Movie Night With an Eleven-Year-Old and a Two-Year-Old

There is no movie that suits an eleven-year-old, an eight-year-old and a two-year-old at once, and I spent a few years acting as if there were. Somewhere out there was the right title, I figured. Enough lists would turn it up. What the lists turned up were families with three kids born within four years of each other.

Ours are spread across nine. Emma is further out than that, but she's in Provo and picks her own movies now, so the Friday question is really about three people at home, one of whom still wants to know if the dog in every story is going to be okay.

How do you pick a movie when the ages are this far apart?

A rating is a committee's guess about a child who doesn't exist, and my actual children are more specific than that, so I start with them and not the number on the box. Lily is eight and can sit through nearly anything that has a horse in it, but a sad animal scene undoes her for the rest of the evening. Caleb is eleven and will tell me a movie is "fine" and then ask three questions at bedtime that show it wasn't. Neither shows up on any chart.

So the youngest child who is really watching sets the floor. At our house that's Lily, because Ben, at two, watches the first twenty minutes the way he watches everything, which is to say with one eye while he rearranges the couch cushions, and he's usually asleep on David before the story turns. I used to plan around him anyway, and it made every choice duller than it needed to be.

Caleb sets the ceiling, and if I choose only for Lily he sulks with his arms crossed, and if I choose only for Caleb, Lily is under a blanket by minute thirty. The movies that work are the ones with a second layer. Animated films often do it, and a few live-action ones. Paddington 2 works for me because the little ones follow the marmalade and the grown-ups follow the jokes aimed over their heads. Encanto has a lot going on for the older kids underneath the songs, and The Wild Robot does too, though it opens with the geese and I'd pause that one for a sensitive child before it starts.

I check a parents' guide the day before, and I mean the part of the page where parents write in, not the one-line summary. Common Sense Media is the one I use, and I read the "scary stuff" entry first because that's the thing most likely to cost us a night's sleep. Two PG movies can be very far apart. A PG-13 can be fine for an eleven-year-old and a bad idea for a sensitive nine-year-old, and I would sooner read ten reviews than trust four letters.

Previewing every movie myself isn't realistic, and I quit feeling guilty about it.

What does "all right to watch" actually mean for us?

Here is the line we keep coming back to, from the Thirteenth Article of Faith:

If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Articles of Faith 1:13

It's phrased as something we go looking for, which I like better than a list of what we avoid. A rule that's only about subtraction teaches a child to hunt for the edge of the rule. One that begins with what is good gives them something to walk toward.

The test I lean on most comes from Elder David A. Bednar:

If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing. If that which is intended to entertain, for example, alienates us from the Holy Spirit, then certainly that type of entertainment is not for us.

What I notice about it is that it measures the person watching and says nothing about the movie. A rating can tell me what is on the screen. It can't tell me what happens in the room, and I've watched a perfectly clean cartoon turn all three of my kids mean and loud, and a quiet, slightly sad film leave the whole couch soft. Moroni gives the same instruction a different way.

Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.

Moroni 7:19

Both halves of that verse ask something of me, and I tend to remember only the first.

The practical result is that I try to give the children the question itself, and the answer comes along later. By eleven Caleb can say "that part felt weird" without being told it should, and I want to protect that, so I take it seriously every time he says it.

What do I do when the movie turns into something else?

It will happen.

Sometimes a review missed it and sometimes you did, and a scene arrives with a kiss that goes on too long, or a word you didn't know was in there, or a villain far scarier than the trailer let on, while you're holding a bowl of popcorn and three faces turn toward you.

The remote stays in my hand, never on the arm of the couch, and that's more or less the whole technique. The worst of that moment is the two seconds spent deciding whether you're overreacting, and the pause button takes those away, because the screen stops while you think.

Then say something short and ordinary, like "let's skip this part", and if the children ask why, a plain answer beats a dramatic one: "That's a scene for grown-ups, and it isn't for your age. I'm going to skip ahead." Nobody has done anything wrong. I'm wary of lunging for the remote and shouting "cover your eyes", because a child who's told to cover their eyes will look through their fingers every time, and now the scene is a secret.

Skipping ahead takes practice.

Go in ten-second jumps, not thirty, so you don't miss the story and you don't land halfway into the next awkward bit. If it's bad enough that the whole movie has changed, turn it off. I've done that, and I'd do it again. A movie that's been paid for is not owed a finish.

The harder talk is the one afterward, with the lights on. For the little ones I keep it to a couple of sentences, and I let the older ones ask whatever they want, because what Caleb wants to know at eleven is usually smaller than I fear. And if I made a call that upset one child and not the other, I'll often say so, kindly, the next day.

One more thing worth settling ahead of time is what happens when the parents disagree in the dark. David and I don't always read a scene the same way, and I wrote about what we do when Mom says no and Dad says yes because it keeps coming up. The short version is that the couch isn't the place to argue it. Pause, decide for tonight and have the real conversation in the kitchen.

Is a double feature worth the trouble?

On the right night it's worth the trouble, and I like it more than I expected to. You watch the one everyone can see. Then the little ones go up to bed and the older child stays for a second one, maybe a longer one, maybe just the second half of something you started yesterday. It costs you an extra hour, and it buys Caleb the sense that his whole childhood isn't scheduled around a two-year-old.

Mostly, though, the older child ought to get something for being older. A later bedtime on a Friday, a pick of his own, a movie Lily isn't allowed to hear about yet. Children watch closely to see what growing up gets them.

I'd rotate who chooses too, on one condition: whoever picks has to say, out loud, why that movie is right for everyone on the couch. It's hard for an eight-year-old to defend a choice that only suits her, and she comes away having practiced thinking about somebody else, which was most of the point of movie night anyway.

When you're tempted to measure your family's rules against the family down the street, which happens to all of us, I'd point you to how I stopped measuring myself against the mom in the foyer. Other families' standards will run a little looser or tighter than yours, and yours still have to work for your own children.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if my kids are too far apart for any shared movie?

Don't force a shared movie every week, because we have plenty of Fridays where one child watches something on the older side and another builds a LEGO set beside us, and nobody's feelings are hurt. Family time doesn't need everyone looking at the same screen, and some weeks a board game is the better answer.

Should I use a filter like ClearPlay?

It's a reasonable tool, and I know families who like it. I prefer the pause button myself, because the pause forces me to look at what's going on and talk to my children, and a filter quietly does that work for me. If you do use one, I'd still read the parents' guide first.

How do I handle it when one child is scared and the others aren't?

Take the scared one seriously and the rest will follow, so pause it, ask them what part got to them, and offer to skip ahead or turn it off. Their reaction is information about that child, and sensitive children tend to grow out of some of it by themselves when no one makes fun of them.

Do ratings even help?

They help a little. G, PG and PG-13 can tell you roughly what you're walking into, but two PG-13 movies can sit far apart in intensity, and the child on the couch matters more than the letters. I read the rating, then the reviews, then my own child's face.

One more question, and it's for you

Our system isn't finished, and it moves every year as the children get older. Caleb turns twelve next February, and the whole arrangement that works for him now will be wrong for him in a year. So I'd like to hear how it goes at your house. What is the movie that actually worked for children of very different ages, and what did you do the time one went somewhere you didn't expect?

with love, Melissa