There’s a knife and blood. Lots of blood. The music accompanying the scene is eerie – made to scare and it’s doing a damn fine job on the little 8 year old girl watching.
I was watching a horror movie through a crack in the door before I ran crying to my bed. I wasn’t meant to be there, it was my sister’s birthday and her friends were old enough to understand that it was just a movie. They were also old enough to talk about it with each other before they went to sleep. Me? I just went to sleep with that image tattooed on my brain.
Somehow that movie has always stuck with me. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t supposed to be watching it so I never told anyone how scared I was.
It’s because of this that I am , what some would call neurotic, about my 10 year old child not watching anything categorized for an age above his own. I know that he doesn’t always comprehend the difference between fact and fiction. He’s smart and he’s savvy but he did once have a period of very sleepless nights after watching an ad for Underbelly. He thought it was the news and he FREAKED out. That’s the “wonder” of true to life TV and advertising during family TV.
Last week it was reported in The Herald Sun that
The parents of three children have been banned from allowing them to watch R-rated movies.
In an extraordinary move, a Family Court judge has ordered the parents not to allow any of their children, aged from seven to 13, to watch DVDs restricted to those over 18.
Justice Margaret Cleary also banned the mother and father from letting the children watch videos, DVDs, games or other sound or visual media classified as not being suitable.
Phew. I am going to sound like a “wowser” but who lets a seven year old child watch R rated movies? Maybe I am old fashioned. Maybe, no definitely I am neurotic but aren’t the classifications put in place for a reason?
Did you watch age restricted movies when you were under age? Would you let your kids watch them?
Top Comments
I think I've done a pretty good job with my boy. He is 13 and has never seen a truly "violent" or horror movie, despite his constant protests. At age 10 we let him start to watch Doctor Who and a few days later he embarrassed us at a work function where he told everyone loudly that he was now allowed to watch violent movies. So cute. God knows how he will react when he sees a real one. When compared to his mates at schoo,l who live for Grand Theft Auto etc, he is the level headed one , does his work and never gets into trouble. He has won an award for perfect attendance 3 years running, so we must be doing something right. It is hard to be a good and caring parent and have your child understand what you are doing is the right thing when 90% of the parents around us do not seem to set boundaries on anything their kids do. My niece has a 7 year old who plays all his dad's video games on Xbox live (if you want to hear bad language, give that a try) and has been known to shoot police and run over hookers in one of the grand theft games. The kid is a right proper little thug for 7 and dare I say developmentally well behind his peers. Every family function I go to ends up with me fighting my son over what he is allowed to do because this 7 year old has bogan parents who think it is funny. I'm sure he'll be smoking kones by 9.
Without sounding like a proper prude, it's VERY VERY hard to set boundaries for our kids on certain topics when you have shows like Big Bang or 2 1/2 Men usually on at 7:00pm and openly discussing Threesomes and Anal Sex (or worse). Why can't these shows be on later? Like after 8:30? There is nothing quite like hearing an eight or nine year old girl on the bus asking her friends what Alan means when he says "taking it up the keister". Haven't little kids got enough things to worry about already?
Interesting that games are not the predominant topic here. I know nothing of the films mentioned below, but games are a whole other influence.
In this arena, young boys (for example) definitely assume the behaviours of the characters, and it can play out in their real lives.