Parents of the UK. How seriously do you take age restrictions on media your kids watch? (And how does it compare to your childhood?)

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LJNodder@reddit

The ringtone on my flippy Motorola as a kid was Uncle Fucker from the South Park movie, so as long as I'm not as negligent as my own parents I reckon I'm doing fine

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georgiebb@reddit

I appreciate the modern specific content warnings because I don't care at all about bad language, my kid understands there's a time and a place, but I really don't want him to see violence or gore.

I've learnt to ignore American advice though. My kid likes kdramas so o did a Reddit search of what people watch with their kids. I'm not exaggerating, there was a comment suggesting a series where characters get tortured to death, including slowly with a power drill, but the redditor said it's safe for kids to watch because there's no kissing scenes. You definitely need to use your own judgement because this person has wildly different values to me

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MonsieurGump@reddit (OP)

I’ve said elsewhere that Americans think violence is natural but sex isn’t.

Strange stance, if to ask me.

In Europe things are the other way round. (The TV show CSI and the film Fifty Shades got the same rating in France)

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ClimbsNFlysThings@reddit

I use my judgement. I know where the line is for each of them. Some causes of higher ratings are concepts they have very sensible attitudes towards, I.e. Drugs and Sex.

Extremes of real life violence, torture and so on, I'm not keen the impact on growing brains.

Fantasy violence, case by case.

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Beer-Milkshakes@reddit

Yep. Mars Attacks; alien brains exploding, skulls, panic. Eh, I'd say at 14 you understand the pure silliness of it all.

They live however, that is probably definitely 18 due to its difficult themes relating to real life and its zoomed in violence and gore.

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glasgowgeg@reddit

Mars Attacks; alien brains exploding, skulls, panic. Eh, I'd say at 14 you understand the pure silliness of it all

Mars Attacks is a 12, why would they need to wait until 14?

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Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit

Honestly, I think an older teen (15-17) can perfectly engage with the themes of They Live. And I think a child a bit younger than 14 (say, 10-12) can engage well with the cartoonish violence of Mars attacks. I think people underestimate teenagers as they get older. I'm in my twenties, I feel I still have a pretty good handle on what teenage me could've handled.

I've always felt most media is rated an age level higher than it should be. Most 18s should be 15s, most 15s should be 12s. The only media that should really be rated 18 is blatant pornography, IMO.

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MercatorLondon@reddit

the whole film was based around bubble-gum comics cards that was aimed for children.

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cheflifecdf@reddit

Id hope so, it was rated a 12 after all!

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Rymundo88@reddit

I've found the IMDB parents guide a pretty good resource for this. Has a pretty clear breakdown for each category and examples from the film - really helps make a judgement call

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tanoshimi@reddit

We're very similar.

I guess we're fairly liberal, but I've always found it baffling how much higher age-rated sex scenes are compared to depictions of people shooting and killing each other. And we watch lots of shows that feature swearing, drugs, etc. as a family, so they know that context is important.

Luckily, none of my kids have shown any interest in the "Call of Duty"/"Grand Theft Auto"-style videogames that encourage and reward an active role in violent activities - I think that's very different scenario than watching a film/TV.

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BoomSatsuma@reddit

It depends really. If I’m not familiar with the content I use common sense media to help guide me!

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

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earthgold@reddit

Yep, we also use Common Sense Media quite a bit. You have to ignore all the American pearl clutching about words like damn (never mind the hilarious kids’ ratings) but it’s a great resource otherwise.

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connectfourvsrisk@reddit

I use this a lot and Does The Dog Die. Be warned though common sense media bizarrely gave a thriller with very nasty violence a light 12 rating recently essentially describing it as a cosy thriller. I actually emailed them as I was so surprised and included the BBFC details. They corrected it immediately but it did make me wonder if they’ve changed how they work.

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butterypowered@reddit

Yeah I tend to use that and the IMDb parental guide as it tends to be pretty detailed.

