Disney movies- yes or no?

dancingqueen

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 12:26 am

debsey wrote:

Yes. So she has extremely attractive young men with their shirts off romancing female 16 y.o.s and they're "in love" and have this undying affair (except for when they're being pursued by slavering monsters) and somehow this is supposed to DISCOURAGE pre-marital relations? Mormon ethics and Mormon values aren't Orthodox Judaism.

I'm talking about the books, the movies are more sexed up. But Mormons and Orthodox Jews actually have pretty similar values re: premarital zex.

In both the books and movies they don't have zex until marriage.

DrMom

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 12:50 am

Queen6 wrote:

Disney or uncle Moishy - it's all the same to me. You're taking your daughters head and turning it to mush. What does she gain by being plugged to a screen? Give her a coloring book, bake with her, play with toys, play outside...l do anything - just do something not watch a video. It numbs their brains.

I disagree that the medium of televison is intrinsically valueless. Sesame Street is great for teaching letters/numbers, my kids have watched excellent documentaries, and films, etc.

For any medium, there is junk and there is material with educational value. There are lousy coloring books and lousy reading books and lousy toys as well. It's a matter of choosing from among the offerings in any given medium.

chavs

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 5:52 am

In general I actually prefer the modern disney movies over the older ones. The older ones tend to be extremely chauvinistic giving the message that a woman needs a prince to be 'ok' or that she has to change herself completely to be with the guy. I personally find the story lines horrific in the older ones like cinderella and little mermaid and sleeping beauty etc.

I like that in Mulan, its a girl who is the hero and she isnt just relying on a man. In frozen the sisters had to save each other (no kiss from some prince). I'd much rather my kids watched them and didnt get the imression that women have to sit at home waiting to be rescued by mr right. It just really irks me!

In terms of doing what other kids do, I wouldnt really care. When my kids ask why they cant do whatever it is their friends do, I tell them that every home has different rules and at our home we do it differently, I might explain why I find something inappropriate too. Keeping up with their friends is not a priority though, do what you as a parent feel is right.

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 5:58 am

Queen6 wrote:

I dont think anyone is talking about sitting their child down in front of the screen for hours on end. I know my daughter will wath a movie, the most an hour and a half and thats that. Some of the things she watches are just nice movies and other things are a bit educational. It is not all turning their brains to much. Puleeeze!!!!! Thats very over dramatizing of the situation.

cookiecutter

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 11:40 am

chavs wrote:

In Frozen there was also the bonus that "love at first sight" was wrong. But they completely ruined it by the scenes where he was genuinely doing good and by the other, only slightly less cliched love interest.

marina

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 12:25 pm

Queen6 wrote:

I find this unsupported by research and condescending.

Is there any reliable research available to show that childen who watch Disney movies become more malajusted adults or have more unfortunate life trajectories? I'm unaware of those studies. If you aware of such data, please cite it.

There are some studies showing that Disney movies, in fact, depict quite a few good middos.

http://www.mercatornet.com/art.....nicer

For that matter, is there any research showing that videos turn children's heads into mush or numbs their brains? I think we would have heard by now.

debsey

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 2:51 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

I hear what you're saying, dancingqueen, but not having relations until marriage is a PRETTY low standard for Orthodox Jewish tznius, no? I want my daughters to espouse modesty as a way of life that has NOTHING to do with having relations before marriage. That's kind of like the lowest common denominator.
If her point is that you can have pretty steamy scenes in a movie WITHOUT there being actual relations, great. She made her point. I'm hoping for much more from myself and my kids, however.
Unless her Mormon values don't quite hold up to a fat paycheck from Hollywood. In which case, fine for her, but I want my Orthodox Jewish ones to remain intact, no matter what the temptation.
debsey

debsey

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 3:08 pm

marina wrote:

There are no studies that show that excessive TV watching turns your brain to mush? Really, Marina? Whatever gave you that idea? There are quite a few. Here's a sample of one.
For a popular science review read:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea......html
The study, published in the peer reviewed journal Cerebral Cortex, show that the frontal lobes (the areas of the brain responsible for verbal problem solving, executive functioning, and higher order thinking) are not being "pruned" properly (meaning, the gray matter converted to greater efficiency) by children who watch too much TV.
This follows an entire host of literature on the effects of children being exposed to too much passive TV or video watching. The entire field of pedagogy has had to be changed to reflect children's shortened attention spans, lack of ability to delay gratification, and poor social skills.

