TV choices and tweens

Nevermind wrote:

I think you need to ask yourself what type of harm or negative
influence certain types of shows, books, musical recordings, and
movies are going to have on your child. Let that be your guide.

That sounds like a very good start, but I'm not sure it covers all the bases,
for me. I'm the first one to admit that the worst thing "Pokemon" could do at
this point is waste my kid's time, for example. I still don't like or approve
of the violence, though, and I'd still prefer The Kid not watch it.

I also have a 9 YO, but one who I know from reading your posts on past
threads has a very different personality than your DD. We really have
to watch out for "forbidden fruit syndrome" around here, and my son
could manufacture an argument over pretty much anything, which has
meant that we take our censorship decisions very seriously. That is,
all censorship decisions *will* be challenged and then turned into
mini-obsessions on his part, so we cannot take them lightly.

We'll get challenged, and The Kid argues like a lawyer. But she won't obsess,
usually. "Pokemon" is one of the few things she keeps coming back to and
beating to death.

As for violence, I take full responsibility for not letting him watch
anything that would be truly upsetting to him, so no cruelty (luckily,
he knows he can't handle stuff like that even without having ever
tried it, so no argument there!), no too-realistic violence,
no
too-innocent and sympathetic victims (e.g., children and animals)
unless handled very carefully, and no situations that would be too
scary for him to remember later (e.g., he can't watch Jaws yet if for
no other reason than that it'll ruin the ocean for him for years, as
it did me).

That problem I don't have. The Kid isn't scared of anything. I wish she were!


I wouldn't give a thought to something cartoon-y like
Pokemon on the basis of violence (I did have a problem with the
marketing insanity, though); he has even seen some PG-13 movies, none
of which upset him but probably all of which, I thought, went a bit
too far. However, all have been cartoon-y or "sci fi" violence (e.g.,
Hellboy, Spiderman, Jurassic Park, LOTR), as opposed to
"it-could-happen" human-on-human violence, which makes a difference,
to me.

This may sound strange: I'm more put off by live-action movies with cartoonish
violence than I am by movies with realistic violence. I'm more comfortable with
violence when you can see the negative effects that come from it, rather than
the "bang-bang-shoot'em-up" stuff where the guy cleanly and bloodlessly falls
over dead. Having said that, I'd prefer my daughter not see much-to-any of
either, at this point.

My daughter hasn't seen any of the movies you listed, although she *is*
lobbying to watch LOTR. I've been trying to tell her that she can watch *that*
as soon as she finishes reading "The Hobbit." I'm not altogether kidding about
that one.

I am not of the opinion that if kids watch some violent stuff, even
very violent stuff of the sort I would *not* let him watch, that it
will cause them to be violent. So, for violence, I just worry about
him being upset or having knowledge placed in his head that we all
wish we didn't have (the worst of what humans can do to each other).

I've seen some evidence with my kid, when she was far littler, that watching
shows where kids have bad attitudes caused her to pick up the same. I pulled
the shows, and she less snotty. I do believe that small kids who can't
process the violence they watch do become more violent, at least temporarily. I
wouldn't expect that to be the case with a kid my kid's age, though/

As far as sex, he is not ready to watch anything explicit. He knows
the facts, but "just the facts," and I know from some of his questions
that he really has no idea what the sexual act involves beyond the
most basic aspect. That's good. I think he'd be highly weirded out if
he saw anything more suggestive at this point. I also don't want him
exposed to much in the way of sexist thinking about sex, and PG-13
movies are full of that. He knows about sexism and misogyny but I'd
prefer that he not see those attitudes portrayed as going along with
sex. I know we will have to discuss this with him at some point, but
I'd like him to remain a bit more innocent ("sex is a nice thing
between two equals") for now. Perhaps my higher standard for his
innocence regarding sex than violence is inconsistent; I can't really
explain that.

It's funny, because my daughter has started wanting to see the "chick flicks"
currently being marketing to tween girls -- "Confessions of a Teenage Drama
Queen," Mary-Kate and Ashley's "New York Minute." They are a long way from
containing sex, but they do flirt a little with the concept. As long as I watch
the movie with her, I feel okay about that at her current age. I have stricter
standards as far as violence is concerned.

