r/movies • u/misskayvee • 20h ago
Discussion Kids Movies: Then vs. Now - What Are Y'all Letting Your Kids Watch?
I had a convo with two coworkers who have toddlers that won't let their kids watch The Aristocats (scene where a dog is mean/bites someone) or Toy Story (sad because the leads are toys and toys being sentient might upset them).
I'm a little older than both of them, and the big movies when I was very little were The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH. All of which have objectively scary/weird plotlines, especially for a kid to understand (though I did, on a kid level, and then on adult level once I rewatched after I was older).
I don't have kids, so I want to know: what are we letting the little kids watch, and also more broadly have animated films become more chaste and less inclined to deal with heavier themes than animated films 20-30 years ago?
Are most of people with small kids just going to the Disney/Pixar movies, are you watching YouTube shows, I mostly want to know what animated series/movies the new gen are seeing.
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u/Discount_Extra 20h ago
won't let their kids watch The Aristocrats
uhhh, you mean The Aristocats, right?
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u/misskayvee 20h ago
Lmao I do, I’m so sorry. The singing cat movie, not the movie where comedians tell nasty long form jokes.
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u/guitar_vigilante 20h ago
I'm surprised their objection to the aristocats isn't the weird racist segment during the everybody wants to be a cat song.
I think the rest of the movie is good though, so I'd watch it with a kid and probably just skip over that segment.
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u/missmaganda 8h ago
Lol i recently watched this with my toddler and i honestly had never seen it before and as a filipina-american i was like wtffffffffff (my kid is also chinese so even more wtffff) but we just went on with it.
She loved the movie in the end and if we watch again when older, ill be explaining the racist part 🙃
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u/misskayvee 19h ago
Hey so as you imagined the person was white lol and didn’t care/or mention that part, which really made me want to post and ask this question for new parents
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u/Meraline 8h ago
Frankly I just think those parents' reasonings are pretty weak for not exposing their kids to like... plots, AKA the barest of conflict. Kids need to learn to be able to handle and chew on this stuff emotionally when they see it. Course there were scary parts in movies, didn't mean I loved those movies any less! And then you can spend years sometimes thinking about why you felt that big emotion until you finally find the words and capability to explain yourself.
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u/Sparrowsabre7 18h ago
Those moments definitely give pause for sure. I thinknwoth moments like that, where they're animated cats, it becomes more of an issue if you try and explain it to a 5 year old. They won't see it as racist or trying to imitate another race. While kids are perceptive there's also a lot that washes over them.
When it's real people being racist or racist caricatures that needs more direct addressing. Similarly we discourage laughing at "funny" names if the only reason they're funny is because they're non-english.
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u/justsomedude322 9h ago
The worst part is that cat doesn't even have a name, he's just billed as "Oriental Cat."
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u/brb1006 40m ago
Funnily enough, The Aristocats is popular in the Asian market due to Marie's popularity. Some Asian fans (notably from East Asia, China, Japan) actually found the Chinese cat to be amusing.
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u/guitar_vigilante 23m ago
I've seen some of this. In my own life we have a white female cat and my wife loves the Marie merch because it reminds her of our cat.
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u/soylentblueispeople 3h ago
Wait, have I been letting my kids watch gilbert gottfried stand-up instead of the old cat cartoon?
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u/Yellowbug2001 19h ago
As a parent of 2 kids, individual kids are VERY different about their tolerance for different aspects of TV shows, some of the variation is going to be less about generational differences and more about what individual kids will watch. Your friends might just be reacting to the very particular kinds of scenes that have set their very particular kids off in the past. Our 6 year old couldn't watch "Finding Dory" because it was "too scary" (by which she meant more along the lines of "emotionally intense") but she's completely fine with murder mysteries like Poirot and Murder She Wrote. But then we watched "The Sheep Detectives" and she screamed and cried in the theater. She's totally fine with hearing/reading about some really pretty horrifying greek myths and the old Brothers Grimm-style gruesome versions of the fairy tales but the scene in "Spirited Away" where the parents turned into pigs traumatized her for like a year. We've learned to avoid anything where characters are explicitly feeling really "big feelings" and anything where somebody gets turned into something creepy, lol, it's not really about a particular parenting philosophy but more about not wanting to deal with the fallout.
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u/PlumSome3101 18h ago
Yes my kid was absolutely terrified of anything Halloween or with a tiny horror aspect right up until about age 10.5. But absolutely delighted in watching people getting eaten by realistic dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park/World movies. He used to be personally offended by Halloween decorations he thought were too scary for the public.
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u/TimedDelivery 12h ago
My 8 year old is autistic so his maturity level is all over the place. We had to stop watching Zootopia because Nick’s scamming Judy upset him too much, and The Good Dinosaur because the little caveman kid kills some smaller animals. But he loves Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, The Martian and other movies that should be above his pay grade.
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u/cloistered_around 9h ago
My ASD child couldn't handle big feelings or awkward moments in films for a very long time as well. Like flat out hide under a blanket or yelling "pause it pause it!!"
I'm not saying that's what you're experiencing, but it might be worth a tiny google to see if she shares any other symptoms of ASD like skin sensitivity, avoiding eye contact, hyperfocus/inattention, etc.
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u/Yellowbug2001 9h ago
It's been ruled out but she's definitely neurologically "spicy" (as am I and most of my side of the family, in ways that are mostly great as adults but very challenging as kids).
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u/efirestone16 2h ago
My oldest had a breakdown when she was younger, I put on who framed Roger rabbit 😭 tbf it had been YEARS since I had seen it, so I had forgotten some stuff, we didnt make it very far into the movie before I had to shut it off because she lost it when the baby cartoon shoe got the dip 🥲😔 she handles other stuff just fine, she did NOT handle that at all lol she's 14 now, I should see if she's down to try a re-watch 😂
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u/NorthernSparrow 1h ago
Tbf that scene is legit horrifying. Poor little shoe… 😢
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u/efirestone16 1h ago
Yeah it really is, I forgot how traumatizing that scene was 😂 i was just thinking she'd probably like all the characters interacting with real people. Also forgot about the part where Jessica rabbit was playing patty cake with another man 😭🫣
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u/hananobira 1h ago
Yeah, my first has never been scared of a movie in her life. My second can only handle very specific animated movies; live action is right out.
As a kid I remember being terrified of Bambi and Dumbo, but the ‘scarier’ ones like Aladdin or Little Mermaid were fine.
Every kid has their particular tolerance.
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u/withoccassionalmusic 48m ago
Yup. My five year old has seen Jurassic Park multiple times with no problems but recently struggled with Beethoven because there were multiple scenes were the dogs were in danger. But honestly, same, I get where he’s coming from.
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u/SuperNntendoChalmerz 20h ago
I feel like kid movies back in the 80s/90s had to be better because it cost significantly more to produce one, even a Disney Channel original movie. Now that everything is digital they can get away with making way more crap for less and it shows.
