Parents: What rules do you have for what movies your kids can watch? - Page 3 - Blu-ray Forum

Blu Lemmy · 07-15-2025, 03:24 PM

Okay then.....

Atomic Salad · 07-15-2025, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhysicalMediaMaestro

My parents did need to occassionally set some limits, though. I was not allowed to watch the 1984 film "The Terminator" and decades later, I have still not seen it.

The Terminator isn't real, you know. It can't actually hurt you.

wonderer99 · 07-15-2025, 04:46 PM

Probably gonna get flamed for this but I let my 13 year old daughter watch most stuff unless it's overtly sexual but only with me.

I had bad parents when I was growing up who simply didn't care what I watched. No policing at all. Every weekend I would buy vhs tapes of any rating with my pocket money. I swore as I got older I would be more responsible.

As my daughter got older I realised that so much of the stuff I was watching at 8, 9, 10 etc made an impact on me because of my age. Terminator, Aliens, 80s slashers. I can't imagine they would have had the same effect on me had I not been able to see them until the late 90s when I became an adult.

Movies have an effect on you as a child in a way that can't be replicated as an adult. Movie magic dissipates to a certain degree. So I have been slowly showing my daughter classics from the 70s and 80s, just not anything with sex in it. As a lot of fathers of girls her impending womanhood is something I dread.

DR Herbert West · 07-15-2025, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wonderer99

Movies have an effect on you as a child in a way that can't be replicated as an adult.

Very true.

RYJAPE21 · 07-15-2025, 05:11 PM

I typically don’t go past PG-rated movies with my 7 year old, but I’ve made a few notable exceptions: the LOTR trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark/Ghostbusters (basically the equivalent to a PG-13 today), Harry Potter, and a few Star Wars installments. He’s handled them all well, and I always check to make sure he’s not frightened or uncomfortable… he saw Coraline when he was 4 and loved it, so he can handle spooky moments quite well.

bradnoyes · 07-15-2025, 05:39 PM

Some of my worst memories as a kid stem from watching something awful in a movie that my parents should have never let me watch. It wasn’t so much the act of watching it but the rumination afterward. I keep that in mind with my kids. I don’t really think of it as a rule, but if I think there’s something in a movie that will give my kids nightmares or anxiety, we won’t watch it.

My son will be 10 soon so I’m showing him more mature stuff, which is fun. But like any decent parent, I know my kids and what will bother them. I recently watched Basket Case and I know he’s still years away from something like that. I think I first saw it when I was 6. I’m making an effort to keep things like that from happening.

That said, if I had to choose between showing my son Basket Case or letting him browse YouTube or social media without supervision for 2 hours, I’d probably go with Basket Case.

veritas · 07-15-2025, 06:49 PM

I feel like I saw the pendulum swinging the other way with my cousins kids. She had a 4, 6 and 10 year old and the restrictions were driving the 6 and 10 year old kind of crazy seeing as how the 4 year old wanted paw patrol on repeat every chance he got.

It was actually really annoying dealing with what was and wasn't OK as its not like she made a list but stuff like Bluey and rango was banned. I'm really not sure what could have fixed the problems in that house as the kids were all working to make sure everyone was sleep deprived. They all just took turns having meltdowns including the mom...

Streetlight · 07-16-2025, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veritas

I feel like I saw the pendulum swinging the other way with my cousins kids. She had a 4, 6 and 10 year old and the restrictions were driving the 6 and 10 year old kind of crazy seeing as how the 4 year old wanted paw patrol on repeat every chance he got.

It was actually really annoying dealing with what was and wasn't OK as its not like she made a list but stuff like Bluey and rango was banned. I'm really not sure what could have fixed the problems in that house as the kids were all working to make sure everyone was sleep deprived. They all just took turns having meltdowns including the mom...

Why did she ban Bluey?

critterdvd · 07-16-2025, 02:34 AM

I don’t have kids of my own but I would probably do what my parents did: when I turned 10 I was allowed to watch whatever I wanted (except hard violence) as long as we watched it together and we’d talk about it after. Once I turned 14 they just let me go on my own. Worst thing that happened was I went away and got a BA and Masters in Film Theory.

