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I can’t lie, we’re a Disney family. From the very beginning, my daughter and I could cuddle up and watch The Jungle Book or The Sword and The Stone at absolutely any time. There’s just something so wholesome and sweet about Disney. I may not love the Disney merchandising machine, but I will always be a fan of the movies themselves. Our collection is pretty substantial.
That doesn’t mean that my daughter has seen every scene in every Disney movie. There are actually a few that she’s missed out on, and will probably continue to miss until she’s a bit older. Call me overprotective if you must, but there are some Disney scenes that I just don’t think we’re ready for.
I realize that Maleficent, as the fiery dragon, is a huge and important part of Sleeping Beauty. I’m not arguing that the movie should have been done differently. I just choose not to let me daughter see the more terrifying aspects of fire and brimstone. She’s four, after all. She’s just not ready for it. And she’s not the only villain that I censor.
I have a whole list of Disney most traumatizing scenes that my little girl never sees. Someday, these movies might take on a whole new meaning for her. But I can’t be the only one. I know you guys skip through the tear-inducing parts, right? Are there any upsetting scenes that I missed?
I totally understand not showing certain parts but as a young kid I would ask or react to certain parts which is where I fast forwarded it. And honestly mufasa dying was not as traumatic as Scar’s creepy song to me. Your daughter is probably sensitive enough to let you know when she doesn’t want to see something. Don’t overprotect her because my sister was and like someone said in the comments is unable to watch anything because she cannot determine between fact and fiction enough–she is 14! She understands its fake but she cannot handle any facts of life. I am not trying to be mean at all. I understand your desire. My mom carefully guarded me–I was not allowed to watch Ursula’s song or other parts where I just didn’t watch like Scar’s song and the ending sequence with Jafar in Alladin. My mom also did not let me watch malificent.
Wow, I can’t believe all the negative comments. I can totally get the author not wanting her daughter to watch those scenes. What is WRONG with the commenters who don’t get that? You think she is raising her child to be sheltered and overprotected if she screens out the upsetting scenes? Really? She’s FOUR. Wish more people would think twice about exposing their kids to all kinds of things – it’s called PARENTING, people. To the author, I think you need to find a kinder blog site that parents of a higher caliber will be reading – you’re a good writer, now you just need a good audience
Thats kinda ridiculous. I watch Disney movies like that with my little brother and sister (who are 6 and 4) and they are perfectly fine with all of the scenes….. I don’t see how your child could even understand the movie without any of these scenes ESPECIALLY with mufasa’s death and many others. The movie wouldn’t even make sense. How do you explain where Mufasa went, or why Simba is so upset later in the movie? I will agree with you on the whole Pinnochio thing with “pleasure island” I had watched that movie when I was little, but didn’t really get it until I was older. But that didn’t stop my mom from letting me watch these movies when I was little and it doesn’t stop me from letting my little siblings watch them now. My siblings know that stuff like that happens sometimes, but it’s JUST a movie. Shoot, I was watching Friday the 13th and Childs Play at her age. (though I do have a weird fear of dolls)
I’ve come out just fine.
Ok, I respect that this is how you’ve chosen to deal with this. I wonder if maybe your child isn’t the one uncomfortable by these scenes, but its you. My parents never fast forwarded through scenes, I saw all of them…and I’m fine.
Mufasa’s death made me cry…I STILL cry! But its an important scene in the movie. And the scene with the wolves in Beauty and the Beast? Really? That’s also like the turning point in the movie where Beast starts to care. Out of all the scenes in Fantasia, I’m surprised that is the one you censored. The extinction of the dinosaurs actually happened, why shelter your child from that? It’s not like you have to have a deep discussion on what happened to them. Do you also censor The Land Before Time in its entirety? That movie was sad too, I was really young when it came out, and I cried when Little Foot’s mother died. But to this day the first movie is still one of my favorites. And yes, I still cry when Little Foot’s mother dies lol.
Madame honestly there were more frightening parts in other movies than disney – only one that scared me most was the black cauldron (And Cruella’s crazy face and monstruo). but how can anyone find that donkey scene scary?!
Strange you didn’t put Chernobog’s segment as scary for kids or the shadow demons from Princess and the frog? Especially Facilier’s death looked like something out of “Ghost” with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.
My younger sister watched these flicks and the only thing she did was ask nonstop obvious questions during family movies.
And my siblings grew up with dark elements like DWduck and SK – we were just too oblivious. Plus in the last uicorn we were too fascinated with the unicorn and her turning into a very pretty girl to be afraid fo the Red bull or th harpy.