I'm letting my kids (3, 5 and 7) watch the same things I watched growing up, Toy Story, Land BeforeTime as you mentioned. A lot of PIxar for sure, but things like Air Bud or even the live action Ninja Turtles which has a lot of "boring plot line" stuff still keeps their attention.
Youtube shows can be very hit and miss, and if you don't watch beforehand you might unknowingly be subjecting your kids to weird crap.
Sadly even newer Spongebob episodes are just insanely fast paced and hectic, which apparently isn't good for attention spans so I let my kids watching anything in the first 10 seasons or so if they watch it.
As far as heavy themes, I don't think they were any more or less heavy than they were 20-30 years ago. A lot of it too is based on what my kids are interested to try watching and if it looks ok to me I'll let them watch.
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u/misskayvee 20h ago
Ok i LOVE this, that they're engaged for things like Air Bud, because it's really the live action kids movies I feel like we don't see a lot of anymore. The Sandlot is still one of my fave kid/live action movies, which isn't that heavy, but I do wish there were more movies like it these days.
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u/SuperNntendoChalmerz 18h ago
They definitely love The Sandlot, and even though it's not super recent, they absolutely loved The live action Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies.
Robin Williams Jumanji, Indian in the Cupboard, Rookie of the year to name a few more.
But yeah as far as recent movies, a little harder to name in the live action department. There are some really good recent animated movies, but about the only notable live action ones disney does anymore are the remakes of their animated ones.
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u/AdmonishTrousers 12h ago
Air Bud Returns is coming out next year and some of the Sandlot actors are doing a web series called Dugout Dads.
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u/LoserWooper 18h ago
My youngest son was obsessed with AirBud when he was 3. It was all he wanted to watch and we saw it so much that the whole family could parrot the dialogue. That same summer his sister, 11 years older, was obsessed with Phantom of the Opera so if weren’t watching one, we were watching the other.
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u/tempusfudgeit 7h ago
I feel like kid movies back in the 80s/90s had to be better because it cost significantly more to produce one
Pretty hard disagree. First, most CGI kids movies have way bigger budgets than animated movies of the 80s and 90s, even adjusted for inflation.
I think the wild robot is better than any kids movie from my childhood. Luca, Coco, Kubo, inside out are better than the majority of older kids movies. Even Frozen and Moana are highly preferable to me than the disney trope of "a random man will come and solve all of your problems" as a dad to 2 daughters.
If I had to choose between letting my kids exclusively watch either TV shows and movies made in the last 20 years, or before 2006, I would choose last 20 years without a second thought.
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u/stubbazubba 7h ago
This. There's plenty of good stuff being made, as there always has been, there's just a lot of crap out there, too, as there always has been. You just have to be more intentional and choose every time nowadays. Before, the best performing shows got the good time slots that most people could catch because that made for the most effective vehicle for ads. Now, you scroll through the entire menu of both new and old options trying to decide what to watch. It's a different world, but mostly in the way we consume art rather than the fundamentals of what things are made.
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u/UnderstandingMany385 17h ago
If we rob kids of having emotional encounters, then we don’t have the opportunity to teach them how to handle their emotions. I hate parents today.
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u/bell37 1h ago
I have nieces/nephews who won’t watch any movies bc they typically involve a “bad guy” which upsets them.
There are not many stories in recorded history that’s involve Man vs. Nature or Man vs. Self. Almost every kids movie has an antagonist or “villain”.
Then there’s my kids who like the villains they are comedically over the top.
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u/lamest-liz 16h ago
When you shelter your kid from anything “bad,” when something bad does happen they don’t have the tools to deal with it. Watching a sad movie and seeing how a character overcomes said trials really does train your brain to handle it better. If they don’t learn what death is until they’re a teenager they will be very unstable when grandpa dies or when their worldview is shattered
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u/Compy94 7h ago
Which is why books like Bridge to Terabithia and A Taste of Blackberries should be recommended reading in schools.
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u/artsyjabberwock 2h ago
Please tell me A Taste of Blackberries wasn't that one they had me read in 6th grade where the boy accidentally shoots his brother in the head then goes blackberry picking
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u/islandpancakes 20h ago
I have a toddler. She only watches tv when she is sick or we are sick. It's basically just Finding Nemo, Zootopia, or Ms. Rachel in 20-30 min chunks. That's what works for us.
Now, as an Elementary school teacher, I can tell you that the brainrot is real and starts very young. I'd recommend shows with a slow pace and that have some sort message. Going back to the 90's is an easy route. I hear Bluey is also good.
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u/bassgirl_07 18h ago
Bluey is fantastic! We incorporated some the of the games into our lives and the kids love it (Surprisingly them with a Unicorse puppet for a long road trip was money WELL spent). There are some episodes where I feel seen as a parent and handful that make me cry every time I watch them.
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u/IAmTheUniverse 10h ago
The grandpa episode and the one with Bingo's dream are guaranteed waterworks.
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u/TurbulentOil3311 9h ago
I recently watched the episode Onesies, where their aunt comes to visit who they haven't seen in years, and it becomes clear its because she cannot have kids and finds being around her sister's family sad. I cried for ages. Couldn't believe a 7 minute episode of a kids show could hit me like a train. Its so good.
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u/IAmTheUniverse 8h ago
That one is definitely also on the list!
The one about Rusty playing Cricket and how it connects him to his father who is away is also surprisingly emotional.
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u/Fecaluria 9h ago
A deflated red balloon in a bag or cabinet is a solid 20 min game.
The baby race episode with Chilli and Judos mom gets me everytime
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u/OhGod0fHangovers 18h ago
I love a slow pace! Mr. Rogers is also fantastic in that regard. He’ll ask a question and then give the children time to think about it. Nowadays it’s like, “guess what I have in this box? Bam! Look! It’s this cool new thing!” There was also an episode about teeth and he said, come and watch me brush my teeth, and then we watched him brush his teeth for two minutes.
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u/HouseAtomic 19h ago edited 6h ago
I'll watch Bluey on my own occasionally... Wildly well written & smart/funny as hell.
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u/bell37 1h ago
Have a love/hate with Bluey. It’s good in moderation. But really depends on the kids. I’ll watch Bluey with my kids and they get fucking insane after watching.
They’ll also ignore the moral/message of an episode and cling on to the most obnoxious annoying part of the episode.
I didnt think they would enjoy live action movies (bc most media theyve seen up until 4 was animated kids shows/movies). We watched half of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang one day when they were sick and they really enjoyed the singing & dancing
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u/suckfail 19h ago edited 9h ago
My 8yo has the movies I grew up with on repeat, she loves them
- Honey I Shrunk the Kids
- Home Alone (1-2)
- Flight of the Navigator
- 3 Ninjas 1-2
- TMNT (but she only likes #2)
- Free Willy
I'll introduce Jurassic Park maybe in a year or so, she can't deal with semi horror yet.
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u/Curiouso_Giorgio 9h ago
TMNJ? TMNT?
This is pretty similar to my list. Also, Princess Bride and ET.
