Do you let your kids watch programs that are not age appropriate?

Ever since seeing the comedian Jeff Dunham with his puppets at SIL's house our twins are OBSESSED with the Comedy Central edited version of his special and show. They are drawn to the puppets, think they are real, and don't pick up on the more adult humor. There is no swearing in these two shows that are on our Netflix account, but DH thinks we should not let the kids watch since they are not children's shows. When they pan the audience you can see some kids that appear to be maybe 8-years old and up. I say until it becomes an issue watching the edited show occasionally is ok, but DH thinks I should not let them watch it at all. Since they enjoy the show so much I know taking it totally away would be like the worst punishment ever to them. So I am wondering if you let your kids watch shows that are not age appropriate in their programming, but do not include swearing or sex?

 

My oldest son, nope never, only age appropriate stuff. Any movies we wanted to watch we did it after he went to bed.

My oldest daughter, sometimes. Since she would still be awake when my oldest son wanted to watch shows, she'd end up watching them with us.

The twins, all the time! :lol: Realistically if we only let our older two kids watch their shows when the twins were asleep, they'd never get to watch anything except mickey mouse!! Fortunately the twins still don't really take in what's on tv. But they've seen all the shows like Transformers, Iron Man, X-Men, Harry Potter....etc that my older two kids are interested in.

 

I don't. There's so much great, age appropriate programming. They found Phineas and Ferb on Netflix, and I was a little worried about that! We are still Nick Jr. and Playhouse Disney and PBS at our house. They have seen a couple PG movies--Mars Needs Moms, for example, because it was wrongly listed as G. But I was uncomfortable and Jack had bad dreams.

 

When they were 2 or under, yeah, I was watching some shows and they saw some of it, but I'm quite sure they didn't 'get' any of it. And they usually just watched a few minutes and went to play anyway... but after they turned 2 I started being more cautious, and the only thing we tried to watch once was Castle. To be honest, it's not like I can actually watch anything in peace while they are up anyway...

 

I don't. My kids are very sensitive to certain things and so am I and I've had a hard time finding appropriate programming for them. I recently subscribed to netflix which has very age appropriate programming that I feel is suitable for them at this time, with no advertisements, and I get to pick when they watch it. I was raised without a television until I was six, and then I was only allowed half an hour a day to watch a program. To this day, I still don't watch much t.v. and I want to limit the exposure my children have to teach them watching t.v. isn't a right, but a privilege, in our home. I hope to keep my children as innocent and naive as possible until the time comes when it isn't practical any longer. So at three years old our children watch programs like Little Bear(my absolute favourite), Berenstain Bears, the odd Dora, Thomas, and a few movies like Old Yellar, Bambi, Finding Nemo and Curious George.

 

Not really. The kids usually stick to PBS, Nick Jr and Disney Jr. There might have been a couple of times they watched an episode of the Golden Girls or a sporting event.

 

It depends on what it is. Right now DS is loving all the action heroes, so yes, he and DH have sat down and watched a few of them. But his attention span still isn't the best so he's really up and down for it. So far, it hasn't scared him and he's okay with it.
DD loves to watch Glee with me. But she really only sticks around for the songs. The rest she doesn't care about.
Both like football. (Which is NOT kid appropriate if DH is watching the Saints play! LOL)

And we do watch other tv around them sometimes. If DH is in control that usually means something on Science or History- How It's Made, more often than not. Or Modern Marvels. So, while it's not kid programming, I don't think there's a problem with it.

 

We do depending on what it is. My husband and as well as our oldest kids enjoy action hero movies/cartoons. We were watching X-Men while the boys were in their playroom. One came out, saw what we were watching and was hooked, the other one followed, hooked as well. With a little selective viewing choices, we do allow them to watch those types of shows.

 

Yeah, we do. Is it what they prefer to watch? Not all of the time. But they watch things like How it's Made, all sorts of superhero cartoons, Scooby Doo, occasional documentaries on animals (including the eating and sex scenes) or space, Top Gear on BBC, movies like How to Train your Dragon (PG) or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (also PG). They'll probably watch the new Muppet Movie when it comes on HBO, they love the muppets.

I'm sure that my two would love that Jeff Dunham special, I'm just not sure that *I* could stand it.

 

My twins won't watch anything that isn't a cartoon. Honestly I am pretty laid back about censoring their TV and music, but DH doesn't even let them watch Sponge Bob. Even if it's half animation/half cartoon, like the Smurfs, they won't sit and watch. I tried to get them to watch American Idol with me but they won't.

 

We have had pretty strict rules about our TV viewing habits, until this year. DS #1 is getting ready to turn 12 and is wanting more mature shows, so it's getting harder. We found a series of family movies that Walmart puts out that are PG that we let everyone watch. Although one particular movie I don't like (so it isn't watched). We have a few other movies that I'll allow them to watch. What I find funny is there are cartoons that upset the twins more than a show like "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

It was much easier to be careful with TV when all the kids were little. Now that we have preschoolers and middle schoolers life is getting more interesting. But still DH and I don't watch any R Rated movies anyways and are very selective about PG 13. If we don't approve of the content they won't be watching it, period. Even with all the older movies, the twins still prefer Curious George, LOL.

