
The Nerd Parent’s Guide: When and how to introduce your kids to Star Wars - shawndumas
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheNerdParentsGuideWhenAndHowToIntroduceYourKidsToStarWars.aspx
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jiggy2011
Why not just let them discover it for themselves like they would any other
movie?

It's a famous movie about spaceships , aliens and lasers; I had parents with
no interest in Sci Fi and I still saw it by the time I was 9, as well as
playing all the old school SW video games (XWing, Rebel Assault , Tie
Fighter).

What always surprised me is that the star wars films have a "U" rating here in
the UK (which means suitable for everyone) rather than at least a PG (meaning
suitable for older children with parental discretion) considering the amount
of violence.

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FilterJoe
You ask: Why not let them discover it for themselves?

In our social circles, many kids see Star Wars before age 5 and most have seen
it by age 6. For many, that will be their first exposure to violence and evil.
Depending on your values around violence (graphic or otherwise) and evil, you
might want your kids to discuss and assimilate what they're seeing in a
thoughtful manner.

~~~
shanselman
Exactly. Star Wars was coming up at school literally every day. This was their
first exposure to anything close to "evil" and certainly their longest
exposure to guns/blasters. It's a War Movie, no question. Going from zero
violence to two hours of violence without explanation is a lot for a little
mind. I just chose to eek it out in bits and provide context.

The best part of this experiment/experience was that we ended up talking in
aggregate for at least 3x longer than the length of the movie. A _lot_ of good
discussions came out of this that wouldn't have had we shown the movies all at
once. Little people need time to absorb, consider, argue, dream and understand
complex stuff.

~~~
jiggy2011
It seems surprising that Star Wars was so many peoples first introduction to
anything violent or "evil". I remember watching things like Ninja Turtles, He
Man and even Loony Tunes cartoons which all contained violence and villains
long before SW.

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shanselman
Funny that you mention Ninja Turtles as both boys watched the 90s live action
version of TMNT and while there's a lot of ersatz kung fu neither of them
thought of the bad guys as truly malevolent and weren't put off by the
violence. I think it's the introduction of guns/blasters and swords that are
demonstrated to do real damage where things get dodgey.

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tibbon
While I appreciate the amount of thought and effort he's putting in here, I'm
not entirely convinced that its needed based on my own experience and
childhood.

The first movie I was ever exposed to in the theatres (note, I didn't say
'watched' since I was a whole 8 months old) was Return of the Jedi. During the
remainder of the 80's as I grew up, I was well familiar with Star Wars. I had
some of the action figures, and the original trilogy was frequently aired in
our house. By the age of 5, I could almost recite the scripts.

Nothing was cut. Han shot first. Ponda Baba lost his arm in the Cantina. My
father loved horror, scifi and fantasy and wanted to share it with me.

Parents today seem way too concerned with shielding their children from the
world. I'm glad in the 80's that my parents didn't. By the time I was 6, I had
my own pocket knife, soldering iron (lead solder too!), chemistry set, etc. My
parents _never_ censored/monitored my computer use (largely because they knew
it wasn't possible). I was online in some capacity (BBS, Compuserv, etc) at a
very young age. Never had any problems.

Disclaimer: I am not a parent. I hear things change when you are.

~~~
rwhitman
Agreed. I definitely watched star wars in its entirety including the entire
cantina scene at least by the age of six. The dark parts were disturbing but I
don't think they were a problem.

There's an important early lesson these helicopter parents are losing by not
exposing kids to a little PG movie violence, that my parents explained to me
well - its fantasy movie violence for entertainment and not real. God forbid
one of these kids goes over to a friends house who has less supervision and
they pop in a DVD of _Hostel_ or something. With all the violence and gore in
modern movies its probably a pretty good idea to prepare them for all the crap
they're going to get exposed to later in life

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tibbon
Perhaps slightly OT, but I think its easy for us as adults to thing we'll
'know' what our children will find scary or disturbing. The two film scenes
from me being 5-6 that I remember always scaring me were things that most
adults wouldn't probably find that scary. They were Bruce Banner turning into
the Incredible Hulk and the Jabberwocky scene from Alice in Wonderland.

Children are complex, and I think rarely can we assume to know what they'll
think. Its why we laugh so much when they say funny things- we can't predict
them.

~~~
shanselman
Very true. In this case I assumed that burnt bodies of parental figures and
traumatic amputations were too much for a 4 year old. It's possible he could
have not sweated that at all and been freaked out by the Jawas. Parenting is a
gentle balance and a series of judgement calls.

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jgrahamc
I don't really get this at all.

I saw Star Wars when it came out, at the cinema, and it was great. But that
was 35 years ago. There have been a ton of films made since then and the
original Star Wars is OK, but nothing great. It should just be one film among
many that children get to see.

If I were a teen today then I'd likely think of the Harry Potter films as the
defining films of my childhood and maybe when I grew up I'd be deciding on
when to tell my children about Harry Potter and working out how to watch them
etc. Or perhaps it would be some of the Pixar films.

I enjoyed Star Wars when I was a child; but today's children don't need to be
introduced to it as if it were some sacred document.

~~~
shanselman
Sure, I never said it was a defining film (although it's arguable so), only
that my kids were super-interested in it and that they'd been pushing to watch
it. My thoughts were to wait until they were older to see them as they are
VERY intense compared to the Pixar movies they've already seen. Given that
they REALLY wanted to see Star Wars I decided to show them in a controlled
way, that's all.

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nodata
Don't. Let your kid have his own childhood, they don't have to relive yours.

~~~
TheBoff
Just because the Star Wars films are old, doesn't mean they're not great
entertainment. Why should they be forbidden from watching them if the kids are
of a suitable age, and they want to watch them?

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nodata
I never mentioned forbidding anything.

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Symmetry
Interesting, especially because it gives a pointer to the excellent idea of
Machete Order: <http://static.nomachetejuggling.com/machete_order.html>

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FilterJoe
Our kid had us read to him every part of the Star Wars story multiple times
before we just let him watch #4 a week ago. It accomplished the main objective
laid out in this nice article: Timing it so they're able to "discuss and
analyze the themes appropriately."

I too feel movie #1 is one to skip, but for a different, simpler reason: It's
about political maneuvering, which is very difficult to explain to kids. My 7
year old son still doesn't fully get it after reading the book several times
and me attempting to explain in several different ways why Palpatine's
strategy was so effective (cause wars in order to steadily increase his
power). He needs a foundation of more basic political concepts before he can
get these subtleties. My wife even had trouble understanding the movie when
she first saw it. Without understanding what the story is about, it has the
feel of random mayhem.

Back to the main point: There's indeed a lot of violence and our family was
one of the last holdouts among peers. We knew many kids who had seen Star Wars
before the age of 5, and we also know a lot of kids who think of killing and
violence as trivial everyday things. Like the author of this post, we didn't
want our kid to be brought up like that so we went through he effort of
reading and thoroughly discussing the books.

edit: minor cleanup

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maxerickson
Alternatively, the rise of Palpatine _is_ contrived.

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Destroyer661
This guy's kids are 4 and 6 and they don't use the computer OR play video
games? Tough for me to take this seriously when Star Wars seems more
developmentally important to him than essential technologies that will help
his kids succeed.

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mendicant
Children's minds are built to soak in information. You could wait until a kid
was 10 to introduce them to computers and they would still blow your mind with
what they could figure out and do.

I highly doubt that holding off on video games and computers will be a
detriment in the long run.

~~~
shanselman
I'm counting on that.