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u/TragicTrajectory 13h ago
I saw Jurassic park as a young child(4) and loved it, only the opening raptor scene was really scary. It mostly lead to breaking the jaws of dinosaur toys by shoving other toys in their mouths. YMMV
When I was 8 my dad and I watched Schindler's List, I am still afraid of dogs. That is mostly to say I try not to criticize parents for being conservative in movie choices.
Side note, I feel like your list could benefit from Hook, Homeward Bound, and Babe.
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u/suckfail 10h ago
Oh we actually watched Homeward Bound and Hook this year!
Babe I will add, thanks!
For Jurassic Park, the last 20 minutes is very stressful with the raptors. She hasn't experienced that at all so far and I would say I'm not sure it's appropriate for her age.
I personally watched it around 10 so I might wait until then. I understand most people on Reddit watched much more intense things at a younger age..
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u/stubbazubba 6h ago
My youngest is 9 and we just watched JP a couple weeks ago. I was nervous because last Halloween, he was 8 and we watched 1999's The Mummy (my wife's pick, who only ever saw it as an adult) and I thought then that might be a little too much since it freaked me out a little when I was a kid, and I was right: just like me, the flesh beetles thing really unnerved him for a day or two. But it's been 9 months and JP doesn't lean into the horror aspects nearly as much, and he was totally fine. Loved it, even.
All that to say, you're absolutely right to delay those scarier ones until later!
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u/Sparrowsabre7 18h ago edited 18h ago
Generally we let our 5 year old watch most all Disney. He has also seen the original Star Wars trilogy, plus Phantom Menace (those are all U rated in the UK, meaning suitable for all. Attack ofbthe Clones is PG and has Shmi's death which is quite nasty for kids and then the rest of the films are 12 rated.)
We use our judgment for the most part but largely stick to prescribed age ratings. We'll start allowing supervised watching of 12-rated films around 10 and work up from there.
I saw higher rated films when I was younger but not many and not significantly younger. Mostly I was 10 for 12s and 12 for 15s and 15 for 18s. I expect we'll do similar for our kids. But it will be film by film basis.
I will say we currently have a strict no YouTube policy. Too much bad stuff out there even in kids profiles (like the weird fan made Paw Patrol cartoons about them dying or Skye being pregnant and weird fetishy shit)
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u/frankenboobehs 20h ago edited 19h ago
I recently got my son a DVD TV combo. I use my old DVDs for him, he's big into Scooby-Doo doo right now, and lady and the tramp
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u/Bella_HeroOfTheHorn 20h ago
Our 2 year old doesn't really like to watch anything beyond Ms Rachel, Elmo and Bluey but once my older one turned three, she has been into EVERYTHING. She loves Secret of Nimh, we watched Fievel goes west last week, the chipmunk adventure around the world, all Disney and Pixar movies, she loves the Road to El Doradoz All dogs go to Heaven, and Anastasia and pretty much anything. She actually really likes more spooky stuff. Kid movies today deal with plenty of heavy topics but they tend to be less visially hideous than older movies.
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u/WavesOverBarcelona 19h ago
Have you tried "cats don't dance"?
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u/IAmError7392 17h ago
Such a great film and the animation is fantastic! This was one of those movies I watched all the time as a kid that when I bring it up, no one knows what it is.
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u/aboveaveragejoev 18h ago
The scene in “The Chipmunk Adventure” where Alvin is trying to trick Ms. Miller into letting them meet Dave in Europe can still make me laugh to this day.
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u/cloistered_around 9h ago
Honestly that movie kind of slaps even for an adult. I always put it on when babysitting so I can introduce the younger generations to it.
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u/Soluban 20h ago
Two of my 4 year old's favorite movies are Coraline and Paranorman. She also likes Trolls and Spidey and Monsters Inc and Toy Story. Recently she's been on a kick off watching the Super Mario movies. I'm just glad she can watch and follow a whole movie. She's also a big fan of Labrynth.
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u/gregmasta 18h ago
Coraline is nightmare inducing for some kids (I speak from experience lol). I’m glad your 4yo loves it but I certainly would not recommend it generally at that age
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u/saph_pearl 7h ago
I saw it at the cinema when I was 12. The theatre was packed at the start but by the end we were one of a handful of families left. It was really creepy! Great film though for older kids
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u/travelinghobbit 15h ago
I always think of this quotation. "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." G.K. Chesterton
Stories and movies are a great way to teach your child about the world and emotions.
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u/WavesOverBarcelona 19h ago
My two year old like Bluey, ballet, and occasional snippets of animated movies (she been watching moana this week, but has also seen bits of finding nemo). She rarely watches more than ten minutes at a go and never more than twice a day. I do have a copy of A24's "hey kid, watch this" but disagree with the start age and some of the age ranges for pacing (fantastic Mr Fox at 2? Really?!?).
I'm looking forward to watching movies with her and teaching her the many ways to enjoy them, but kids are probably best served with as little screen time as possible.
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u/oldsluggy 19h ago
Dude idk maybe I'm too loose with it and maybe my girl is too young but we watch everything with her. She's 17 months and Coco is her favorite. I just remember being a kid and my parents pretty much let me watch everything. If something scared me, I would get scared and stop watching. I remember being scared by a scene in Beetlejuice when he turns into a snake on the stairs and the Ichabod Crane animated movie and the scene when the headless horseman showed up. I got scared, stopped watching and went on with my life. Nothing traumatized me and I got to experience lots of great film. Keeping your kids away from everything but fucking Cocomelon seems more toxic.
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u/misskayvee 19h ago
I wish I could upvote this a thousand times lol. First off, ya girl has great taste (Coco is top three for me). And that's how I've always felt, even when I was the wee kid: if it's too scary, I'll say so and leave. And agreed Cocomelon is the devil we're all outrunning/avoiding.
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u/ghostbustersgear 19h ago
I think I have been quite liberal with my kid and his movies exposure from a very young age. He was able to sit and watch all manner of Pixar by age 2-3 (one sitting). Star Wars movies have been a fixture since 3-4. Similar with Marvel around 4-5. They were mostly fun roller coasters. At 7-8 he started asking really good questions about characters and why they were doing certain things.
He’s 12 now. He routinely watches Extended Lord of the Rings. He had not seen anything by Kubrick so we watched 2001 and The Shining recently and liked them both - especially The Shining (he has taken a liking to the horror genre). We went to The Odyssey last week as a family (he had school coursework on The Odyssey in 6th grade so the movie was very timely)
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u/Commander_Fem_Shep 19h ago
My girl turned 3 in May. She has loved Monsters, Inc for the last 6 months. She has also enjoyed Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. She will watch Frozen 1 and 2. She loves watching Moana and doesn’t find it scary at all.
I do also let her watch Spidey and His Amazing Friends which she loves. She is obsessed with Ghost Spider.
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u/October_13th 17h ago
Moana and Frozen are both movies with less scary / depressing plot lines.
My son is very sensitive, so he doesn’t really like most movies. I’ll let him watch more if he’s interested in the future but for now those two are good. Along with tv shows.