 

I've never heard of the show you mentioned, but based on your description and your kids' age, I would let them watch it. I would actually be LESS likely to let slightly older kids watch it, because they're more likely to notice the adult humor.

 

I forgot about PG cartoons. My kids have seen How to Train a Dragon, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Despicable Me (is that PG?), Megamind. I would probably do Superhero cartoons, but I wouldn't sit down with them to watch the newer Batmans, for example. And no Spongebob or similar--more because I hate them.

 

This is me. I was much more careful with what the older kids watched when they were little, but it was also a lot easier to limit what they watched than it is with L&L. They often end up watching whatever the older kids are watching which sometimes might mean that it is not 100% appropriate. Anything too horrible the older ones know not to let them watch but certainly they watch things like Phineas & Ferb, Spongebob, Wizards of Waverly Place, American Idol, Toddlers & Tiaras ( :bad: but for some reason the older girls find it interesting in an "I can't believe people do that" kind of way), hockey games, football games, etc. Same goes for music, Lila has been wandering around the house lately singing everything from Katy Perry & Brittany Spears to One Direction to Taylor Swift. It amazes me how well she can remember all of the lyrics! :lol:

ETA When my two were 3, they noticed a lot less about what was going on with the TV, so even though the older kids would be watching tv, L&L would watch a couple of minutes here or there & not pay all that much attention, preferring cartoons (or as Luke used to say, he only liked shows with "smooth colors"). Now, they are noticing more & more and will watch for longer periods of time if I let them, so I find myself having to be a bit more careful.

 

For the record I myself don't watch anything like Jersey Shore or any of the Real Housewives or anything like that. Regular tv shows the worst the twins see is Mythbusters (BIG BOOM MOMMY!), Dirty Jobs, How it's made....etc. I don't like spongebob or phineas and ferb so we don't watch those ever.

But movies, yeah, they've seen most of the ones we watch, but they don't really watch them yet, if that makes sense. They wander in and out and usually end up distracting us so we miss most of the movie ourselves

 

This is pretty much us. I actually haven't let them watch Transformers movies, because I have issues with things like the conversation about masturbation in the first one and the totally sleezy clothes Megan Fox wears. I was probably more concerned about my pre-teen boys watching it than my little ones, but none of them have. There are a few movies like some of the Harry Potters that are intense in spots and I haven't let the little ones watch it. But most of our movies they've all seen. We don't do Rated R movies at all, and the PG 13 ones I'm fairly selective about. My DH will buy movies I never would, but he does watch them first to see if they're ok for the kids.

 

My daughter now 7 watched that Jeff Dunham special on Comedy Central when she was little (2-3ish) and she's no worse for wear now. She loved it too!!
My kids like a wide range of movies/shows (mostly watch Nick Jr, and Disney) but last night for example they watched Transformers (the movie) off and on with my husband.
We really dont watch a lot of TV, maybe an hour and a half a day, tops.

 

I was thinking about this and remembered a funny Erma Bombeck article I read years ago comparing a mother with her first child, then with her second, and then with her third. There were all kinds of things she compared. Birthdays, she could tell you down to the second when the first was born, she remembered the birthday of the 2nd and with the third all she knew was that the baby was born sometime in the spring. Or something to that effect. With pacifiers, when the first dropped it, she'd get out a pan and boil water to sterilize it. When the 2nd dropped one, she'd run it under hot water. By the time her third came along, if he dropped a pacifier, she'd wipe it on her jeans and hand it back. Anyway, I think I was kind of like that with media. We still have family standards for movies like I mentioned in my previous post, and don't watch any TV during the daytime, but I'm so much more laid back about it now.

 

I used to be more strict when my older boys were little but got more relaxed about it with the girls- now I am having to really be careful what they watch because they have been repeating things I would rather them not. Really, really rather them not!!!!

 

This is all so true! And, to be honest, my 12 year old is probably my most well adjusted, independent child out of the older three, so maybe there is something to be said for the laid back approach! :lol:

Umm, yeah, I am with you on that one, Heather. But, for us, it doesn't seem to have come from the TV or movies (which we don't watch a lot of) so much as it has from the music lyrics. Some of them sound really awful coming out of a 5 year old mouth. :huh:

 

We don't watch much TV, but I grew up exposed to a fair amount of not-really-for-little-kids stuff, since my brothers are 8 and 10 yrs older than I am. My parents filtered out anything that was really too adult, but I remember seeing plenty of stuff I didn't understand. :lol: Which I pretty much ignored, or waited for the parts I could relate to. And turned out ok (at least, depending who you ask ).

 

Holly, this was me. You have the same age span between you and your brothers that are between me and my brothers. I know I watched plenty of movies and shows I did not understand!

 

Last night Spencer (2 1/2) woke up and came and climbed on my lap while I was watching Jay Leno. Daniel Radcliffe was on. Spencer said, "It's Harry Potter!" So um, yeah, he's seen those. I laughed pretty hard, because I instantly thought of this thread.