I do have nieces and nephews (who are now 18-27) and I followed the same rules with them and my siblings are fine with it. The only time I got in trouble was when I let my oldest niece watch critters when she was 8 haha.

PhysicalMediaMaestro · 07-22-2025, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradnoyes

That said, if I had to choose between showing my son Basket Case or letting him browse YouTube or social media without supervision for 2 hours, I’d probably go with Basket Case.

Good point. YouTube has too many videos to count let alone classify. Unless they decided to use Google Gemini to automatically detect and block certain videos that weren't family-friendly.....

Martoto · 07-23-2025, 09:55 AM

I just hope people have long memories on this thread.

I seem to remember the consensus at one time being that it's pointless to shield children from "life".

PhysicalMediaMaestro · 07-23-2025, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martoto

I just hope people have long memories on this thread.

I seem to remember the consensus at one time being that it's pointless to shield children from "life".

Trying to protect children from bad experience or influences is a noble goal, and you're right, you can't protect your children from everything.

But I don't know if I would call movies "life". Not everything in movies in real. Even some documentaries have staged scenes.

Tuc0 · 07-23-2025, 09:53 PM

My daughter is six now. I think the most "mature" films she has seen is like rated 7. Something like Super Mario bros and Mitchell's Vs the Machines and Spider verse. She gets a bit spooked by some things but usually after a brief conversation gets over it fast and we can continue. If she doesn't want to then we just pick something else. I don't want to force feed her anything she is not comfortable watching.

My parents had zero issues me watching The Deer hunter or Papillon at age 9. They did have problem with me watching Mortal Kombat 95' because of the violence lol. I guess they never watched a lot of martial arts films and thought I would see it as pure violence or something but The Deer Hunter of course had a lot more traumatic effect on me.

My father did say once when we talked about me watching a lot of grown up stuff as a kid didn't seem like it was doing any harm as I was always asking "how did they shoot that? How did they make that scene" etc. and he picked up on me being very interested in filmmaking. I am thankful for that and fair game to him.

That said, my kid isn't me and is in no way ready to watch the things I watched her age like TGTBATU or Jaws and probably won't be for a long time (and definitely shouldn't) and if you know your kid you can sail the waters pretty neatly.
And I always have little conversations of the films afterwards to kind of get into her mindset about the movies we watch.

07-16-2025, 02:34 AM	#49
critterdvd Blu-ray Ninja Member since:Mar 2008 Location:Southern California 4K collection:423 Blu-ray collection:4034 DVD collection:2208 MA collection:983 Digital collection:192 iTunes collection:534 Prime collection:21 Trading Score:5	I don’t have kids of my own but I would probably do what my parents did: when I turned 10 I was allowed to watch whatever I wanted (except hard violence) as long as we watched it together and we’d talk about it after. Once I turned 14 they just let me go on my own. Worst thing that happened was I went away and got a BA and Masters in Film Theory. I do have nieces and nephews (who are now 18-27) and I followed the same rules with them and my siblings are fine with it. The only time I got in trouble was when I let my oldest niece watch critters when she was 8 haha. Last edited by critterdvd; 07-16-2025 at 02:43 AM.

07-15-2025, 03:24 PM	#41
Blu Lemmy Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jun 2011 Location:On my sofa 4K collection:21 Blu-ray collection:837 DVD collection:226 Prime collection:2 Blu-ray reviews:8 Trading Score:3	Okay then.....

07-15-2025, 04:46 PM	#43
wonderer99 Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Apr 2010	Probably gonna get flamed for this but I let my 13 year old daughter watch most stuff unless it's overtly sexual but only with me. I had bad parents when I was growing up who simply didn't care what I watched. No policing at all. Every weekend I would buy vhs tapes of any rating with my pocket money. I swore as I got older I would be more responsible. As my daughter got older I realised that so much of the stuff I was watching at 8, 9, 10 etc made an impact on me because of my age. Terminator, Aliens, 80s slashers. I can't imagine they would have had the same effect on me had I not been able to see them until the late 90s when I became an adult. Movies have an effect on you as a child in a way that can't be replicated as an adult. Movie magic dissipates to a certain degree. So I have been slowly showing my daughter classics from the 70s and 80s, just not anything with sex in it. As a lot of fathers of girls her impending womanhood is something I dread.