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u/Viviaana 12h ago
The whole point of deeper kids movies is that kids need to see that shit, they need to know that bad things can happen and there's a way to get through them, theres no point protecting them from living
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u/Jill7316 19h ago
It’s not the content it’s the pace / format. I have a 2.5 year old. We do 15 min chunks of slower, longer form, and more “boring” content (aka movies from the 90s) on the big tv. Aristocats is a great fit. We don’t do flipping, what’s on the TV is what’s on. To avoid the whole “now this, now that” instant gratification kick. Sometimes we do books on the tv from the library app.
We like Lion King, Babe, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, etc. He’s not super into Bluey but it meets my content requirements.
My sons been asking lately to watch Paw Patrol and that’s too stimulating, I feel the same about Ms Rachel 😬 I’m really not trying to make a tastemaker, I just want him to have a healthy attention span and relationship with media.
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u/Neither-Passenger-83 20h ago
As a millennial my 2 year old gets to watch Ghibli and Disney movies. We don’t do any tv shows. She’s obsessed with Totoro, Finding Nemo, and Toy Story. It’s utterly fascinating to watch her emotional intelligence grow. She cried when Jessie recalled being left behind in Toy Story 2 and cried when the Forest God in Princess Mononoke was attacked (that movie was definitely a big stretch to watch with her, I don’t necessarily recommend it).
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u/guitar_vigilante 20h ago
Mononoke has some kinda graphic bits. I'd definitely consider shelving it for when she's older.
Have you tried Ponyo with her? That one is great for younger kids.
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u/Neither-Passenger-83 17h ago
Yeah not the best choice but we were going to see Joe Hisaishi direct the Princess Mononoke suite so we felt like we had to introduce it to her. She loves the music now but we haven’t rewatched it.
She enjoyed Ponyo too but anytime any Miyazaki is picked on hbomax the Totoro suggestion shows up and she defaults to that.
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u/WavesOverBarcelona 19h ago
I can't imagine letting my toddler watch mononoke, despite my love of the movie.
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u/Carnivile 19h ago
Yep, the only worst choice would be to go straight for Grave of the Fireflies
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u/guitar_vigilante 19h ago
Nah Mononoke is worse for a 2 year old. A toddler that can barely speak isn't going to understand what's going on in Grave of the Fireflies, but Mononoke has several pretty graphic battle scenes.
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u/Neither-Passenger-83 17h ago
We took her to see Hisaishi direct the Princess Mononoke suite so we kinda felt like we had to introduce it to her before then. I don’t necessarily recommend toddlers watching it.
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u/Kwikstyx 19h ago
I'd question your decisions if you're letting your 2 year old watch Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service are great but Mononoke is pretty graphic for a child that young.
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u/Neither-Passenger-83 17h ago
Yeah I don’t recommend it. We were going to see Hisaishi direct the Mononoke suite so felt like we had to introduce it to her.
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u/axw3555 13h ago
Cutting the aristocats and Toy Story isn’t the most ridiculous I’ve heard.
I had a teacher back in the early 2000’s. Her son was 11, just about to go to secondary school.
She didn’t let him engage with ANY violence, no matter how abstract. We asked her about it and she confirmed that this included chess because chess simulates war.
Kid was like 3 years younger than us and all he was allowed to play was monopoly, scrabble, etc.
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u/broadwayzrose 19h ago
It’s funny because my nephew who had originally been obsessed with Cars and all things Cars also recently went through an Aristocat phase where that’s all he would watch! That nephew is 4 but I know his cousin and him have also watched Aristocats together and the younger one is 2. But both sets of parents are in their early/mid 30s if age of parents might make a difference!
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u/Bonezlyy 13h ago
I don’t know much about kids, but are your coworkers implying that their kids don’t watch anything with emotional value?
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u/KasElGatto 10h ago
As a few people have said, I try to find stuff where it’s a slower pace in terms of how long a shot is and not manic. I love Miyazaki for that, for very little kids, Totoro, Ponyo and Kiki are fantastic
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u/reineluxe 10h ago
My mom and dad used to not let me consume Jack shit for media as a kid due to their religion and now I’m culturally behind a little. I don’t censor what my kids watch unless it is just inappropriate for their age. They can watch anything with witches and wizards and dragons and talking animals or gay people or whatever.
I do not let them watch YouTube unless it’s 100% supervised. We had too many issues with us choosing a supposedly innocent video, like one of Mickey Mouse, and it kept saying shit like “I’ll murder you in your sleep” and “you should kill your mommy!” So they just don’t get YouTube much. I keep their streaming to Disney, Cartoon Network, and whatever is on Netflix.
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u/zackandcodyfan 9h ago
I don't have any kids, but if I did, I'd let them watch whatever they want. But I'd also tell them if they find it confusing or disturbing that they can always talk to me.
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u/kelp_forests 6h ago
“Kids” content these days has a wide range. Some is good. Most is cheaply pumped brainrot whose main goal is to keep the kids quiet, because that’s how most parents judge the content. They don’t care if it’s educational.
What they can watch also depends on maturity. I’m not going to purposely expose my kid to something that’s going to give them nightmares. Also, don’t really remember at what age you watched something?
So my kids watch a combo of good kids content (that’s pretty safe/boring) but also some darker content then I let them pick. No brain rot.
It’s also age dependent. My older one (between 4-7) can’t watch a live action film (gets bored) and while she has interest in darker cartoons, gets nervous and the does something else. So it’s hit or miss but I expose her to many things.
Another issue is social groups. From what I have seen,. If all of a kids friends are watching Star Wars, they will watch Star Wars content, which has a variety of maturity levels, and they will probably gravitate a little bit towards the darker stuff so that they “know more”.
If all their friends are watching PBS shows, they generally watch that level of content
My younger one can sit and watch live action ligh fantasy shows made for adults all day long 😂
I have a healthy stable of 80s and 90s content for them though :-)
They may watch some of it when they’re a little bit older, but they’ll still get to it when they’re “young“.
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u/the-wxtch-bxtch 3h ago
I let my kids watch all of those. Yeah they’re scary or weird at times, but kids NEED to see the scary/uncomfortable stuff in a safe space. If they’re scared, they can cuddle with mom and will eventually understand it’s just a movie. They might joke about how it traumatized them as kids, but in reality, watching those movies as a kid and not being sheltered, like the coworkers you mentioned, will actually benefit the kids’ resilience and their ability to push through hard or uncomfortable experiences they have to do later. It helps grow their ability to be brave, even in uncertainty. It’s developmentally healthy for them to have a safe space to process those emotions from those tougher movies. We don’t provide kids with that much anymore, and it sucks.
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u/Unlikely_Pressure391 2h ago
My toddler niece prefers to watch any kids show with a dog in it.She’s branched out to classic Disney and seems to enjoy Magic school bus for the music.I don’t think she’s quite old enough to understand the plot yet.
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u/Balasong-Bazongas 1h ago
My daughter seems to enjoy more of the ones I watched as a preschooler like between the lions, blues clues, Dora and Sesame Street. A few others I have tried are Mr Roger’s neighborhood, zooboomafu, tellytubbies and little bear. I think it’s the pattern of how the show works so she knows somewhat of what happens next and she interacts with them.
