When Jumanji first came out my children were 4, 6 and 8. We borrowed the book from the library and loved it. Then we started hearing the reports of how young children were being terrified by it at theatres. Then, the worst.... my oldest saw it at a friend's house and so we borrowed it from her and all watched it together. We laughed so hard that when their dad arrived home from work just after it ended we rewound it and watched it again. My conclusion? Children need their parents to watch movies with them and they need to TALK during the movie, even turning it off to explain what's going on if necessary. WE are responsible for what they learn and how they learn it, and though I did a far from perfect job at raising my children (who are now 36, 38 and 40...) I think I can say with certainty no movies ever traumatized them, especially considering NO movie was ever allowed to take itself seriously.
Television, even during the censored “3-channels, only one came in well, even with a roof antenna” era, gave me the first thing I didn’t want to see: when a YOUNG man, perhaps only a teen, who looked like my brother, was shot point blank, in the chest, in the 60’s. I can only imagine what repeat murders do to children, though looking up “1968 Prophecy of a 90-year-old-Norwegian woman” will give a clue. Fast forward to a funny sounding but dishonestly-titled “Kindergarten Cop,” we took my own two little girls to: nothing funny at all about a man being shot point-blank in virtually the first scene. My girls were horrified, cried, and we walked out of the movie. Satan is pretty clever. When we do get older, and realize our sins against children (like ancient Israel’s infant sacrifice, or today’s “abortion,”) The Lord himself will make us adults shake our heads in horror, as in my daily reading, now in Ezekiel, yesterday, when during the well-earned Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, both mothers and fathers cooked and ate their own children. Haven’t seen THAT in any movies yet, but the perfect & clean Word of God requires that we read about & imagine it. It’s “the carrot & the stick,” The Good News is only good when we come to grips with its alternatives, when we ignore God and salvation.
But I think that the pattern Corrie Ten Boom’s father took, is best with regard to exposing our children to things too early: when Corrie asked where babies come from, he didn’t lie, cite the pumpkin patch or storks, but instead asked her to pick up his tool box, which was of course too heavy. And he told her, “the answer to that question is also too heavy for you, right now.”
The Lord didn’t warn Jerusalem of its fate vainly, through the prophets. It all happened. Which is why I recommend you all look up the “1968 prophecy of a 90-year-old Norwegian Woman,” —and read it now.
When Jumanji first came out my children were 4, 6 and 8. We borrowed the book from the library and loved it. Then we started hearing the reports of how young children were being terrified by it at theatres. Then, the worst.... my oldest saw it at a friend's house and so we borrowed it from her and all watched it together. We laughed so hard that when their dad arrived home from work just after it ended we rewound it and watched it again. My conclusion? Children need their parents to watch movies with them and they need to TALK during the movie, even turning it off to explain what's going on if necessary. WE are responsible for what they learn and how they learn it, and though I did a far from perfect job at raising my children (who are now 36, 38 and 40...) I think I can say with certainty no movies ever traumatized them, especially considering NO movie was ever allowed to take itself seriously.
Watching movies WITH them is certainly recommended.
Television, even during the censored “3-channels, only one came in well, even with a roof antenna” era, gave me the first thing I didn’t want to see: when a YOUNG man, perhaps only a teen, who looked like my brother, was shot point blank, in the chest, in the 60’s. I can only imagine what repeat murders do to children, though looking up “1968 Prophecy of a 90-year-old-Norwegian woman” will give a clue. Fast forward to a funny sounding but dishonestly-titled “Kindergarten Cop,” we took my own two little girls to: nothing funny at all about a man being shot point-blank in virtually the first scene. My girls were horrified, cried, and we walked out of the movie. Satan is pretty clever. When we do get older, and realize our sins against children (like ancient Israel’s infant sacrifice, or today’s “abortion,”) The Lord himself will make us adults shake our heads in horror, as in my daily reading, now in Ezekiel, yesterday, when during the well-earned Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, both mothers and fathers cooked and ate their own children. Haven’t seen THAT in any movies yet, but the perfect & clean Word of God requires that we read about & imagine it. It’s “the carrot & the stick,” The Good News is only good when we come to grips with its alternatives, when we ignore God and salvation.
But I think that the pattern Corrie Ten Boom’s father took, is best with regard to exposing our children to things too early: when Corrie asked where babies come from, he didn’t lie, cite the pumpkin patch or storks, but instead asked her to pick up his tool box, which was of course too heavy. And he told her, “the answer to that question is also too heavy for you, right now.”
The Lord didn’t warn Jerusalem of its fate vainly, through the prophets. It all happened. Which is why I recommend you all look up the “1968 prophecy of a 90-year-old Norwegian Woman,” —and read it now.
(Re: below: I also had to leave during the “flying monkeys” scene of the ORIGINAL “Wizard of Oz.”!)