Ok, here is my second attempt at this post.....
The other night I was putting Ukulele to bed. She usually goes down pretty easily and falls asleep on her own. As this was happening, I started to wonder how long it would be before she became of afraid of being along.... afraid of "monsters in the closet." That led to the pondering of what causes those fears. Is it movies? Is it books? Who knows? I, in my infinite-new-parent-wisdom, have decided it is movies AND books. Therefore, GatorMan and I have agreed to go through her books (and yes, she does have some movies already - start handing out the parent-of-the-year awards to us!) and weed out the ones that have scary monsters or bad people in them. That should be pretty easy. Movies, on the other hand, are going to be a little trickier.
I started thinking of all the Dis.ney and Pix.ar movies we have (hand-me-downs, by the way!), and what type of character are in them. I have to tell you that I am hard-pressed to find a Dis.ney movie that does not have some sort of villian or monster in it. Even Bam.bi - poor thing gets to watch his mother get blasted away! Beautiful Ariel from Litt.le Merm.aid?.... Ursu.la scares ME - can only imagine what she would do to a toddler! And Pix.ar. While I lovelovelove this movie company for their secretly hidden adult humor, their movies are totally inappropriate for my purposes at the present time.
There are some videos that I think are acceptable so far.... such as Ba.by Eins.tein, Le.ap Fr.og learning, and Veg.gie Ta.les. Does anyone have any other suggestions???
As a side note, GatorMan and I bought a Class.ic Cart.oon dvd a couple of years ago. I watched some of it last night.... and holy crap! Talk about politically incorrect and violent! I do not remember cartoons being so bad as a child.... but apparently they were! Sheesh.
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4 comments:
Check out Word World videos. You could probably even find clips on YouTube.
I hear you on the Disney/Pixar thing. I mean in all reality, all good stories need an antagonist. if they don't have one they are not very good but it would be nice if my kiddo didn't have nightmares from a G rated movie.
I agree that good stories need an antagonist, and Disney movies are based on older tales. But we don't intend to show them to Evie until she's old enough to understand the difference between fact and fiction. I was a sensitive kid and had nightmares from movies, so I'll probably be overly sensitive to this issue myself. I hadn't thought about books, though. I don't think we have any board books with anything scary at this point, but I'll be on the lookout.
I think about these things as well, but perhaps a little differently. Last night we had a horrible thunderstorm and could remember as a child being quite terrified of them, still not to thrilled, but my 6 month old was completely unaffected and slept through them. I haven't done the research yet, but there must be a stage in development where children develop fear which I guess could equate to nightmares. Obviouosly fear is not all a bad thing, but obviously too, there is an appropriate age for things and it is good to be aware of the content in books and movies. You're such a good mommy!
I think that at a certain age, no matter how careful you are, kids become afraid of the dark and what might be under the bed. Our daughter will be three in one month and she just recently delclard that she is afraid of 'swiper' and does not want to sleep alone. Swiper is a fox on Dora the explorer! I wonder if it is really more that they realize that they are their own person and not part of you?? We are very carefull of what she sees on tv- you should see us dive for the remote on commercials or news clips when they come in the middle of what we think is a safe show.
-Crystal
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