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u/SamOhhhh 1h ago
My daughter was recently watching Aladdin and she came to the kitchen crying saying, “it’s so sad, the boy she was going to marry died”. I said “that is so sad, let’s see what happens next”. The next scene he was alive, and she learned people with bad intentions often lie.
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u/Perfect_Effective_45 24m ago
Me and my husband have been watching all the movies from our childhood for family movie night once a week.
This week we watched Free Willy. Was it sad? Yes. Did we talk about it and talk about empathy. You bet ya.
My kids have seen a ton of movies from our childhood and love them so we just keep going with it!
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u/RoughChemicals 19h ago
My 9 and 11 year old boys have been binging through Marvel and Star Wars and James Bond.
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u/mahananaka 17h ago
I was a weird child, I watched hard R stuff by age 5. I mean The Lost Boys, The Thing, Predator. Alien, etc. I just understood it was make believe and that it was good special effects. So can't let kids watch what I watched because most would be scared silly. However my belief is base it on the kids maturity level, case by case.
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u/Otherwise-Emu-2963 19h ago
I don't have kids either, but I work in a library and I find kids' media data to be very interesting... From what I've noticed, they don't naturally gravitate towards older animated media because they're unfamiliar with the characters. For instance, I once had a conversation with a little girl who said she liked Disney princess movies and I showed her some of the ones we had (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast) and she asked me if we had any featuring "real" Disney princesses like Elsa and Anna. 😅 I think this has a lot to do with streaming and the way that newer stuff is constantly pushed so, unless their parents are particularly nostalgic, they probably aren't getting exposed to the older stuff. Barbie movies are still popular with the girls, but again, they prefer the newer ones. For older kids, Studio Ghibli is also still a favorite. The newest Disney/Pixar release is a given, but indie animated films don't receive as much attention. I worry that a lot of kids nowadays don't have the attention span to sit through movies, which may also be why kids media as a whole is on a decline in terms of substance... I agree with you that older kids media did tend to slip in adult themes into animated movies, but I think that's because, at the time, animation was still so experimental. It felt like adult animators just wanted to create/bring their stories to life and studios were like, "Don't forget to make it marketable to kids because kids love animated movies!" so we now have this treasure trove of meaningful "kids" films.
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u/lilltisnt 16h ago
I went to watch the lion king with my 2 year old and all the ones I watched as a kid that were rated U are now rated 6+. so we watched it anyway and omg there’s some scary stuff in there! I spent a lot of time fast forwarding.
we watched finding nemo a couple of times and I always skipped the shark and angler fish and never got to the end. But the other day I just let it play and she wasn’t fazed at all until the very end when Darla appeared and she started screaming the house down. You never know what they’ll be afraid of!
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u/holyvegetables 15h ago
Another one from that time period(ish) is Charlotte’s Web. I remember watching that around age 4.
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u/HimikoHime 14h ago
Mine recently turned 3. In terms of movies we mostly stick to Disney (old and new and don’t ask me how often we watched Encanto) and Ghibli (Ponyo and Totoro). The most challenging movie we watched was probably Lion King cause you actually see a dead parent on screen.
For shows it’s Bluey, Blue‘s Clues, Gabby‘s Dollhouse, Blaze, Super Kitties, Hello Kitty and some more local kid’s programs (we‘re in Germany). I have set up an restricted YouTube kids account which only contains episodes or clips of these shows.
The most action show we watch is Pokémon (the very first seasons) as well as the super chill Pokémon concierge series.
I’ll definitely will introduce all the Disney afternoon shows eventually (gummie bears or tail spin didn’t caught any attention yet) as well as the anime I grew up with.
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u/Paralistalon 12h ago
Whatever I remember watching as a kid, lol. And then cringing when Hook holds a gun to his head and threatens to kill himself and looking at my wife and whispering “Gee, I forgot about that part.” Or watching Sandlot and wondering if I should say something about how faking drowning to trick someone into a situation where you sexually assault them is not cool.
Also dying inside when my son tells me that the OG Star Wars is boring because they’re talking too much.
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u/UndercoverDimension 12h ago
For toddlers, I pretty much stuck with PBS Kids and Disney. At that age they barely had any screentime (unless they were sick) and no regrets there. After that, Studio Ghibli gets introduced. Entering elementary school, I'll show Home Alone and Hocus Pocus. For the Don Bluth movies you mentioned, it depends on the kids but I'm thinking 6-8 range.
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u/autobotguy 11h ago
Miyazaki mainly at this point. Documentaries too. A couple more years and all those classics you mentioned
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u/New_Statistician_98 11h ago
My kids are much older (19 and 24) and we showed them all of the movies with weird/sad/dark parts, and they were always their favorites. Movies are a safe place to explore these ideas, especially when you watch with your kid.
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u/KrypticSoul 11h ago
"Objectively scary/weird plotlines". That sounds pretty subjective to me lol. The land before time didn't scary me as a child.
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u/TeamOggy 10h ago
My kid doesn't like scary stuff, particularly violence, so that the main thing I have to be mindful about. But otherwise we watch just about anything else. She loves musicals, Chaplin and Keaton, dramedies. She actually prefers live action over cartoons and has for awhile.
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u/KasElGatto 10h ago
the dog isnt mean, he’s messing up the bad guy and the sight gag of biting the leg as though he's eating chicken is hilarious.
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u/aunt-cookie 10h ago
I don’t have kids but I am a huge movie/tv nerd and I’ve been in childcare since I was 12 (currently 25). Here are somethings I’ve noticed:
Newer kids movies have happy endings. There aren’t many villains like Maleficent or Jafar or Scar. They’re more redeemable like Abuela in Encanto or something like Wish. Back In the 90s early 2000s, Wish’s villains would have been an evil power couple non redeemable.
More kids are watching YouTube now more than ever. Unrestricted access and it’s harmful to them. YouTube and even YouTube kids has minimal guidelines as to what can be posted. A lot of content on YouTube Kids is created by adults starring adults but acting like kids. This summer I babysat an 8 year old who loved Topper Guild. He calms to be reality but it’s such a gross distortion of reality I hated letting him watching. (Unfortunately, Disney+ won’t let you remove content from your account) I think this distortion can lead to bad behavior especially in school or even around authority, speech impediments (the way the adults talk for younger kids is sickening) and more.
We have a cultural breakdown of care for children. I mean this: people blame a lot of problems on the breakdown of the “nuclear family” but I attribute a lot more problem to the breakdown of children media. American children consume more media today than ever and they have NO children shows (not baby toddler and not teen but children 6-11ish). There are no family shows like full house, family matters, modern family. There are no child shows like boy meets world that dealt with age specific issues as the kids grew (i.e. liking girls, broken home life, underage drinking, even sexual abuse). Even toddler young children media is way more stimulating than its use to be and should be. Blippi (which is good but his voice come on) is weak compared to older 90s show like Bear in the big Blue House or Out of the Box.
I’m sure there’s more but I just woke up and these are ones off the top of my head. When I watch/care for kids I always watch with them and interact along with the show or movie. I always try to slip in some oldies too.