When does the issue go from your first
priority, as a parent, being supervising your kid's media input and move
over
to "choosing your battles" and keeping them to a minimum?

We had to cross that line when he was about 5, due to our son's
personality. Sounds like your DD is pushing it right now.

Yeah, I think so. This weekend, she made a passing comment of "Well, I'll just
sneak it." And then she smiled and covered it up as a joke. It may be a joke
now, but it also may not be for long. And I'm not willing to stake the quality
of my relationship with my kid on "Pokemon."

And how far do you
budge? How do you know where to put the new lines in the sand -- and how do
you go about justifying those?

I tried to talk a bit about our justifications above. As far as where
to draw the line, I will say that it's probably never perfect, and the
more flexible you are, the less perfect it will be. I have made a few
glaring errors in our choices of movies for him. He was exposed to a
few things I wish he hadn't been. But we talked about these things
(all were sex-, not violence-related), and I feel that no harm was
done. I guess I believe that as long as they're kept away from really
upsetting experiences (and every child will find different things
really upsetting), you can turn some of these "oops" moments into
teaching moments.

I also think that as they get older, it's good for them to help place
the line for themselves. It's the kid's head after all. I think my son
is developing really good sense about what kind of stuff he should and
shouldn't (for his own sake) watch or otherwise be exposed to. He
couldn't do that if we were still 100% sheltering him. And I value
this for him. He is very artistic himself, and is always writing
songs, "scripts," and stories. I like him to be exposed to as much
variety in art and entertainment as possible without messin' him up.

I'm listening and asking for my kid's input on what she watches more and more.
We talk about *why* she wants to watch something, and I try to be open minded
in listening. Then we watch the show together. Recently, she lobbied for "Teen
Titans" and won (silly show, but not totally objectionable) but lost on "Code
Lyoke" (contained references to stealing computer code as an "okay" activity;
didn't want to sit and watch each show with her to explain what was what).
We've allowed her more input into her movie choices, as well (I wasn't the one
picking the tween chick flicks! ). I figure it's a process to go through,
but I have to admit it feels like a tough balancing act, one that I'm not
feeling totally prepared to handle.

beeswing

animzmirot wrote:

see them? Friends, m'dear. If you honestly think that middle school kids
aren't burning CDs for their friends off TIVO or off the net, you're
dreaming. You can't believe what I find by doing backpack searches. The
complete works of South Park (not allowed), for example. IOW, you can try as
hard as you can to control what tweens watch, but when it comes right down
to it, you either ditch the cable, which I did in January, or you choose
another battle. This one is just too darn hard to fight with all the media
access kids have these days.


I guess I'm lucky -- all *I* find in backpack searches are forms
that were due at school last week So far, I guess I should add.

DD and DS will grow up hopelessly out of it, I'm afraid -- we don't
have a DVD player, except on the computer, which is way out in the
open, next to our bedroom. And we have no cable. They'll have to
sneak around and watch things at their friends' house. The way
I did :-D

Scott DD 10.9 and DS 8.4

Marjorie wrote:

I've got two 11 year olds that wouldn't be caught dead watching Pokemon. My
children were never allowed to watch it (I HATE anime), but they never
wanted to.

I'm guessing that if my daughter watched it long enough, she'd simply get bored
with it. But I'm not willing to bank on it.

I allow my kids to watch a lot of stuff other parents would
completely freak out over, because my kids are way more mature than most
kids, because they've never been scared of anything (and I mean anything),

Fear isn't an issue with my kid either. Unfortunately, in some cases.

and because they are so well versed on reality vs the media that it would be
silly to limit them on fear alone.

More than once, The Kid has given me a dissertation on media versus reality and
the fact that she is easily able to discern the difference between the two. She
is very convincing, and I believe her. But it hasn't gotten her "Pokemon."

I let me kids watch stuff that has much
more sexual content than some parents would, but much less violence than
othe parents would allow. The rule is our house is, you can buy a PG-13
movie if I approve, but not an R. If you HAVE to see an R rated movie, we'll
rent it or borrow it from the library, but that's one viewing only.