I watched all those scenes in those movies at 4 years old and don’t remember them upsetting me. You just need to teach kids the difference between real and fake. It’s all part of life. You can’t shield them from everything and a simple cartoon is not going to scar them.
I think you’re being way too overprotective. When I was little (like 3-8) my favorite movie was Sleeping Beauty, and we never skipped any of it. The only movie scene I wasn’t allowed to see was Bambi’s mother getting shot (my mom would always fast forward), which sucked because it was a total surprise when my grandmother babysat and we watched that movie, since grandma didn’t know to skip it! On the other hand, my father didn’t seem to understand that some shows weren’t appropriate for little kids, so when he watched something my brother and I did, too. That’s how I wound up seeing X-Files, all the Alien movies, and It by six years old (admittedly, I still hate clowns and my brother’s still terrified of spiders, but I don’t know if I can blame It for that; clowns are just creepy).
This is ridiculous in my opinion. If you shelter your child from pain and upsetting situations while they are young will make it harder for them to deal with traumatic situations when they are older. This will make your child very sensitive and as a result more prone to bullying. Children need to learn when they are young that sometimes something bad will happen and that it’s natural to feel upset about it. Please realise that sheltering your children too much can have devastating effects in later life, trust me when I say that it’s not something your kids will thank you for in later life.
It’s so weird ,Alex,that you could say my child is “overprotected” and “sheltered” b/c I didn’t choose to expose her to Disney-brand entertainment before kinder.That’s like saying a child will go unsatisfied if they don’t eat Doritos-brand snacks..I choose to READ TO HER:BOOKS by Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson,all the classic scary fairytales minus the bombast and manipulation of the Disney machine.Guess what else has life and death ? Nature! And for excitement? Travel! and not living under a rock.But your right ,having a young toddler sit passively in front of a t.v for 2 hours is the way to go.
My father died when I was 9. The Lion King also came out when I was 9 and I saw it pretty soon after his death. Honestly, if I had been as sheltered and overprotected as it appears your child will be, I probably would have killed myself after seeing that scene. Kids need to understand grief, scary things, and things that make them uncomfortable. They need an explanation, and not to be shielded from every bump in the night. Pick your battles – even among Disney, I can think of scenes worse than these. Life is about learning, even for a 4 year old.
Why do 4 year old need to be watching movies? Books are actually a much more developmentally appropriate way to introduce these ideas:It’s easier to gauge a child’s reaction in the real-time unfolding of a book being read by a family member.Films are,first of all,fast loud with quick edits,they are LONG (in terms of attention span).Ages 6,7 and beyond are great for feature-length films,but there’s seriously no rush to shove the Disney canon down your pre-schoolers brain.Relax,Disney isn’t going anywhere.
It’s your child, do what you want. I’m surprised you didn’t put Finding Nemo in there. We went to watch with our 4 and 5 year olds, in the theater. After the opening scary scene where mom dies, one couple grabbed their preschoolers and ran out of the theater in horror! I wonder now if they ever saw the movie and thought they acted a bit foolishly. I will say that for the past 13 years they’ve been the butt of jokes in my family. There have been scary parts in movies for years, but I can’t recall a Disney movie that was only scary; most have the scary scene at one part of the movie, that helps explain the rest of the happy story. Try them out. These movies are a great way, as others have said, to open up conversations about death/sadness, and overcoming what could be overwhelming depression (Nemo lives a great life being raised by a single father, as does Bambi, Belle passes on her beautiful personality to the Beast, Simba regains his rightful place on the throne with a lovely wife and saves the pride). True, in most families, kids will never have to deal with loss of a close relative (divorce or death); mine haven’t. At 4 your child is young enough that it’s not shocking to me that you’d hide those movies. However, as she gets older, it would be nice to give her the chance to learn the happy parts too.
I’m a little late to this party, but I agree it’s being a little extreme.
I realize this is a very personal-specific reason, but my grandma raised me. Not that my mom was unfit or anything, I was just closer to grandma and had severe night terrors and fears as a kid (yet I still managed to watch and deal with all the scenes mentioned, and I was/am as sensitive as a kid can get. I cried because I thought Radcliffe must have been SO UNCOMFORTABLE when they chained him up in Pocahontas) and grandma handled it better.