The best parenting decision I ever made was to not allow my children access to any videos, except for Jewish ones on summer vacations. My reasoning was that the Jewish ones just aren't that great, so they are unlikely to be addictive. They still are pretty compelling. When we take them out during the summer, for a few days, my kids are glued. This way, they don't feel that they are missing out, and I"m not saying "No, no, no" all the time. They know - in the summer - when their brains take a break - they can watch (some) videos. Eventually, the videos become boring and are voluntarily dropped.
Then they get back to their real interests. You know, like READING. Playing soccer. Basketball. Painting. Figuring out how to turn cartwheels and how to do headstands. Oh, and they have this novel thing called FRIENDS. Those are NOT people who "like" your facebook status. They are living, breathing humans who play said soccer and basketball games with them.
It's very seductive to park a kid in front of a TV for a few hours, and be able to have some Mommy time and get errands accomplished. It's just not PARENTING.
debsey

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 3:15 pm

debsey wrote:

but again, nobody was talking about a looot of tv watching. the op was asking about watching movies, nothing about excessive amount of watching. I know that I watched tv growing up, nothing excessive, and I turned out just fine.
My daughter watches movies every now and then. Her brain is not turning to mush. And many times there are things that we talk about from the movies afterward. No mush, lively conversation and mother daughter bonding time while watching them.

debsey

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 3:23 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

I think the key is "every now and then", but that's a hard door to close once it's opened. My belief is that unless it's highly controlled and regulated, TV or DVD watching is more of a negative than a positive. To say that there are NO studies showing that TV watching can be harmful is a stretch. There are many. In terms of Disney, it's murky. There are SOME excellent movies and lessons out there. But to use a Disney metaphor, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to that one prince, and I'm not so into frog-kissing. I'd rather just leave it out.
Sarah Shapiro has a GREAT piece about this. I don't have a link, but it made an impression on me. It was about how not letting her kids watch TV had all these benefits that she never even expected.
debsey

Ruchel

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 3:27 pm

Good for you Debsey. Not everyone has friends just nearby for their kids, there may be no one at playground or unsuitable kids, or no playground, not everyone sends the kids out alone or can spend the day outside (where I am during the day in summer it's often very hot and it makes me sick), not all kids want to read all day even a kah very advanced one. Crafts and games are great if the kid is into it. So yes there are videos. In the olden times free-range wasn't considered akin to abuse as it is today, btw. People can't have it all, and pile duties on moms. No sir.

debsey

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 3:32 pm

Ruchel wrote:

I have one son who has no friends nearby. It was quite a challenge to get him occupied. So what I had to do was get him lessons and lessons and lessons in all sorts of things. Finally, he found his interest - cartooning - and this keeps him very busy - had I had videos as an option, I wouldn't have stretched as far as I did, and he wouldn't have discovered this interest. But that's my JOB.
I am very blessed that my kids like to read (most of them, one struggles) but I wonder, would they have loved it if there was an easier option available?
And I work full time. No time for hanging out on playgrounds. We just figure it out.....I'm very jealous of mothers who have hours to hang out at playgrounds with their kids.
debsey

Barbara

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 4:06 pm

This reminds me of those headlines that declare Chinese Food: Heart Attack in a Box! When you read the study, it talks about how if you eat 5 servings of General Tsao Chicken a day for 4 years, you'll affect your cardiac health, but its spun as if the problem were in eating chicken with broccoli once a month.

Some poor poster wants to know what people think of an occasional Disney movie, and she's suddenly being painted as a neglectful mother who props her kids up in front of the TV 14 hours a day. While other posters are straining their muscles to pat themselves on the back for only allowing their kids to watch bad videos, so they won't like it so much, or no videos at all.

M O D E R A T I O N.

And I don't mean from our moderators. I mean in all things. An occasional video isn't turning anyone's brains to mush.

And not every parenting decision that varies from our own is a bad one. Reasonable minds can differ.

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Jul 21 2014, 4:09 pm

debsey wrote:

I think the key is "every now and then", [b]but that's a hard door to close once it's opened[/b]. My belief is that unless it's highly controlled and regulated, TV or DVD watching is more of a negative than a positive. To say that there are NO studies showing that TV watching can be harmful is a stretch. There are many. In terms of Disney, it's murky. There are SOME excellent movies and lessons out there. But to use a Disney metaphor, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to that one prince, and I'm not so into frog-kissing. I'd rather just leave it out.
Sarah Shapiro has a GREAT piece about this. I don't have a link, but it made an impression on me. It was about how not letting her kids watch TV had all these benefits that she never even expected.
debsey

I dont let my daughter watch every day or even every other day. We keep movies for movie times, but it is completely possible to watch tv and / or movies in moderation. It really is.