I'm not ready for R movies at all for The Kid, and I don't know at what point I
would be. But that's an interesting rule to keep in mind.

FWIW, my son's favorite show is smackdown, which he's not allowed to watch,
with a couple of other things he's also not allowed to watch. How does he
see them? Friends, m'dear.

My daughter sometimes visits her best friend, who does watch "Pokemon" and a
few other shows the The Kid isn't allowed to watch at home. I know the girl's
family, and the choices aren't bad, they just aren't optimal. I've told The Kid
that at their house, their house rules are fine: She can watch "Pokemon" if her
friend is watching it. I don't fight that issue. When the friend came to our
house and The Kid tried to get dispensation to watch "Pokemon" because of it,
OTOH, I still nixed the deal. Without much complaint, they turned off the TV
and went to do something else.

If you honestly think that middle school kids
aren't burning CDs for their friends off TIVO or off the net, you're
dreaming. You can't believe what I find by doing backpack searches. The
complete works of South Park (not allowed), for example. IOW, you can try as
hard as you can to control what tweens watch, but when it comes right down
to it, you either ditch the cable, which I did in January, or you choose
another battle. This one is just too darn hard to fight with all the media
access kids have these days.

I'm with Scott on this one. All I find in The Kid's backpack are outdated
notices from school. My daughter is still in elementary school, though. I do
know it's not going to be my kid that's doing the CD burning...she doesn't have
access to those kind of programs, and won't. And we've talked in depth about
the legality of it. I don't know how she'd be watching a smuggled in DVD at
home, either -- we have two TVs, and both of them are in plain sight.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I appreciate hearing from you.

beeswing

wrote:

The rule is our house is, you can buy a PG-13
movie if I approve, but not an R. If you HAVE to see an R rated movie, we'll
rent it or borrow it from the library, but that's one viewing only.


Seems to me there are R-rated movies I'd much sooner let my kids see than some
of the PG-13 stuff. I can't think of an example that the kids would actually be
*interested* in right at the moment, though. But certainly there are movies
that are R simply because they don't *edit out* stuff that might not be
kid-appropriate, rather than purposely *putting in* junk just to be nasty.
PG-13 movies, however, are often right on the edge of whatever it is they need
to do to keep from being rated R, and the general effect is sometimes much
nastier.

--Helen

In article , beeswing wrote:
When is the age where you, as a parent, should start to give in and let the
child make her own media choices, TV in particular, whether or not you agree
with them (within reason)? I'm not suggesting letting The Kid watch "Debbie
Does Dallas," but we got into a major row this weekend over "Pokemon: The Movie
2000." I still dislike and disapprove of Pokemon, but I have gotta question
whether *that* was worth the energy, at her age (9).

We have not been censoring our 8-year-old son's TV or computer viewing
for content. Instead we limit total screen time each day (one hour a
day, except on special occasions---we let him watch a 2-hour special
on PBS kids on Memorial Day), and let him choose how he wants to spend
it. He has generally gravitated toward choices that we don't object
to (Arthur, Cyberchase, MathBlaster computer games, PDB Kids website).
He has enjoyed watching the first year of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" on
DVD on my laptop computer with me, which does have some cartoon
violence. Occasionally he'll go on a short kick of some less
desirable thing (currently the Nesquik website). At home in Santa
Cruz, he gets no TV (we don't have a TV), so he has not developed a TV
habit.

We have not fully handed over the reins to him---we continue to ration
the screen time, and remove screen privileges entirely when he doesn't
do his homework or misbehaves.

So let's move past the discussion of Pokemon specifically, if we
can, and talk about at what
age you hand over the TV reins. (The same issue applies to books read, movies
attended, and bunches of other stuff.) When does the issue go from your first
priority, as a parent, being supervising your kid's media input and move over
to "choosing your battles" and keeping them to a minimum? And how far do you
budge? How do you know where to put the new lines in the sand -- and
how do you go about justifying those?

For TV, we limit total time, and let him choose within that restriction.
For books, we often check out books for him (usually giving him a
stack of books to select from), because he usually wants to spend his
time in the library reading dozens of picture books rather than
selecting chapter books to take home. It is unlikely that he will
choose a book that we disapprove of (there's not much in the public
library that we would object to his reading, and he's unlikely to
choose anything objectionable in the first place).