We were super close, it was just the two of us after my grandpa passed and she was everything to me. She liked Disney too, so we watched them all the time. I always thought that she looked just like the old lady in Fox and the Hound… and when she died when I was 10, that scene killed me. But the song was so fitting and beautiful, and I could remember how much she loved the movie and it’s just as comforting as it is painful. My fiance feels similar with the Lion King, having lost his dad to cancer as a child.
You’re raising your kid to be a pansy.
To the author, good luck in raising your child to be as oversensitive and easily spooked as you obviously are.
When I was a kid I watched all these movies, plus other “scary” movies like The Dark Crystal and even the tail end of Aliens without any fear of “trauma”.
This is ridiculous. Facing fears that aren’t real is a fun part of childhood. Are you going to ban ghost stories at slumber parties too?
92 days ago
[...] moms find some children’s movies too scary or too gloomy, for example on Mommyish Lindsay Cross writes “Call me overprotective if you must, but there are some Disney scenes that [...]
There seems to be this concept by the comments that because a film is animated by Disney it is appropriate for their child.
These films HAVE RATINGS. G is for general audiences. (CAn anyone remember the last time a G film came out?) PG is parental guidance suggested.
I personally don’t think 3 year olds need to be wasting time watching movies. I remember when Wizard of Oz was on tv, it was edited and yet an event!
I watched Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, Electric Company and Wonder Woman on the regular until I got older. Lots of adult tv shows were pretty dopey back then too. I watched reruns of BeWitched, I Dream Of Jeanie and Gilligans Island with little upset. (Other than wondering why the husbands were so controlling.)
I watched the Black Cauldron when I was 11? or so in the theater and my girlfriend and I were SO horrified by the violent scene with the pig, we were in tears until the end of the film!
My mom was MAD and Disney had a lot of parents angry after that film came out because that scene was too intense for kids.
Kids watch way too much tv today. Let them learn from playing and using their own imaginations.
I thought this would be about all of the racism and xenophobia in Disney movies, but seriously!? This is ridiculous.
If someone was going to complain about Fantasia, I’d think it’d be the racist Centaur scene, no? Yes, it was a different time, I love Disney and take a lot of the older movies with a grain of salt by keeping that in mind but come on. If anything in that movie needs to be censored, it’s that scene.
With that said, I don’t agree at all with this kind of censorship. I think you end up raising sheltered, over-sensitive kids with too much censorship. For the most part, Disney movies have good messages in them, moral stories, life lessons and all that and fast-forwarding a more difficult scene is not going to do your kids any good in the long run. I don’t imagine them saying, “Gee, I’m so glad mom fast-forwarded that scary part in ‘Beauty and the Beast!’” when they’re 20.
My 7.5 year old son has cried at a handful of movies, ‘Marley and Me’, ‘Armageddon’ and ‘The Lion King’ being the biggest tearjerkers for him so far. I’m pretty sure it’s not doing emotional damage and actually might be doing him some good to know that life is not always sunshine and lollipops but also to feel for others and experience empathy for something outside of himself, if only through a film.
If there’s anything within a movie that strikes a chord, distrubs your kid or makes them sad, then you could always, I don’t know? Have a conversation with your kid to explain the where and what for about what they’ve seen. It could be another good chance to bond and learn with your kids and impart some of your own values and morals on them. When you fast-forward those movies, you’re skipping over the chance to do just that.
Aren’t you almost guaranteeing that your child will be shocked and mortified by these scenes by delaying her exposure to them?
It’s wonderful that your child has never had to personally experience grief, or death, or loss, but if she is at least been exposed to people who have (even in cartoon form) it will make it a lot easier for her to understand by the time it does happen to her.
I lost a friend in kindergarten and when my mum explained to me he was killed in a car accident, I knew exactly what death meant. Probably because just about every Disney character had lost a parent or two. I think you are seriously underestimating your child’s intellect and coping abilities, or you’re underestimating your own ability to communicate openly and honestly with her.
P.S. You’re also setting her up for some serious mocking by her peers. Even 5 year olds talk about movie plot lines.
you’re totally right. it should also be a law that every child must watch the ‘saw’ series and a bunch of hardcore pornography before they turn 5 so that they won’t be too surprised by sex and violence later in life.