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connectfourvsrisk@reddit

Yes the IMDb guide has got very good recently.

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KezzaJones@reddit

Disappointed that A Serbian Film is not on here.

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Andurael@reddit

I’m not a parent but a secondary school teacher so feel I can make a small contribution to this discussion.

Unless you regularly check (and not just restrict) what your child views online the answer is ‘I let my child watch content that would disturb adults’. You may trust your child, think them mature enough to navigate online, but you’d be surprised.

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Agincourt_Tui@reddit

I'm both. What is on their phones and shared between themselves is massively more damaging than most films they can watch in the 15/18 cert categories. People stressing about movies and TV, yet letting their kid have a smartphone have got it backwards in my opinion

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TheRimReaper99@reddit

In the early 2000's when I was a kid back in school the amount of stuff I saw being Bluetoothed back and forth between people made movies and TV look like nursery programs. I can only imagine what it's like now with a device thats connected to the Internet.

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maersyl@reddit

When I was in secondary school, the vast world of the internet was still quite a new thing.

Fuck me, we saw some fucked up stuff.

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ClareSwinn@reddit

Each of my children is different and had different sensitivities. I was guided by the age rating for any movie I had not seen, used judgement for those I had. Any gratuitous drug use or sexual violence was an obviously a hard no.

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IceHotSteveAustin316@reddit

Parents/ carers should use their best judgement for their own children - often it’s not the gore that dictates but the theme or topics. Some kid could be ok with a horror movie but same kid could be triggered by the parent separation theme of Finding Nemo as extreme examples!

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thespanglycupcake@reddit

Our little one is still pretty young but I would watch them with her (or again before doing so). I remember watching 15/18 movies way before we ‘should’ with my parents. Some things bothered us (tension, psychological stuff) some things they would fast forward (smutty stuff), some things we thought was funny (the violence and fake blood). I think things are way more violent now than they were when I was a kid. Even the kids shows have fighting etc which we don’t allow.

Bigger issue for us is the news which we have had to heavily regulated. Daughter was very confused/scared seeing a story about Gaza a few months back and was asking if our house was going to fall down too.

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adreddit298@reddit

Anything they could go and buy, i.e. they're older than the BBFC rating, is fair game for them. Anything older than them, I make my own decision, if it's something I'm familiar with. If not, I use things like IMDB content ratings or other crowd-sourced guidance to help me. My older son is 17, when he gets to 18, there will still be some of my media that I'll restrict him from, even though he can go and buy it if he wants to. Examples of this might be Irreversible, or Baise-Moi. At that point, I can't stop him seeing things, but I don't have to enable it. .

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SceneDifferent1041@reddit

Judgement. The age ratings can be misleading with things like Sonic the hedgehog having a 12 rating due to "fear".

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Englishmuffin1@reddit

I watched squid games with my 9 year old, after he asked me about it.

I explained beforehand about VFX and how the blood and gore wasn't real. We watched some videos about CGI and practical effects.

We'd have discussions between episodes and talk about anything that had come up.

He handled it very maturely and it never caused any distress or concern.

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Earnest_Shacklton@reddit

As a side issue, I found it very interesting to compare the British BBFC ratings with the Dutch rating and the US MPA ratings. It gives quite an insight into the culture and values.

USA = violence (no problem), sex/ nudity (taboo)

NL = violence (abhorrent), sex/nudity (only natural)

UK = somewhere in between

:-)

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poptimist185@reddit

What’s interesting is seeing certain films rated lower now than they used to be. Eg. I have an early dvd of The Shining that I was 18 but the blu ray is 15. I wonder how often that happens

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Earnest_Shacklton@reddit

As I mentioned earlier, Night of the Hunter was originally passed at X (18) in 1955 and then reclassified as a 12 when rereleased in 1999. I don't know of another film that had such a jump.

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Earnest_Shacklton@reddit

I'm a film buff so I was always watching interesting movies with my kids. I was strict with the BBFC ratings.

