[Solved] What do we let our kids watch on tv??

I may be a little more liberal than some, but I do trust my daughter (almost 13 now) and she is also pretty much the youngest in her class, so she's mixing with children up to a year older than her, and this is a tricky age. I tend to draw the line at violence etc, but she saw the x-factor show that you are referring to, but shows no desire to want to dress in inappropriate clothing.

However, one advantage of being liberal is that if I say to my daughter that I don't think that a program is suitable for her, then she will accept what I say without any argument.

I must admit I was quite rigid with my kids when they were younger. If a film said 12 or 15 or 18 then I wouldn't generally let them watch it until they were the right age, giving them all the reasons why. It didn't stop them watching at their friends' houses of course but I didn't have a lot of control over that.

I am glad they are now adults (18 and 21) as I can't image how difficult it must be these days to try to work out what they can and can't watch, especially shows like X Factor.

Daddyto4, I know exactly what you mean...

Our oldest is 7 and loves to watch X Factor etc, or even Hannah Montana, High School Musical etc, and while yes, there is no violence, overt sexual scenes etc, they are all about older teenagers and their lives, dating etc, but aimed at the "tweens" market. It sometimes feels like we're constantly subjecting our children to issues that they are just not ready for.

That said, we refuse to let her watch Harry Potter/Twilight/anything related to the occult in anyway, so we have to be a little more flexible in what we do allow, especially since she is now past the stage of Peppa Pig, Mickey Mouse etc. Fortunately, my 3 yr old isnt, but I'm sure it wont be long.

Isn't it a shame that the world in general wont let our children be children. It just makes our job as parents even harder but I guess that's why we're there to guide them.

Hi

I let the regulators do their stuff - I have a 14 year old and an 11 year old who wanted to watch all sorts of programmes. Generally we do not allow them to watch films that are too old for them but occasionally they watch one supervised especially if i have seen it previously.

It is sometimes embarrassing if there is a sexual scene but they are fairly sensible and we are pretty good at choosing the film.

By watching together we are there to explain if we need to or gauge whether they are uncomfortable or not.

I think you need to go with your instinct - making it taboo will only add fuel to the fire.

Some friends of our let their lad, who is just shy of 3, watch Doctor Who. We have let our daughter (3.5) watch the occasional episode of Doctor Who but we only allow ones which are pretty tame. Once when we were at a BBQ in a friends house all the kids went to watch Dr Who in the living room and it was the recent episode with "The Flesh" with a pretty creepy monster with spindly legs and a distorted face. Our little un was in there as well (we didn't twig) and she then didn't sleep properly for 2 nights and kept walking with nightmares, the lad didn't but spends most of his play time trying to 'kill' things and refuses to dress as anything other than spiderman/Batman or a weird Batman/Spiderman hybrid we haven't quite named yet.

What do you think? Is there an age limit to the Doctor or are we being a bit overprotective?

Personally I think you make a judgement based on the individual child - only you know them and their maturity.

My daughter was watching Buffy at 6 years old, she loved it and never had nightmares - however at 15 she is bemoaning the fact that I won't allow her to watch any of the saw films. So the judgement calls never end - its just when they are 15 you actually have to be prepared to explain your reasons why.

Gooner

The Doctor who question has sparked a brilliant debate at the DadTalk towers offices.....though the general consensus is that we would be wary of allowing a kid that age watch Dr Who.

We have also been discussing what gave us nightmares as kids - mine was when I watched salems lot. The scene where the kid vampires knock on their mates bedroom window - I had to have my bedroom window closed for weeks after that.

Yes. I was a bit older when I watched Salems Lot so it didn't affect me as much.