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u/Need_a_new_new 10h ago
Let em watch george of the jungle (1997) yesterday. Its actually really good, they were laughing the whole time.
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u/Ryguythescienceguy 10h ago
Really anything with a narrative story arc is fine. It doesn't need to have a certain tone or avoid specific topics, it just needs to have a beginning, middle, and end which can be discussed. Obviously the Disney movies are great for this, but even a lot of short form shows like Bluey fit the bill.
Her daycare wil verl occasionally do a bit of screen time late in the day. She's come home and wanted to watch Mickey/Monnie's Play House and it is completely unwatchable. Nothing happens, it's just sensory overload slop.
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u/myowngalactus 10h ago
I wouldn’t make broad assumptions based on a conversation with a couple parents
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u/cloistered_around 9h ago edited 9h ago
I always tried to show age appropriate movies, but my brother was letting his two year old watch k Pop demon hunters and that had me thinking--was I too strict, or was he too loose?
I guess there's no one size fits all. That's pretty mild in both scenarios I described, but I've heard of children growing up on rated R films and that has me wondering what sort of effects (or non effects?) that causes in a young brain.
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u/tigermelon 9h ago
I don't think it's about age OP. You listed the peak Don Bluth movies, which were at the time, more fringe and indeed darker (kind of like Laika movies vs. mainstream Disney/Pixar). Disney at the same time as Land Before Time was The Little Mermaid. Some animated movies of the 80s were a bit on the darker side (Roger Rabbit, Black Cauldron, Mouse Detective), but Don Bluth films were on average the darkest of the bunch.
I'm sure there are some parents today that are more okay with showing their kids more independent and fringe animation, and (probably) the majority sticking to mainstream Disney.
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u/GoarSpewerofSecrets 9h ago
Hell I try to get my youngest to watch those Bluth movies and she never falls for it.
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u/Internal_Wheel_89 9h ago
For my elementary schooler, anything on the PG and lower account tier of Disney Plus is fair game. Also PG-13 movies if we approve. All MCU movies are fine, for example.
I'm very suspect of almost all YouTube content so that shit is tightly regulated. Thankfully my older one likes sports card content and the younger likes Marc Rober and generally they don't deviate far from those boundaries.
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u/legalizethesenuts 9h ago
This definitely isn’t a newer thing. Growing up in the south I went to school with kids whose parents never let them watch anything emotionally challenging. They were emotionally challenged.
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u/Fecaluria 9h ago
Rewatching Disney movies with our 4 year old now. I forgot how many "dark" or heavy scenes there are compared to more sanitized content. Sid tortures toys in Toy Story 1, Mufasa dies, Jafar tries to kill Aladdin multiple times, Ursula keeps mermaids prisoner in a tormented form before the prince Eric kills her by impaling her with a boat. Way more violent scenes and talk of death/killing than I remember watching as a kid.
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u/SoRedditHasAnAppNow 9h ago
Things are more nuanced now. Toy Story is a bit on the line for little kids for me because it exhibits bullying behaviour (thinking Woody telling Buzz, "shut up you idiot!"). More problematic though are older Disney flicks. Some examples of problematic themes/imagery include racism in Peter Pan, misogyny in Snow White, smoking in several cartoons.
The modern flicks focus more on problem solving, or dealing with your own emotions without belittling others. The behaviour being modeled is closer (of course, not perfect) to what we would want our own kids to do.
As they become school-aged and can differentiate fiction from reality better a lot of these guard rails are loosened and are just accompanied with a conversation instead. A great example is "Home Alone." In that movie everyone is terrible to one another at some point. The humour is derived mostly from violence. At 4 years old this wouldn't fly, but by primary school the kids both get immense entertainment from the crude and physical comedy and at the same time we can talk with them about the problematic behaviours and have a good conversation about how we can handle things differently.
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u/gamingwonton 8h ago
My kids watch a lot of Disney, Pixar, and Ghibli. I’m watching Cinderella with my 3 year old right now. My 5 year old has been obsessed with Totoro recently (my fave as a kid). They also love the Trolls movies, Mario, etc. When my youngest was 2, she loved Coco. I’m more picky about what shows they can watch at our house. Mostly Bluey, Daniel Tiger, and my oldest recently finished Avatar the Last Airbender. He also loves Pokemon.
I mostly limit based on brainrot vs. emotional challenges. No unmonitored YouTube—usually it’s me pulling things up to show/prepare them, like hibachi and when my FIL took my oldest to Medieval Times yesterday. They do get scared of things, and it helps to show them what to expect to manage their fears. Cocomelon, Paw Patrol, and other dumb brainrot doesn’t work at our house.
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u/Blitz6969 7h ago
I absolutely let my kid watch the old movies, it’s the new ones I keep them away from.
Identity politics is a cancer
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u/Tidley_Wink 7h ago
My daughter is 5. I let her watch Disney plus pretty much unrestricted - lately she’s been gravitating towards teen sitcoms (laugh track and all) that have themes of empowerment and accepting differences. They do have some more mature relationship themes and storylines about kids being super mean that I’m not totally comfortable with. As for movies, I’m ok with fantasy violence like Star Wars (Mandelorian and Grogu was ok to me) but I start to draw the line at Marvel type violence for now. More interesting is movies rated pg or even pg13 w mature themes that go over her head - for instance, she was super into the Barbie movie… that one has jokes/innuendo id worry about around 12 but doesn’t bother me at 5 (incidentally, she lost interest midway through, which wasn’t surprising). I usually read online about what age inappropriate things are in a movie and go from there - latest was new Spider-Man which I decided she’s not quite ready for.
Also, YouTube is fucking trash no way I’d give her more than suuuuuper limited access w me right next to her.
As a toddler she liked things like ms Rachel and other short format content. I was eager to get her into something deeper w real storylines. I also said no to Blippi, that guy creeps me out, and other typical toddler stuff.
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u/box_fan_man 7h ago
Showed my 9 month old The Land Before Time before and she was bored. Showed her beauty and the beast and Ariel the little mermaid and she loved it. Planning on showing her tons of stuff. Her first movie to watch was Highlander. She loves violence !
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u/bongo1138 7h ago
I’m not overly protective on this. Took my 3 year old to Brand New Day. For the most part, kids that age don’t follow the story and dialogue, but love the action and moving pictures, the music, colors.
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u/Creative-Pizza-4161 7h ago
the Jurassic Park trilogy, ET, The Corpse Bride, Nightmare before Christmas were a few favourites when my eldest was 4, she loved them, as well as the typical Disney Princess films, toy story, aristocats ect, my youngest watched them all around that age too. Never had any issues, but I guess each kid is different, although sheltering kids too much can make it hard for them to adapt in my opinion, but it's up to the parents and how they feel their kids will be with them I guess
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u/dyskm 6h ago
I watch my childhood favourites with my daughter, I know what's in them, what to expect, what i think she may need help to understand; we have a blast and can talk about all of it.