The film Juno on dvd is passed as a 12 but the gag reel included as an extra on the disc is a 15 so the whole dvd package can only be sold as a 15.

Night of the Hunter was originally passed at X in 1955 and then reclassified as a 12 when rereleased in 1999. This is the biggest jump in classifications that I know. Our oldest was 17 and youngest 15 when we watched this.

One of the very rare exceptions in our house was Man on Wire which is a 12 and we watched it together when they were 11 and 9. I had seen it previously and judged the film to be appropriate and disagreed with the rating due to "There is sight of sexualised male and female nudity when they are shown dancing and embracing on a bed together; there is no sight of actual sexual activity, but breast nudity is visible as well as very brief sight of pubic hair." I found this brief scene innocently portraying two young adults jumping up and down on a smart hotel bed in childlike joy.

I also wrote to the kid's school complaining forcefully about the English teacher showing Polanski's Macbeth (15) when the kids were 11 years old (without notifying parents).

So many of my kids friends have told me that they have been psychologically scarred by watching age-inappropriate films.

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GottaLoveMe65@reddit

I'm not a parent, however I am someone who's spent nearly 20 years studying/researching/being paid to write about film classification and censorship in the UK, and I think the most important things to take into account are the age of a film and the last time it was given its certificate.

There are a lot of films which haven't been through the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification, the people responsible for assigning age ratings to films) for many years, and because it isn't a legal requirement to get a new certificate every time a company wants to put out a new DVD/Blu of an older movie they can just use the existing certificate, which may be several decades old and therefore very outdated by modern standards, but still valid as certs never expire unless the category is abolished (ie the old 14+ AA cert, scrapped in 1982 when it became the current 15). Not that I envision very many 13 year olds wanting to watch, say, the 1972 Steve McQueen actioner The Getaway, however that was last seen by the BBFC in 1998 and retained the 18 (X in the 70s) cert it's always held, yet today it'd be a very easy 15, with a number of bloody shootings being the sole classification issue. It's had DVD and Blu releases since '98, but because that certificate is still valid the company continues to use it. Resubmitting a film for a new cert is very costly, so there's no point if you're just reissuing the exact same version on a new format. I'd have no problems with a 13 year old watching this film - not that I'd give it a 12 cert, as some parents would understandably find the violence too strong for that, though it's certainly pretty tame as a whole by 2026 standards and I think any 13/14 year old action movie fan, if they did want to watch it, would handle it fine and violence aside there's nothing else in its content to be concerned about.

If you want to check when a film last went through the BBFC you can do so on their website (which they've practically destroyed over the past several years in an attempt to shift their image from film classification board to parenting resource, although that's a whole other tangent I'm not going to go off on here): https://www.bbfc.co.uk/

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MonsieurGump@reddit (OP)

Have you ever done a comparison with other countries?

In France they gave “50 Shades of Grey” and “CSI Miami” the same age rating for TV.

Because over there sex is seen as natural but murder isn’t.

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kestrelita@reddit

Depends on the reason for the rating. I'm generally happy for my 11 year old to watch things rated 12. She watched an episode of a TV programme with my husband that was rated 15 due to the violence, he admitted afterwards that it was probably pushing it.

My parents paid absolutely no attention to ratings whatsoever, and that's how I ended up playing a game based on 'Men Behaving Badly' when I was 8.

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DIY_at_the_Griffs@reddit

It depends on when the film was made. I notice that language used in a 15 movie of today is VERY different to that of a 15 from 30 years ago.

To the point where I’ve started watching movies with the kids from my childhood and stopped due to inappropriateness and foul language.

From recollection they weren’t even that bad.

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Kuddkungen@reddit

To the point where I’ve started watching movies with the kids from my childhood and stopped due to inappropriateness and foul language.

From recollection they weren’t even that bad; I guess times have changed.