/end sarcasm.
obviously, i’m exaggerating; these scenes aren’t nearly as intense as the ‘saw’ movies or porn, but they are still pretty creepy, especially for the MAJORITY of little kids.
it’s great that you were able to handle the concept of death as a very young child (and i’m not disagreeing that it’s an important thing to understand, even when you’re young), but there’s dozens of different ways to teach kids about the bad things in life. who are you to tell this mother what the best way is for her kid? i’m pretty sure she knows her child better than you do.
and honestly? even if you’re right and the daughter can handle it, it’s better to shield her from it now than show it to her when she isn’t ready. it’s usually a good idea to err on the side of caution when it comes to things that could be traumatic or, at the very least, quite upsetting.
p.s. did you really just advise this mom to let her daughter do something just so she wouldn’t get teased by her FIVE YEAR OLD friends? i really hope you don’t use that argument when your own kid has grown up a bit and tells you all of her friends are drinking or smoking or having unprotected sex.
I absolutely agree with you on the Lion King scene, I was 6 when I first saw it and it tore me to pieces I couldn’t stop crying and they had to call my mother to pick me up because I wouldn’t stop. To this day when I watch that scene I still break down and cry even seeing the picture makes me want to cry, so I completely agree with that my kid won’t be watching that scene for a while.
My parents filtered the Disney movies like that for us, and it was very upsetting because of two reasons. One, we felt like they didn’t trust us, and two, it often made the rest of the movie confusing, because we had missed a vital scene.
I don’t shield my kids from scenes like that because I want them to see that life is full of confusing things and uncertainty and death, but that fear doesn’t have to control us. I want to talk about that stuff with my kids, I want them to be comfortable talking to me. My older son, who is 3 1/2, loves superhero shows like Batman and Spiderman. Unfortunately, that means a lot of death and fist fights and bombs going off. We watch them together and we talk about how those are bad people who are hurting others, and that the superheroes are allowed to beat them up because they are good guys and work with the police. Granted, it’s kind of a basic explanation, but it’ll do for now. After seeing some of those shows, he decided he wanted to be a firefighter, because firefighters (his words) “get to fight fires and sometimes scary people and they save lives”. I asked him why he didn’t want to be a superhero and he looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Mom,” he said. “Superheroes aren’t real. Firefighters are real.” Even at 3 1/2, he knows what is real and what isn’t, and he’s comfortable talking about it.
I’m far from perfect, but I would call that successful parenting.
As a kid, I LOVED it when things got a little scary or really emotional. I was never, ever terrified by a children’s movie, and I’ve been watching movies for as long as I can remember. My parents shielded us from the last segment of Fantasia (Night on Bald Mountain) but when I finally saw it (when they weren’t watching, heehee), I was more shocked by the exposed breasts on the harpies than I was by the scary visuals.
Maybe you should test what your daughter is able to handle instead of just assuming that she’s as squeamish as you are about sad or spooky stuff.
I watched them with my brother and sister, I let my kids watch them. Nobody has ever gotten scared or upset.
I used to be terrified of Ursula when I was a child. I was even scared enough that my older sister and brother would chase me around the house waving the Little Mermaid VHS at me.
I survived anyway…somehow…
I did show Lion King to my 3 and 5 year old, and it was actually that Simba ended up seperated from his family that upset my son (5 yr old) more than Mustafa’s death itself. You dont know what will bother them or not, so its hard to sensor before hand
but i agree there are some whole movies that get more appropriate with age.
96 days ago
[...] Mommyish contributor Lindsay Cross watches a lot of Disney movies with her kid, but she fast-forwards through some of the…. Do you censor the scary/sad parts of family movies? Which ones? We remember Maleficent when she [...]
When it comes to Disney, I don’t filter. Not only because I don’t want to overshelter my (2.5-year-old) son, but because it is IMPOSSIBLE to predict what things are going to upset kids.
Like, my boy can watch all of “The Lion King”, “The Little Mermaid”, and “Beauty and the Beast” just fine. Doesn’t faze him. But the scene in “Finding Nemo” where the diver comes and takes Nemo off the reef? My kid will go into a shaking fit of terror at that scene.
We also always skip the first 20 minutes of “Up!”, because it’s too depressing for my husband and I, though it doesn’t seem to bother my kid.
Maybe, instead of never showing your daughter these scenes, you can let the movie play as normal the first time, and then, in the future, fast-forward through any of the parts that bother her. It’s the strategy we’ve employed, and all we ever have to do is skip through about 40 seconds of “Finding Nemo”. Much easier than trying to censor entire chunks of movies.
Yeah, I agree with 1st-Time Mommy. When we were little my sister was fine with the scene in The Little Mermaid where Ursula gets all huge and crazy. But for whatever reason, the part in Under the Sea where the blowfish “blows” made her burst into tears. (We still tease her about it.)