My particular one was

~~~~~~~Wavey memory lines~~~~~~~~~~~~

I grew up in Hotels as my parents were Hoteliers and when I was about 7 I used to hang out with one of the chefs who lived in the Hotel (He was cool and used to call me Petrovich which was cool to my 7 yr old mind). So one day he gets out this Pirated, low quality video of Dawn of the Dead, and we watched that.

I'm not saying that it had a profound effect on my life but I dreamt about Zombies a lot until I was 16 when I saw the film again. This kind of helped, but even now I dream about Zombies, write horror stories about Zombies (and one a competition once with my work). So I would say that it can definitely have an effect on the young mind. Now my Zombie dreams are pretty good exciting romps and I'm so used to them I haven't been bitten in years. *cocks shotgun*

My ex let my kids watch Steven Kings IT a few years ago - I wasn't happy about it when I found out, and it certainly had an effect on them.

I also posted the The Doctor who question on twitter to our almost 2,000 followers and, except for a few yanks who asked what was DR Who, the majority of the answers back were that they thought that 3 1/2 is a little young for the program.

Hope this is of some help mate.

Gooner

Which of the Stephen King films had the hand come from the grave at the end?

Think it was Carrie

I still jump at that!!!

My ex let my kids watch Steven Kings IT a few years ago - I wasn't happy about it when I found out, and it certainly had an effect on them.

Jeez, that film scares the [censored] out of most adults...

Thankfully I don't have this problem yet - Alex is only 18 months old, so he doesn't care what he watches as long as the pictures move! That being said, we only let him watch TV twice a week - and that's for Something Special, because we all practice the sign language as a family. Sometimes if he's being very good we'll let him watch Mr Bloom's Nursery too, as it's on before SS and he likes helping in the garden 🙂

Hey RealityCheque,

Just wanted to ask how you got into the sign language thing. I'm training to become an interpreter at the moment, am in the middle of being the 4th stage out of 5 to get my full qualification in BSL.

Try to teach the kids some bits, littlest one is only 3 but she loves it when we have signed story time and she'll wave her hands all over the place to copy me. How does your son take to it?

Just wanted to ask how you got into the sign language thing. I'm training to become an interpreter at the moment, am in the middle of being the 4th stage out of 5 to get my full qualification in BSL.

Quite simply, it was Alex's nursery that started it. They teach them makaton signs for please, more, thank you etc when 6 months plus so they can communicate better while unable to talk, and we've always encouraged him to use it.

We don't watch much TV at home but one day Alex was being particularly fractious while I had a hangover so I put it on to distract him from using me as a climbing frame. As a result we discovered Something Special (which also used Makaton) but while he only cared about the moving pictures I liked the whole sign language thing so we've now made it a treat for us to sit and watch it at the weekend. It was "Dad and Alex" time but Mum decided it was too cute when we built a den to watch it from so now joins us!

Try to teach the kids some bits, littlest one is only 3 but she loves it when we have signed story time and she'll wave her hands all over the place to copy me. How does your son take to it?

He's quite chatty now but he preferred to sign 'please' rather than say it until about 2 weeks ago and even now he'll do both at once. As for learning it from the TV, he's still in the "oooh moving pictures" stage so doesn't pay much attention to the specifics but Mum and me both learn them and use them when appropriate. He's now picked up ice-cream, sponge, sleep, and a few other random words.

Ice-cream is, of course, the most commonly used 😉 )

The most 'adult' things ours get to watch is CSI/Criminal Minds that the mrs is totally into, but in all fairness when it's on, they are playing so tend not to take much notice. Anything worse is always saved for when they're in bed.

My kids are going through the "comedy" stage at the moment on UK Gold. They are loving things like Only Fools and Horses, One Foot in the Grave, The Office, Not Going Out etc.

Some of these thing are close to the mark but I feel they should be allowed to watch them and they love the humour

It is also something we can all sit down to watch

Super M,

It's great your kids are enjoying the classics. Can't beat those timeless comedies and you introduced them to them.

Top bloke

Why thank you

Classics are great and they do love them.

We also love Life of Brian and Monty Python!!!

As for modern day stuff - Not Going Out and Outnumbered

It is important to laugh

I'm in the process of introducing my teenage girls to 24 and the one and only Jack Bauer. I think it will change their lives!

Having said that, I watched the first episode with them and need to fast forward a couple of scenes! Its easy to forget certain scenes when you've just been watching them with adults previously.

I'm in the process of introducing my teenage girls to 24 and the one and only Jack Bauer. I think it will change their lives!
.

Well, it will certainly take a week out of their lives 😆

I watched all of the series, including a couple of series in a weekend each - very enjoyable but I'm glad it's finished.

My eldest said tonight that he is one of only a few in his class not to have seen the Inbetweeners - is it the sort of thing a 14 year old should be watching?