Depending on how old you were when you first saw them, some of the darker/more "adult" stuff may have flown over your head back then and never stuck in your memory.

But the boundaries of what's appropriate have certainly changed. A while back I remembered a band that was huge in my native Seden back in the '90s and wondered why they hadn't had the inevitable nostalgic revival that a lot of other acts from that era had. Listened to some of their greatest hits and Christ on a bike it was 90's lad culture turned up to 11. Really, really gross. But I used to dig them back then because lad culture was mainstream and acceptable.

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ClimbsNFlysThings@reddit

It's almost periodical. Some 80s things got 18 ratings, in the 90s worse things got 15 ratings and then again in the 2000s it ramped up very briefly before coming back down again.

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bars_and_plates@reddit

I am not a parent however I would agree with the latter part of your comment. Even during my childhood, the most important "age restrictions" are the ones that aren't official.

I don't think for example that a 12 or 15 year old playing GTA is an issue - at the end of the day the game is easily distinguishable as being fantasy.

By contrast social media and some weird youtube channels (or in the olden days live leak, rotten, etc) have all sorts of completely unrated stuff that I think is far more likely to warp a young mind. Or even an adult mind.

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Main-Step-4480@reddit

For me the age rating dosent mean much, its about the content itself.i know what triggers my kids and what doesn't and the colour of the warning sticker doesn't cover that.

As for how that compares to my childhood, apprently I used to get up in the middle of the night and watch horror movies.

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mynameisjodie@reddit

Oh for sure yes My kids are whimps they are scared of everything. I have a 8 year old and I'm sure I watched halloween 3 and all sorts but he is terffied of the halloween horrid Henry episode

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Isgortio@reddit

My parents let me watch Jaws when I was 3. Saw and House of Wax at 7. I wouldn't recommend doing that. I'm still not great with things like that.

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mistakes-were-mad-e@reddit

If you sit with them watching it and are available to talk to them I think there is wiggle room.

Sometimes I will watch something ahead of their viewing.

Different kids get affected by different stuff.

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redish6@reddit

Yeah I think it changes the dimensions completely if we’re not in the room. In that case there’s no wiggle room.

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notsosprite@reddit

I’m from Germany. We have fsk (freiwillige Selbstkontrolle;voluntary self control) for movies and tv series. It’s mostly about the cinema but tv weeklies publish the fsk to give some guidelines to parents. FSK can be fsk0 (suitable for all age groups), fsk6 (6 and up), fsk12 (12 and up but kids 6 and up are allowed to see the movie with a parent present), fsk16 and fsk18. With my oldest I was really strict. When he was in kindergarten he desperately wanted to watch clone wars. That’s fsk12 so not happening. But the only two movies we ever had any trouble with were fsk0. One was an animation about a popular tv character for really young children (sandmaennchen). He and his friends fight the bad guy in dreamland. WEEKS of nightmares and talks about how the bad guy isn’t real. He was about 5. When he was 10ish we watched Shawn the sheep at the movies. Afterwards I asked him how he liked it and he broke down bawling in the parking lot. Because the farmer had amnesia, went to become a hairstylist and didn’t recognize Shawn when they met.

After that I pretty much gave up on fsk and we never had a problem again. My third (now 10) watches pretty much everything with the rest of the family from practically toddler age. If something got too much for him he cuddled up with a parent or went and played Lego in another room.

I don’t know if I have to add we don’t watch porn, slasher, horror or anything hardcore in this house. I’m thinking Star Wars (my eldest doesn’t let me live down that the youngest got to watch clone wars in kindergarten), marvel and tv series like supernatural, Buffy, x files.

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Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit

Yeah, something being rated as age-appropriate doesn't necessarily mean it's actually 'safe'. I was playing games like GTA long before I was old enough to, but the thing that bothered me the most as a kid was actually a Roald Dahl book (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator).