You can never tell what’s going to upset a kid and what they’ll be fine with.
Agreed. When I was a kid there was a music video on Sesame Street that frightened me more than anything in the world. It was the “Wet Paint” video. I have absolutely no idea why it scared the bajeebus out of me, but it did. LOL
My scene was always the part in Alice in Wonderland where she’s crying in the woods with all the creepy little things. I haven’t watched that movie in YEARS, but I’d get up and leave the room (I was about 5 years old) when I knew that part was coming.
Honestly, your a little crazy.
Its a movie….
I would say to stop fast-forwarding & try letting her watch the entirety of these films– that way, you can get a sense (by her reactions) of what will really be “too much” for her to handle. I watched all of these as a kid, and honestly, I feel as if they’re actually more uncomfortable to watch from an adult perspective.
this really made me laugh, remembering when I was a kid watching these. Oh my god, pinocchio and dumbo were so so so so traumatizing, much more than Bambi. I won’t even get into Mufasa’s death, which still makes me cry.
You know, I used to love peter pan, but I remember an overall feeling of melancholy whenever the lost boys came in, because they didn’t have parents. I remember this so vividly, I didn’t want to be one of them, I felt so so so so sorry for them.
As for skipping the sad bits, I’m guessing the writer said it as a joke, not literally. I can’t wait to watch these movies with my son when he’s old enough, so he can look at me disapprovingly while I bawl my eyes out.
Uhm, no. I do not “skip through the tear inducing parts.” I grew up watching these movies– including all the sad/scary parts– and my child can watch them, too. I mean, they’re Disney movies for heaven’s sake. Not Saw.
This reminds me of the story of how Harry Potter was turned down by many publishers who claimed that a children’s book could not start with the death of the main character’s parents. Many adults underestimate what children can handle. Fortunately, there is always someone who stands up for them and that’s when magic happens.
Oh my giddy god’s pajamas. That is just wacky. When does she get to watch them? When she’s 18? They’re kids’ movies for poop’s sake. I was a dramatic thing and loved all the death and grief. I’d be draped across the jungle gym going, “No… save… yourselves… It’s… too late… for……. m—–” *DEAD*
How, pray tell, do you deal with dinosaurs? Have you managed to avoid them entirely? Do you tell her they’re not real? I don’t understand how you could get away with this with dinos everywhere (granted I work in a Natural History Museum so perhaps I’m not the best judge of kiddie dino saturation–but Dinosaur Train seems pretty popular).
Oh, I’ve just realized! This must mean no Land Before Time for her, too. Oh man, I still lose it when he sees that shadow and thinks it’s his mom.
I also think you’re being overprotective. Here’s a quote from Walt Disney himself that reflects my own thoughts on this subject:
“Both my study of Scripture and my career in entertaining children have taught me to cherish them. But I don’t believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn’t treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should.
Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil, and that is what our pictures attempt to do.”
Now, THAT quote from walt disney makes the most sense out of any of the remarks written on this poor woman’s post! Come on—She really ought not be ridiculed or scorned for what she’s trying to do–which is what we’re all trying to do, right–? –Raise our kids the way we think best?
Give her a break, people– we’ve all gone a bit overboard in the overprotection dept with our first kid, haven’t we??
It’s not our place to judge, though she DID ask for it by posting in the first place! LOL
Best wishes, dear…you’ll calm down soon enough…especially after you have one or two more kids. By then, you’ll just be happy they’re quiet and absorbed for a couple of hours…even if it is with those darn evil disney flicks!
Not letting your four year old watch the “scary” parts of a Disney movie is a little extreme. By letting her view them it would open the lines of communication. Your just not letting her see that good is stronger than evil.
This is weird to me. If the film is too scary, just don’t show it? Or talk about it first? Incidentally, little kids LOVE to be scared in a “fairytale” kind if way, why do you think these films and things like Grimms fairytales are so popular?
I totally agree shielding your kids from these. My 5 year old isn’t ready for scenes like those. If he hears sad music it’s tear inducing, and not because I’m keeping him from living life. Some lessons of life aren’t neccesary for young kids. I don’t want my 2 and 5 year old crying because someone died or being scared from a scary scene. It isn’t shielding them from life when those situations aren’t reality or at least not in a normal family. Kudos.