It doesn't help that there was a kid in her class at school rattling off a list
of movies and programs my kid has never seen. I don't want my kid to be a media
pariah, but on the other hand "everybody else gets to watch it" isn't a very
strong argument in my book.

I don't mind my son being a media pariah, though the lack of TV
viewing has not turned out to have any negative social consequences so far.
He does get to see a fair number of movies (he and his Mom went to
Shreck II last weekend, and we have tickets to see the new Harry
Potter film in the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center).

Right now, he does not go to movies by himself, so we have full
control over his movie viewing. We don't take him to violent films,
because we don't watch them ourselves. The furthest we've gone in
that direction with him is "The Triplets of Belleville" which is great
animation, though a bit violent. (It may also be the best bicycle
film ever made.)


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

In article ,
"animzmirot" wrote:

"beeswing" wrote in message
...


Actually, it helps a lot. It's nice to know there is an 11-year-old out
there
who isn't watching Pokemon!

I've got two 11 year olds that wouldn't be caught dead watching Pokemon. My
children were never allowed to watch it (I HATE anime), but they never
wanted to. I allow my kids to watch a lot of stuff other parents would
completely freak out over, because my kids are way more mature than most
kids, because they've never been scared of anything (and I mean anything),
and because they are so well versed on reality vs the media that it would be
silly to limit them on fear alone. I let me kids watch stuff that has much
more sexual content than some parents would, but much less violence than
othe parents would allow. The rule is our house is, you can buy a PG-13
movie if I approve, but not an R. If you HAVE to see an R rated movie, we'll
rent it or borrow it from the library, but that's one viewing only.

FWIW, my son's favorite show is smackdown, which he's not allowed to watch,
with a couple of other things he's also not allowed to watch. How does he
see them? Friends, m'dear. If you honestly think that middle school kids
aren't burning CDs for their friends off TIVO or off the net, you're
dreaming. You can't believe what I find by doing backpack searches. The
complete works of South Park (not allowed), for example. IOW, you can try as
hard as you can to control what tweens watch, but when it comes right down
to it, you either ditch the cable, which I did in January, or you choose
another battle. This one is just too darn hard to fight with all the media
access kids have these days.


That was one of the things that made me let up on some stuff when the
kids were smaller. I'd forbid something -- they'd watch it at a friends
house. Then, since they knew they were't supposed to watch it, they
couldn't discuss it with me . . .

Finally, I started saying that there were some things that they could
only watch WITH me. That worked out better. It gave me a chance to
TELL them why I didn't like it.

A little older still, there were things they were only allowed to watch
if I WASN'T home . . . I can't stand horror movies, and my kids (now
all over 18) enjoy them. There have also been a handful of TV shows
that I absolutely detested: Drew Carey comes to mind -- I hated the way
the people in that show treated each other, and couldn't stand watching
it -- but their Dad enjoyed it, so they'd watch it if I wasn't at home.

Movies have ended up in the same category, once they were out on DVD or
video: if I thought it was a problem, they could watch it with me. My
standards are NOT to just accept what the ratings folk give it, and
there were some R rated movies my kids watched VERY young, and some
PG-13 that I wanted nothing to do with.

Books are in a different category all together: if they could pick it
up and read it, and seemed to be enjoying it, they were welcome to it.
I never put any restrictions on their reading. That was my parent's
approach, and it seemed to work well. Now, I have one who almost never
reads, one who started reading horror stuff (Stephen King) when he was
10, and one who is currently working her way through one of MY
favorites: The Mists of Avalon.

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

wrote:

We have not been censoring our 8-year-old son's TV or computer viewing
for content. Instead we limit total screen time each day (one hour a
day, except on special occasions---we let him watch a 2-hour special
on PBS kids on Memorial Day), and let him choose how he wants to spend
it.