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MegaMolehill@reddit

I’m pretty strict with that kind of thing but I left the TV on after watching The Chase a little while back. I came back to find my nine year old watching the news which looked boring so I turned it off. That night she couldn’t sleep and came down quite upset. Turns out the main news report was the murder of the girls in Southport. Probably worse than any movie she could have seen!

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Cheap-Rate-8996@reddit

Yeah, I'm slightly too young to remember 9/11 myself but I had an interesting conversation with my half-brother about this (he's a fair bit older than me). He said September 11, 2001 was the exact day they stopped regulating what movies and video games he had access to. Before that they were very strict.

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newbracelet@reddit

My mum had to stop watching the news when I was little because I would get so upset over the stories. Apparently I was both very interested and very distressed by a genocide (probably Rwanda going by dates but I don't remember any of this) so mum had to ban the news.

I don't know if it traumatised me, but I did grow up to study genocide at university...

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International-Bed453@reddit

I used to work in a Blockbuster and had a woman demanding a refund because a video she had rented for her pre-teen kids had a lot of swearing in it.

It was Nil By Mouth. An 18-certificate film so infamously foul-mouthed that half of the rental copy cover was taken up by a warning about the language in it.

When I pointed this out to her, she blustered that she showed her kids 18 films all the time and they weren't usually a problem.

She was an awful person who I'd had run-ins with before. She didn't get her money back

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tobotic@reddit

When mine were about that age, my policy was that any PG or 12 was fine, but I'd only watch a 15 with them if it was a film I'd already seen myself and knew would be okay.

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Fenpunx@reddit

For me, there's a nuance as to what is being restricted. Violence and language gets a slacker pass than outright gore and fear because that will stick with them whilst I trust my son's intelligence not to use innapropriate language and has a decent moral compass as far as violence is concerned. My biggest hardline/hang-up comes from sexual stuff. Maybe because it makes me uncomfortable.

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RevFernie@reddit

Depends where you line is drawn. Is it bad language, violence, drug and alcohol use or Any kind of sexually implied behaviour.

For me, at age 9 I was ok with the MCU for my boys.

Now aged 11 and 12 they've seen Dune 1 and 2 and Predator Badlands.

They understand bad language has a place and respect it. So I am less concerned by any movie with bad language.

My line not to cross is blood and gore, nudity and sexual scenes.

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DameKumquat@reddit

When mine were 8-9 they often wanted to watch 12 rated stuff. If I didn't know it, I'd look up why the rating - child 1 couldn't cope with anything scary, so usually I'd say it was fine by me but you'll probably want to turn it off in 10 minutes so I'm not buying it. Result was kid who read the book of Jurassic Park 5 times and played the Lego game, before ever watching it.

Next kid wanted to watch horror stuff at 9, so there was a lot of "No." Had to lock the room so we could watch Squid Game. I did generally allow 12s once I was sure they knew when not to swear (child 1 got into QI under 10, I just didn't bother explaining half of it. Kid realised adult humour is just willy and bumhole jokes with big words). I said they could ask to watch 12s and 15s and Id likely say yes to the former and maybe to the latter. And don't bother asking about 18s.

Youngest at 14 wants to watch everything and Im sure could work round any barriers, so now it's much more 'I really wouldn't recommend that one. If you want to watch a classic horror movie, start with ...."

My upbringing included watching 18 movies in class age 11, 15s and 18s in class parties age 13, and going to the cinema to see 18s with my parents age 11 (Witches of Eastwick) and with mates by 14 (The Fly 2). Mostly 18 stuff wasn't that interesting to us when younger, or it was gore and violence. It's ideas and portrayals I'm more concerned about, and whether kid will see, say Humbert in Lolita, as a role model.

Auntie is happy to watch some horror movies with the boundary-pushing kid, so I figured that's a good way to manage it.

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Caryria@reddit

My kid is 8. There are things that she doesn’t find scary that surprise me but there are other really innocuous things that she finds terrifying. Death can really upset her sometimes and really not affect her other times. We read a lot together and a lot of books aimed at older kids. But I can check in with her and make sure she’s ok if but’s with films things happen much more rapidly.