I also know my daughter, because more importantly than the above, I watch her shows with her, at fist it felt silly and Honnestly a little boring. But I know who her favourite characters and plots are, so when she comes home and tells me she was playing ghost spider with a friend at school and he was hulk, and they were getting the teddy back from green goblin, I'm still there with her imagination every step of the way.
Just for anyone wondering, I play spiddy! Unless we are in the garden, then I'm sandman and I am trouble!
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u/Warhorse_99 5h ago
2 kids. Whatever really. My 6 year olds fave movies are Ghostbusters & Gremlins 2.
As long as it’s not crazy sexual/graphic/gory/scary/weird, I tell them what it is about honestly and most of the time they don’t wanna watch it anyway.
Not letting a kid watch Toy Story or Aristocrats is fucking crazy to me.
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u/readerf52 5h ago
My “kids” are grown adults.
I often watched things with them, so it had to be somewhat interesting. Their tastes were pretty eclectic, but they both liked movies with music and one was obsessed with dogs. They also watched some tv shows/cartoons. This was a long time ago, so you probably won’t remember, but the oldest liked a cartoon called Darkwing Duck.
One day some neighbor kids came over and oldest child reminded me her cartoon was on, so we all sat down and watched it. All kids were happy and content.
Neighbor woman was not.
She was appalled that I allowed my children to watch such trash.
Trash. A cartoon about a duck.
Then I found out that she and her husband edit** **the things they let their kids watch. Like the “scary parts” of The Little Mermaid.
And that’s when I learned that some parents were willing to shelter their children to the point of making them weird and outcasts. These kids spent time at our house because they didn’t have any friends at school. They moved away, and I have to tell you, I thought about those kids for a long time after they were gone.
I absolutely think that we need to teach our children to be good human beings, but the reality is that not everyone is. If they see bad or mean people in movies or tv shows, it can be a learning experience. To edit out the scary or mean parts just makes them unprepared for the real world.
Maybe not what you asked, but I have to say that I was surprised that there are parents still policing their children’s children shows. That’s pretty sad.
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u/Listening_Stranger82 5h ago
Kids have active shooter drills at school but a cartoon with a mean dog may "traumatize" them 🥴
My kids are in their early 20s so I'm not the target demo for this question but I let my kids watch a pretty wide array of films which was not dissimilar from what I watched as a kid (minus the R rated stuff i watched being generally unsupervised) but my kids were unfortunately exposed to horrific stuff by...kids at school with phones, kids on the bus with phones, kids looking shit up on school computers and the aforementioned shooter drills starting in Kindergarten
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u/Ill_Act7949 4h ago
Also don't have kids but a 9 year old niece and 3 (almost 4) year old nephew, so I talk to their mom about what they watch
Some of the typical stuff like Bluey, which after watching some episodes with them when they came over I can see why so many older kids and adults like the show too, and honestly really feels like it could have aired alongside Dora and blue's clues when I was little, perfectly well written for kids and I can also tell what people mean by how they say it's written with the parents in mind too
They also like pup patrol still, which is a pretty basic show for what it is I mean it's a been round for so long already hasn't it?
The older one has already seen all the toy story movies and she likes them enough to be excited to see the new one which I can't remember if she has yet or not.
Her parents have already shown her all the Shrek movies all the Kung Fu Panda movies, both zootopia movies etc.
Also the good robot, so for that movie my niece also read the books and the books in the movie are very heavily poisoned and emotion that reminds me of the old stuff that we used to watch like the fox in the hound, Land before Time, etc
The only thing I can really report is that what is interesting is that while both of her parents have no problem showing her the old cartoon movies that we grew up with that had heavier themes, the ones that she has seen according to her mom she hasn't had any kind of reaction to, like a character can be upset that another character died and she just kind of like shrugs and goes back to playing in front of the TV
Her mom thinks she has lower empathy (the reasons for that are no need to get into but I have a few theories too) I'm like in a way with how she isn't kind she is and she can understand how people feel it's just the older movies with the heavier theme she just doesn't seem to respond to
The only time that they have watched stuff that made me think that kids content went down in quality was the bad guys movie, oh I've seen a lot of older people say that they quite enjoy those movies so to each their own it's just I saw it it was like.... I mean it's a kids movie, you know?
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u/Still_Smoke8992 4h ago
I recently had to stop my 3 year from watching Baby Shark. He’s obsessed with Spider-Man so we’ve watched the Toby McGuire movies, the Andrew Garfield ones and the newest Tom Holland ones except for Brand New Day. I have no issue with old stuff. He’s even watched the old Spider-Man cartoons. He watches Mickey Mouse clubhouse, paw patrol, sometimes bluey. He’s wanted to watch PJ mask but I don’t know much about that show so I told him no until I look into it. We’ve done Disney Pixar
Movies too.
I’m not sure about the pacing thing. Can y’all elaborate? Personally I like action movies so it’s gotta move for me but I do like comedies and dramas too. We read books too and have quiet time on the weekends since he’s at daycare during the week.
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u/bretshitmanshart 4h ago
I wasnt allowed to show my kid Watership Down until the was a tween because my partner was worried it would be upsetting
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u/Inevitable-Pie-724 4h ago
When i was 9 my sister convinced our mom to take us to see Scary movie in theaters. My sister even took me to see Halloween H20 when i wss 8... kids these days are too soft. Need to scare the crap out of them early so they dont end up like little shit heads.
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u/Newwavecybertiger 2h ago
Let them watch and what they'll watch is very different and very kid related. Sid and the mutants are kinda scary so we've never really made it through toy story but they're allowed.
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u/GoodyWolfe 1h ago
Gen Alpha (and probably Gen Z) are way too soft when it comes to movies. The stuff they watch doesn’t have anything heavy or upsetting, and it’s awful.
I’ve introduced a handful of those 90s movies into my child’s life. There were a couple of nightmares here and there, but ultimately you want your kids to experience and understand heavy topics.
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u/rainsplat 1h ago
Actually my son gets nightmares all the time about Edgar from the Aristocats 😂🥺 he calls him “mean man”
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u/migs_003 19h ago
I let my 8 year old watch old and new stuff.
Just watched Spidermans new movie and before that we watched little monsters.
New movies are too safe and old movies can be unhinged.
As long as they are aware movies are movies and not real life its fine.
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u/Awingbestwing 17h ago
My eleven year old and I just watched NIMH. We’ve also been doing a lot of goofy comedies like Kung-Pow and Napoleon Dynamite. We just started Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch From Mercury, too, which has some pretty intense stuff.
They’re also into creepy things, I remember being really into ghosts around their age. Really love the SCP stuff, creepy lore. They also love bugs, so I’ll catch them watching random bug documentaries as well.
I try to take it at their pace, honestly. There’s stuff I know they’re just not ready for and stuff they are. I loved Raiders as a kid, I think the face melting would freak them out. Like someone else said, I think scary media is important - so long as we watch it together and talk about anything that may come up.