So people don’t die in “normal” families? My grandmother died unexpectedly when I was five and I VIVIDLY remember my mother explaining it to me using Mufasa’s death, which I had seen and understood. To say sad or scary things don’t happen in “normal” families is ridiculous. No one ever thinks those things will happen to them. But bad things do happen every day. It’s called LIFE.
So instead of using these scenes as starters for difficult conversations, you’re going to pretend they don’t exist at all? What kind of life are you setting your child up for?
I agree, my parents used traumatic events in books and movies as ways to start difficult and interesting conversations with my sister and me for as long as I can remember, and I think it made us both more interesting and thoughtful people than we would otherwise have been. Sheltering a child from things that might disturb them is only setting them up for a very rude awakening later in life. Besides, what better way to explore the ugliness of the world than a movie that is ultimately harmless?
Wow….and people thought I was crazy when I commented on her post about finding the perfect treat for her child to bring to pre-school.
Seriously, special snowflake much?
I’m sure you love your daughter very much but to be honest I think you might be doing more harm than good…
i understand why these scenes are scary, but i think movies from Disney allow for a dialogue to open up between very young kids and their parents. its easier to talk about death with cartoon characters than with their own father, right? and death is a fact of life, just like people with bad priorities (cruella devil), kids that are never disciplined (pleasure island), and people that are the targets of others’ hatred (snow white). i think of them as a modern-day parables to illustrate principles.
This reminds me of that episode of Friends where Pheobe had never seen any of the sad parts of movies like Bambie and Old Yeller. I wondered then and am curious now how these movies make sense to your daughter without the scenes in them? My four year old will not watch Disney movies because she finds them scary, but I let that be her decision and I don’t fast forward through the scary parts for her. When she’s old enough to watch the whole film she’ll watch the film, until then there are plenty of other great movies for her to watch.
One other thing concerned me: have you guys really not talked about things like extinction? My daughter loves going to the Museum of Natural History and besides the blue whale (who doesn’t love the blue whale?) her absolute favorite is the dinosaurs. Not only does she know about animals that have been extinct for millions of years, she also spends enough time at the zoo to know that plenty of her favorite animals could disappear in her lifetime if we don’t take care of the Earth. She finds that news upsetting, but in a get up and do something kind of way, which I think is sort of great.
I think you’re much better off discussing the sorts of hard topics you are now trying to avoid with your daughter. That way at least YOU get to control the conversation.
“Yes, it was very sad when the guy stopped drawing the deer!”
Or something to that effect…
I can not watch Old Yeller without dissolving into giggles (awful, I know!) picturing Lisa Kudrow’s reactions as Pheobe watches the ending of the movie for the first time.
@Jen- I can’t even remember the last time I saw Old Yeller but when I think of it I not only remember Phoebe’s reaction but Family Guy’s take on it as well…
Have you seen it?
Helicopter-Mom-in-the-worst-way, you cannot protect your daughter from life.
Do you really need to wrap your child in bubble wrap AND cotton wool?
You are being too overprotective. I watched these movies as a child and I came out fine, along with my 3 other siblings. If you are afraid of barely scary scenes in Disney movies then the real world is going to be tough for her to go into.
As a film lover, Disney geek, and former toddler (ha ha), I really think that is being too overprotective! Your daughter is three, right? I had seen all of those movies by then, with absolutely no problems. My mother found Disney quite useful in explaining the death of my grandmother (although I did think she had been killed by wildebeests for a while). Your child has to grow up just like any other, and learn the whole picture of life. Everyone has to have sad moments sometimes!
I really think you are doing her a disservice, in the end, as you are simply putting off things that will have to come up, and may not be handled by you. What if she sees one of those movies at a relative’s house?
I honestly feel sorry for your little girl, missing out on great scenes like that, and I’m not saying that to be mean. I really, really do feel sorry for her.
Thank you, you just articulated everything I wanted to say on this topic. The first thing I felt when reading this article was so much pity for the little girl who has not been allowed to experience the movies I loved so much when I was her age (Who am I kidding? The movies I still love so much!). Sure, I cried when Mufasa died, but that did not stop me from absolutely loving the Lion King and running around pretending to be a lion, while singing ‘I just can’t wait to be king’ on the top of my lungs, for a few months after.
Agreed. Also, you don’t have to show the child Disney movies at age 4. I remembered being terrified of them. I still won’t watch Bambi for a second time. But, that doesn’t mean that you should skip them altogether. Just save it for when she’s seven and can understand.
The hiking in the woods thing? Really? I watched all of these films with those scenes and still go hiking, even at night!