07-15-2025, 05:11 PM	#45
RYJAPE21 Blu-ray Guru Member since:Dec 2008 Location:Maryland 4K collection:247 Blu-ray collection:910 Blu-ray reviews:1	I typically don’t go past PG-rated movies with my 7 year old, but I’ve made a few notable exceptions: the LOTR trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark/Ghostbusters (basically the equivalent to a PG-13 today), Harry Potter, and a few Star Wars installments. He’s handled them all well, and I always check to make sure he’s not frightened or uncomfortable… he saw Coraline when he was 4 and loved it, so he can handle spooky moments quite well.

07-15-2025, 05:39 PM	#46
bradnoyes Blu-ray Knight Member since:Dec 2016 4K collection:775 Blu-ray collection:816 Trading Score:255	Some of my worst memories as a kid stem from watching something awful in a movie that my parents should have never let me watch. It wasn’t so much the act of watching it but the rumination afterward. I keep that in mind with my kids. I don’t really think of it as a rule, but if I think there’s something in a movie that will give my kids nightmares or anxiety, we won’t watch it. My son will be 10 soon so I’m showing him more mature stuff, which is fun. But like any decent parent, I know my kids and what will bother them. I recently watched Basket Case and I know he’s still years away from something like that. I think I first saw it when I was 6. I’m making an effort to keep things like that from happening. That said, if I had to choose between showing my son Basket Case or letting him browse YouTube or social media without supervision for 2 hours, I’d probably go with Basket Case.

07-15-2025, 06:49 PM	#47
veritas Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Dec 2015 4K collection:233 Blu-ray collection:1764 Trading Score:9	I feel like I saw the pendulum swinging the other way with my cousins kids. She had a 4, 6 and 10 year old and the restrictions were driving the 6 and 10 year old kind of crazy seeing as how the 4 year old wanted paw patrol on repeat every chance he got. It was actually really annoying dealing with what was and wasn't OK as its not like she made a list but stuff like Bluey and rango was banned. I'm really not sure what could have fixed the problems in that house as the kids were all working to make sure everyone was sleep deprived. They all just took turns having meltdowns including the mom...

07-23-2025, 09:55 AM	#51
Martoto Blu-ray Duke Member since:Mar 2014 Location:Glasgow Blu-ray reviews: 7	I just hope people have long memories on this thread. I seem to remember the consensus at one time being that it's pointless to shield children from "life".

07-23-2025, 09:53 PM	#53
Tuc0 Power Member Member since:May 2018 Location:Finland 4K collection:317 Blu-ray collection:1286 Blu-ray reviews:1 Trading Score:4	My daughter is six now. I think the most "mature" films she has seen is like rated 7. Something like Super Mario bros and Mitchell's Vs the Machines and Spider verse. She gets a bit spooked by some things but usually after a brief conversation gets over it fast and we can continue. If she doesn't want to then we just pick something else. I don't want to force feed her anything she is not comfortable watching. My parents had zero issues me watching The Deer hunter or Papillon at age 9. They did have problem with me watching Mortal Kombat 95' because of the violence lol. I guess they never watched a lot of martial arts films and thought I would see it as pure violence or something but The Deer Hunter of course had a lot more traumatic effect on me. My father did say once when we talked about me watching a lot of grown up stuff as a kid didn't seem like it was doing any harm as I was always asking "how did they shoot that? How did they make that scene" etc. and he picked up on me being very interested in filmmaking. I am thankful for that and fair game to him. That said, my kid isn't me and is in no way ready to watch the things I watched her age like TGTBATU or Jaws and probably won't be for a long time (and definitely shouldn't) and if you know your kid you can sail the waters pretty neatly. And I always have little conversations of the films afterwards to kind of get into her mindset about the movies we watch.

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