by Melissa Crossley

Created on: August 10, 2009

Tips on how to choose movies for your children brings to mind the poem, Alone by Edgar Allen Poe; From Childhood's hour I have not been as others were; I have not seen as others saw.

There is really only three steps a parent can use when deciding which movies would be ok for their children to watch. I will list them here, with a brief idea of what each step entails and the rest? That is left to you.

Step One: Age Appropriateness: As soon as your eyes saw those words, your mind told you a number, the exact age of your child. But this is not the only thing a parent needs to take into account before saying no to a movie. The other side of age appropriateness is maturity. A child can be twelve but have the understanding of a fifteen year old. Only a parent can make this determination. If your child has a good understanding of right and wrong, fact and fiction there are some moderate rated R movies that would not cause your child harm if they should ever watch them.

As parents, we are constantly trying to buffer out the bad and the violence in the hopes that our children will not become killers and delinquents. Yet, when we are so intent on keeping things from them, we force our children to do one of two things: Follow our instructions (I'm trying to be serious) or two: Go behind our backs and do it anyway. The bad thing about this is, if they go behind our backs we lose the opportunity to talk to our kids, ease their fears, or talk to them about what they are seeing. If we don't ever allow them to make choices on their own, they will have a distorted view of life and how things work.

A good example of movies that would fit this criterion is: Stand by Me which was made in 1986 and directed by Rob Reiner. This film was made from a short story by Stephen King. The point is a group of boys go on a trip to find a boy that was hit by a train. There is only a few swear words, and by no means an evil flick that should be avoided by all costs. But it is rated R. Then you have Beowulf made in 2007, a classic story made modern by director Robert Zemeckis which is PG-13. This movie has more sex in it than you would believe, and its animated. So for Age Appropriateness, my seven year old is mature enough for Stand By Me but I don't want him watching cartoons having sex or talking about sex just yet.

Step Two: Weigh your own opinion. I have seen so many parents read the back of a movie rather than watch it, or go only by the ratings that each movie is given to

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