Ensuring Age Appropriate Movies For My Kids

Hello guys, Happy weekend to you all, trust you all are having a restful weekend.

I love watching movies a lot, it's one of the things I do to relax most times, I saw the Hivenaija prompt on movies, and it brought memories of how we (me and my siblings) used to watch movies growing up, and I felt like I needed to share my experience with you all.

How often did you see movies growing up? Did your parents play the role in guiding what you watch? If you have kids, are you guiding what they watch? And what do you think about movies rated 13 but are not really okay for 13 years old to see?

Growing up, my dad and aunty didn't like us to watch movies a lot, except once in a while when my aunt saw the movie and felt it was ok for us to watch it before she would watch it with us. That was how we got to watch movies comfortably most times, and it was mostly our traditional or rather local movies, they didn't like us watching white movies, to them it was filled with scenes that weren't child-friendly, but those were the ones we even preferred.

During those periods we watched movies most times using our DVDs or on satellite TV like the likes of DSTV and GOTV, but we did more of DVDs. So here's what we did, since they didn't want us watching most movies, we had to devise a means to watch the movies we wanted to watch without their knowledge.

All the rooms in our house had peculiar sounds they made when you open them 😂, I don't know if it was like that in most houses, but that was how it was in my house and we knew the sound of my dad's room door and also that of my aunt’s room. So we would buy our DVD tape, and start watching when it was just us in the living room, one person will sit close to the door that leads to the bedrooms and be on the lookout, once either of them just opens their door, that person will signal every other person with something we understood, which could be a whistle or a catchphrase and then the one who had the remote would quickly change channels😂😂 it didn’t end there, as we went the extra miles to start talking simultaneously just to cause commotion so the difference in the two movies wouldn’t be noticeable, trust me we never let our guards down😂

Thinking about the whole scenario now is making me laugh, because I wonder how we were able to pull all of that every time and without being caught. I don't think I remember them ever finding out our tactics. So yeah that's how we watched movies that we wanted to watch most times.

There were many restrictions in my home while growing up, now that I'm grown up, I appreciate some of them because they helped keep me and my siblings in check, but I feel like if our parents had communicated to us the reasons behind what they were doing, dialogue and negotiate some things with us before making some of those decisions, we would have l understood their stance and also obey the rules willingly to an extent, but that wasn't the case as it was either their way or the high way.

Well, now I know better if I am to start having my children today, there will definitely be restrictions to the kind of movies they watch obviously, but I will make them understand why I am telling them not to watch some things, so if they go outside or when I'm not there with them, and they are faced with an option to do or something that would not be good for them, they know not to watch and why they shouldn't.

I think communication is underrated. When learning to communicate, I think we should also learn how to communicate with kids because if you don't know how to communicate with them regarding some things that you've put your feet down against them doing, they would begin to see you as a wicked person, especially when it's a craze among their pairs.

Another thing I would do as a parent is to also join them in watching most movies or shows they watch, even those ones that are rated 13, because these days some movies or even cartoons that they say are children friendly, if you watch them, you see some elements that aren't supposed to be consumed by children.

So yeah these are some of the things I would do differently as a parent, although I know talk is cheap, it's easier said than done, but I'll do my best to point my children in the right direction when I have them.

Thanks for stopping by🌹

All images are mine except otherwise stated

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