies (I even knew that at the time) or read the pulp novels that I’d occasionally pick up. All other things considered, I was your typical kid: active in sports, had more friends than I could handle, and I was happy.
As I write this I wonder… when I was growing up, I was really into pencil sketches and drawing. Arguably though - outside of the occasional Catholic School diorama of Jesus and Doubting Thomas - the bulk of my ‘art’ consisted of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.
None of my teachers - including the nuns - had ever said anything. I wonder if they could tell that I was “normal”, and not manifesting the tell-tale signs of anti-social or sociopathic tendencies.
If one of my kids came home with a drawing of - let’s say - a vampire and werewolf in a struggle, or “hero” taking off a zombies head with an Arthurian sword… I’m pretty sure I’d get a call from work that I was wanted in the Principal’s office. Different times?
Okay - sorry - getting late on the East Coast US here and I’m losing the threads of my own damned point.
* - only movie that messed me up as a kid was The Exorcist, which I still can’t watch to this day. I think I talked about THAT experience as a young child somewhere else in the forum…
12..and that even needs to be eased on in. Starting with the Classic NOTLD at about 11 or 12.
Or if yea really want to ease it in, A good movie to start with is Gremlins! Weird but if yea think about it, Gremlins and zombies have alot in common movie wise. Just always be careful. I still can’t watch freddy movies alone since a ill fated watching at four.
A babysitter let me watch the original NOTLD when I was 5. And then proceeded to inform me that the movie was filmed about 20 minutes from where I grew up. Needless to say, I was sure that zombies where going to come to my house and eat my brother and I. Every night, I would sneak over to my little brother’s room and sleep on the floor to protect him. So yes, I did mess me up for a while. I managed to get over that fairly quickly.
The only movie that really messed me up was Jaws. I still can’t go near any deep body of water without getting nervous.
A babysitter let me watch the original NOTLD when I was 5. And then proceeded to inform me that the movie was filmed about 20 minutes from where I grew up. Needless to say, I was sure that zombies where going to come to my house and eat my brother and I. Every night, I would sneak over to my little brother’s room and sleep on the floor to protect him. So yes, I did mess me up for a while. I managed to get over that fairly quickly.
The only movie that really messed me up was Jaws. I still can’t go near any deep body of water without getting nervous.
Well, PJ, speaking as a parent, the babysitter should have been kicked in the teeth! While you eventually did get over it, it was still a trauma that you can remember (and I’d imagine quite vividly) to this day.
Mind you, sometimes you’re destined to fail no matter what you do. Two examples that come to mind:
1) My daughter was about 5, and her teacher had put on this very scary movie with volcanoes and thundering music - that movie was Disney’s Fantasia.
2) One year later, my now 6 year old watches a movie that her teacher puts on for Black History Month called “Our Friend Martin” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248271/). She comes home in tears. See, not only do they take this movie and splice it with pretty graphic scenes of police dogs and fire hoses during the 60’s civil rights movement, but this idiot teacher didn’t judge the timing of the movie right… she had to stop it half way through.
We ran out and got the movie that night. See - it’s a time traveling movie, and at the midpoint, something happens that prevents a young Martin from becoming Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This has a “butterfly affect”-like reaction on the returning kids in present time… where the civil rights movement never happened, and my daughter was introduced to not only vicious racial slurs… but the movie (as far as she was concerned) ended with the main characters never being able to go back and fix the time-space continuum, thus they live in a world where each character - of different sex, ethnicity, and religious background, are living in a world of pure hate.
My Dad started me off early by giving me my “Dad Time” on sundays during creature double feature TV on Sunday afternoon’s here in Chicago. He was always working during the week, and Fri And Sat were “Family Time”, but Sunday afternoons were all mine.
We watched the Lee “Dracula” movie and Cushing “Frankenstein” movies, as well as all the Universal Monsters that predated them. It also made me love asian cinema because directly after creature features were “Samurai Sundays”. I sat, by his knees as he introduced me to the world of the movies. He passed away when I was 13, and I guess that’s why I’ll always love horror movies.
I was five when I say my first horror movie Karloff in “Frankenstein” and have loved cinematic creature features ever since. And I’ll never stop loving them!!