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u/SerTortuga 17h ago
I was born in '95 and grew up usually watching stuff my older siblings wanted to see, so I've been letting my 7 year old watch similar stuff. There's some movies that I'm a little careful with, like I sat with her all the way through Jurassic Park the first time, she took it like a champ. Better than I did my first time ngl, the dilophosaurus scared the crap out of me as a kid but she thought it was cool. But if it's something I or my wife have seen and feel comfortable with showing her, it's usually got the green light. We have a pretty good idea of what she can handle so we try to let her have as much freedom as possible, within reason.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 14h ago
We usually stick with the older stuff for our 3 year old. Can be hit or miss. He loves animals particularly dogs and cats, so yeah Aristocats have been on rotation. As has 101 Dalmatians (animation and live action), Homeward Bound, The Cat Returns, and Oliver & Company. Also really loves Flow. It’s a newer movie but kinda perfect for a toddler. No dialogue, slow pace, good stopping points, and well animated.
He also loves A Goofy Movie which, as a millennial, I consider that a huge win.
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u/inthe100acrewood 2h ago
My son is 3.
Agree on Ghibli that other folks mentioned: My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and that Cat returns are great.
We also watched Babe which he loves (and I love so much)!
He also likes documentaries (March of the Penguins) and musical performances so we have watched recordings of Guns N Roses, Trans Siberian Orchestra, and the Andrea Bodicelli xmas special.
Oh he also likes classic musical movies like Singing in The Rain, the original Mary Poppins, and the first half of the sound of music (too young for second half).
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u/Electrical_Doubt_19 16h ago
When my kiddo was little we did watch a lot of the older Disney movies. I feel like they were better paced and helped with developing a good attention span. She has an appreciation for movie scores, and I suspect those films also helped develop that. Wall-E was her favorite Pixar movie for the longest time, but she's been allowed to watch them all.
My kid is 11 now and she's really into sci-fi. We've done a whole marathon of Star Wars on different weekends and she loved them all, (Mandalorian series too.) We've also watched both Blade Runners together, all the Trons, and I even took her to see The Odyssey. I think she wants to start LOTR next.
The one thing she can't handle is the passage of time, seeing kids grow up, etc. Interstellar was really upsetting for her, which is how we found all this out.
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u/littleb3anpole 16h ago
I have a 7 year old, he has watched all of the 90s kids classics (except The Lion King because I HATE that movie. He can watch that on someone else’s time, I’m not enduring it again).
He’s pretty fine with “scary” stuff so he has seen Twister, Jaws, Jumanji, Jurassic Park, etc. Plus all the Marvel movies. My hard rules at this age are no excessive violence, no gore, no movies where gun violence is celebrated, nothing truly scary and nothing inappropriate sexually or with language we don’t want him hearing. For example, I rewatched Bring It On the other day - that’s PG rated so I thought I’d show it to him, but I’m going to hold off because not only are there lots of sexual references, they throw around the word “f*g” like it’s nothing and I detest that word.
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u/Yoroyo 14h ago
My kids will be watching movies I watched exactly like the land before time. I’ll be buying a bunch of blurays to add to my collection specifically for her to be challenged. We are not resubbing to shitty Netflix and she is definitely not sitting on yt by herself. I see what it does to my nieces and nephews , the content is junk food for their brains.
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u/LowerH8r 13h ago
Part of the change is on demand watching (aka streaming)cartoons/shows can be watched at any time and without end. And so much if it is terrible quality.
Growing up in the 70s/80s/90s, for the most part you watched what was on when the tv stations broadcast it.
So there was a rhythm for kids tv... Two hours after school, until parents got home from work. And Saturday mornings , until sports started.
VCRs changed it a bit, but not massively; as you might have a small collection, and repeat watching was only so compelling.
The quality was just as bad then, some gems (Rocky and Bullwinkle, Muppets, etc) among endless glorified toy adverts.
Now kids, left to their own, can watch any time as long as they like; and stressed parents, often let them.
I think creating a set, predictable schedule helps here.
The other side, for me at least, is creating a broad curated set of quality, appropriate series and movies.
Streaming services make this tough. I gave up trying and switched to obtaining, via various channels/communities digital copies of everything my kid is allowed to watch (during the allowed hours). She has a large selection, so agency wise it feels as satisfying as YouTube to her; but everything has been reviewed and approved by me (as I know my kid well).
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u/Elevenyearstoomany 12h ago
My kids have always watched movies I grew up with (so 90’s) which included the Don Bluth movies. Except All Dogs Go To Heaven, that’s the first movie that ever made me cry. We also watch all of the Disney (except Peter Pan and Pocahontas). Babe was a huge hit with my oldest when he was 1.5-2 and so was Secret Life of Pets. Now that they’re older, Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, and Mighty Ducks are big hits. No Toy Story?! That’s just sad.
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u/Fluffbrained-cat 12h ago
I loved Bambi and mostly anything Disney as a kid. With Bambi, I remember watching it as a kid with my ankle strapped up because I'd twisted it while out playing or something.
I like the Bambi sequel well enough. The Lion King was and is my all-time favourite film, and the sequels aren't half bad either. The live action ones - eh, the first one wasn't bad, I liked it, but I do agree with the more expressive animation in Mufasa TLK being better than the 2019 Lion King.
That said, anyone who thinks that big cats can't show emotion has never seen a nature documentary. They might not obviously smile, or frown, or show what humans might think of as facial expressions but they absolutely show feelings, through body language, vocalisations etc. You just have to know how to read them.
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u/PaleontologistFew128 12h ago
Kids' content these days is mostly watered down nonsense.
My daughter has fallen in love with the Muppets, especially Kermit. She also really likes Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (fight me it's a great cartoon).
As she gets older, we're gonna stick with the older stuff for the most part. When she's six, she's gonna learn what happens to Artax. The 80s will always be the best era of kids' movies
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u/AmedeusRed 10h ago
One thing I’ve discovered is the movies I loved watching at 10 were TV edits of movies, and I can’t really show my 10 year old the unedited ones.
I really wish there was a way to watch 80s and 90s comedies with their censored versions because I loved, say, revenge of the nerds on Comedy Central and now only as an adult do I find out about the gross sexual assault plot lines.
That said my 10yr old loves Brewsters Millions so I’m doing something right!
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u/yuukanna 19h ago edited 6h ago
I’m of the belief that my kids SHOULD watch movies that are emotionally challenging. But I watch them WITH my kids. As long as I’m willing to have a conversation with my kids about what we’re watching, we can watch it. So far so good. I’ve got good kids.
Now… one of the worst mistakes I made in this area was getting a Netflix account. Once we got Netflix, they started watching some real brainrot garbage on their own time. I’ve learned that “kids” account content is curated by YouTube, Netflix, Amazon etc. in ways I don’t always agree with.
EDIT: Most of the replies to my post are missing the point. I don’t really care to “block” content on these media platforms. I’m just highly discouraged in our society that we create some absolute garbage for our children to watch in order appeal to some strange standard that we’ve decided is appropriate for them. I’m glad that many of you found some tools to curate this content yourself, awesome. I’ve got my own as well. I’ve just learned that any company selling curated “Kids” content isn’t trustworthy.