I think this is reasonable. To me, it's not so much any one violent or
commercial image that I object to (though I'm sure I could find exceptions that
I wouldn't permit in the house), it's the *constant barrage* of them that I see
as a big problem. Limiting the time thus limits the exposure. I also feel that
advertisers are now so good at saturating their markets that you don't *need*
to watch TV to be au courant with a lot of cultural references. (I may have
said this before, or maybe that was in a draft I never sent.)

--Helen

H Schinske wrote:

Seems to me there are R-rated movies I'd much sooner let my kids see than
some
of the PG-13 stuff. I can't think of an example that the kids would actually
be
*interested* in right at the moment, though. But certainly there are movies
that are R simply because they don't *edit out* stuff that might not be
kid-appropriate, rather than purposely *putting in* junk just to be nasty.
PG-13 movies, however, are often right on the edge of whatever it is they
need
to do to keep from being rated R, and the general effect is sometimes much
nastier.

I'm not ready to think about R rated movies yet. Period. And as said earlier,
I personally will do a lot of research regarding what exactly about the movie
featured earned them a "PG-13" label. My decisions tend to be issued based on
my own reseach and not just on the the dash number figure following after the
PC rating. It takes a fair amount of sorting out, and in the process I find
some of those PG-13 are just plain foul...while others are pretty darn close to
innocuous, at least in my book.

I've found that PG-13 is about the most useless rating I've run up against, at
least in figuring out what I "should" let my particular kid watch.

beeswintg

I think this is so much an individual issue, both on the part of kids and
parents. Our choices have been shaped largely by our own personal views and
preferences and, later, by what we know about our kid.

We're pretty liberal on some things, wildly strict on others. For example, I'd
rather let my son see nudity than violence, especially gun violence. So some
PG-13 (and a very rare "R" -- for example, "Pretty Woman") are allowed, while
some PGs are not due to violence. He can watch MTV but not "Die Hard." Etc.

Language doesn't bother us much at all -- in movies. But it is not tolerated
in real life. None of us uses profanity and Henry knows it isn't allowed in
our house and that it's a serious offense if we learn he is using it at school
or at someone else's house. So movies with bad words are allowed, because it's
understood that the rules in the movie world are different than those in real
life.

I had more concerns about the glorified battle scenes in Mulan than I've ever
had with the sexuality in some PG13 movies. Henry is incredibly sheltered when
it comes to violence, especially where we live now. At a recent birthday party
he held a realistic fake gun for the first time (except for a squirt gun he
first was allowed to have when he was 9) for a paintball game. *That* was a
hard decision for us -- we are opposed to viewing guns as toys, but gave in due
to his desire to fit in in a fairly new peer group. It was OK, he didn't enjoy
it that much (probably because he wasn't any good at it) and chose to do other
things for most of that party.

Another thing that may help your comfort level -- it's rare he sees a PG13
movie that one of us doesn't see. Since last summer we've allowed him to
occasionally go to a movie with friends even if we haven't seen it yet, but
eventually we see it (usually later that day or weekend) so that we can discuss
anything we feel needs discussing. That used to be true of television, too,
but I don't see quite the variety of MTV that he sees. I actually have more
concerns about the body-image and materialistic things he sees on E! than I do
with the sexuality on MTV.

So all of this comes from our value system in a big way, but also from our
knowledge of our kid: he gets spooked easily and if he's got a scary or violent
image in his head, none of us sleeps well that night! He's also incredibly
sensitive and so really sad stuff is rarely a good idea either. His good
friend (a girl) who is just a year older can tolerate even the most violent
escapist slasher movies without so much as a shudder, but is not allowed to see
Harry Potter this weekend for religious reasons. Works for them.

I think at this age kids do understand that their family values may differ from
popular culture's view of what is appropriate, and that ultimately there's as
much to learn from what they are not allowed to see as there is to learn from
what they do see.

So follow your heart, perhaps experiment a bit by watching some things with
her, and keep the communication lines open. Wouldn't you rather she
experienced this stuff with you than without?

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 11

I've found that PG-13 is about the most useless rating I've run up against,
at
least in figuring out what I "should" let my particular kid watch.

Have you discovered screenit.com? It's a great resource -- my only complaint
is it spoils the movie for you as the story descriptions give away plot twists.
But there are specific descriptions of potentially objectionable elements of
movies.

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 11