I’m not a parent, but I think there is no “right” age for a child to witness any fictional representation in film or on television; however, it all depends on the child’s individual psyche and maturity level.
The worst thing anyone can do is expose her or his child to fictional representation and just leave it at that (“Well, Billy and Susy, that was Night of the Living Dead, go outside and play now”). Parents should always be prepared to sit down and talk with their children about what they saw and how it made the child feel. Children benefit from context and having the chance to try and express new feelings. For horror, the best thing to do is always foreground that it is imaginary, illusion, and make-believe where no one gets hurt. Also, if the representation is of shocking or graphic violence, it should be emphasized that it is 100% inappropriate for the child to mimic or copy such antisocial behavior in real life.
At times when children have difficulty separating reality from fiction, a parent needs to take strong and and remind the child of what is real and what is not.
I’m not a parent, but I think there is no “right” age for a child to witness any fictional representation in film or on television; however, it all depends on the child’s individual psyche and maturity level.
The worst thing anyone can do is expose her or his child to fictional representation and just leave it at that (“Well, Billy and Susy, that was Night of the Living Dead, go outside and play now”). Parents should always be prepared to sit down and talk with their children about what they saw and how it made the child feel. Children benefit from context and having the chance to try and express new feelings. For horror, the best thing to do is always foreground that it is imaginary, illusion, and make-believe where no one gets hurt. Also, if the representation is of shocking or graphic violence, it should be emphasized that it is 100% inappropriate for the child to mimic or copy such antisocial behavior in real life.
At times when children have difficulty separating reality from fiction, a parent needs to take strong and and remind the child of what is real and what is not.
I believe it depends on each child, parent and family. The fact that you considering the question and trying to make an educated decision tells me that you have little to worry about in terms of your child’s long term well being. :)
I agree, it does depend on the child, the parent, and the family. Having said that, I’m with Cypherpunk, having my kids’ first introduction to zombies be through Scooby Doo. (I’m pretty sure my intro to zombies was through Scooby and the Gang, too, come to think of it.) My older boy came home from kindergarten one day to tell me his classmate’s dad let him watch Dawn of the Dead with him - sorry, but that’s just not something I think a 5-year old is ready for. Now that he’s approaching fourth grade, I’m still not sure he’s ready for that, but maybe, in another year or two, I may sit through NOTLD with him.
My kids are still pretty young for the more overt stuff, but we indulge in zombie humor around the house because - well, because we’re nerds like that, but you get my drift. They know that Mom and Dad watch some movies they’re not allowed to yet, and that maybe they won’t want to watch once they are old enough.
Having said that, we also have friends who are making a television show about zombies, and we’ve let them watch bits and pieces (pun not necessarily intended) so they can see Uncle Patrick, Uncle Murph and the gang. Heck, my 9-year old is trying to debate us on the merits of his watching Dawn of the Dead now, saying that he really thinks the viewing experience would give him something to talk to them about - because all of a sudden, he’s a technical consultant? Yeesh.
They know that Zombie Mommy will try to eat their brains - to which my almost-five year old responds by face-palming me and flatly stating, “You’re not a zombie, Mommy - go get coffee.”
Having said all that, my little one doesn’t even want to see the Batman movie because the commercial looks too scary for him. So to a degree, they are kind of helping us decide where they are in what they’re ready to be exposed to.
My kids are still pretty young for the more overt stuff, but we indulge in zombie humor around the house because - well, because we’re nerds like that, but you get my drift.
Well, I was recently in the hospital from cellulitis of my one leg due to strep. We referred to it in the house as “my zombie leg”... which I did because “Daddy going into the hospital for a weekend” needed to have a funny spin on it.
When my bigger boy (Will) was about 4, Hubs got really sick and managed to burst the blood vessels in his eyes (seriously, don’t ask - if there is a freak accident waiting to happen, chances are it will find him). He had to pick him up from Pre-K and was afraid of scaring the kids, so he wore sunglasses; he got into the classroom to find himself surrounded by a bunch of preschoolers asking William’s Daddy to show them his devil eyes. Scooby Doo has definitely set the bar.
Cellulitis! Ugh - Hubs has had that too (told you, freak accidents abound); hope you’re doing okay and that the zombie leg is back in the realm of the living.