The way I see it is that there are age ratings for a reason and while some kids are better able to handle scary themes those are the outliers. Plus when we desensitise kids to scary stuff, gore, etc I worry that we also desensitise them to empathy.

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xtinak88@reddit

I usually let my 7 year old watch things that have the 12+ rating. For example she has seen all the Harry Potter films many times and they are favourites. We started off watching them together but now she can watch them alone. Honestly I'm not really sure I understand why some films e.g. on Disney are rated 6+ and some are rated 12+. It doesn't really correspond with my understanding of what's appropriate. I'm generally happy with anything that I consider to be good storytelling. Whereas there is a lot of brainrot out there that is suitable for 0+ but has no obvious value, limited narrative or promotes things like vapid consumerism which I am keen to avoid! I'd rather a few swear words and an actual plot than that.

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hhfugrr3@reddit

Now everything is online I don't really see the age rating as much. I don't pay much attention to it when I do and use my own judgement.

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Various-Flower510@reddit

My oldest is 4 and hes spiderman obsessed. Since a young age hes watched all the movies. I was a bit unsure of Sam Raimi’s ones because green goblin and venom are quite scary (i think anyways) but hes not fussed. I think the Tom Holland ones are rated 15? Which is gutting because i wont be able to take him to see the new one in the cinema🫠 but we tend to steer clear of any other superhero movies because we let him watch Ironman once and he started getting worried about bad guys getting in the house (which i think came from the very beginning of that movie) and i dont really know any of the other ones except fantastic 4 and xmen and i dont think id let him watch xmen tbh wolverine is a lot for a 4 year old

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MaltedMilkBiscuits10@reddit

When i was growing up in the 90s, obviously everything was still in a shop on VHS and soon to be DVD.

My parents often got me films way above my age. It was common sense though like never a gore film etc.

Films I felt were less sexualised and less violent. It's nothing like today, like I've watched stuff today and thought how is this even appealing to adults.

I know a 8 year old though that does watch 18 horrors, zombie films, gore. The only red line her mum has is sex and drugs. She's totally blind to gore, violence and death. Some of her descriptions and words can be alarming to someone who doesn't know her. She's not phased about death and will happily look as roadkill and have a discussion.

Me and my parents regularly discuss that she could be a murderer in the making or some sort of jeffrey dahmer, she's that desensitised to violence, gore and killing, its chilling. We fear normalising that level of gore, violence and murder at such a young age before her brain is developed may lead her to having a interest in those things.

Her mum is a soft parent and will let her daughter sit and watch that stuff all day.

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frontroomhog@reddit

Depends on what it is. No issue with video games. Tv and films is different. As I say to my wife they have seen dinosaurs eating people. Out right hacking people to death is a no but stranger things was fine (12 and 13 year olds). They are disgusted by nudity and sex so no issues there.

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BemaJinn@reddit

I use the age rating as a guide, but use my own judgement.

I'm not some chav that will let my 6yo kid be watching nightmare on elm Street, but something with mild swearing might be ok depending on context etc.

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Amdrauder@reddit

I remember watching all sorts of stuff I really shouldn't of as a kid, grandad would rent me whatever I liked, hellraiser, the thing, aliens, predator, terminator, I definitely wouldn't do it to my child but I turned out alright, though then I wonder if it's made me too cautious as the school went and showed the intro to saving private Ryan to a class of 12 year olds which I thought was insane, I asked my daughter if she was OK and she basically said "that job must of really sucked"

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Agincourt_Tui@reddit

The intro to Saving Private Ryan is essential to understanding D-Day if that is what is being taught. It's the closest they can get to what happened that day and it's incredibly powerful. There's a massive difference between media like that being used as part of a lesson and just slapping on the film

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Amdrauder@reddit

Yeah i get that but some of her classmates were pretty traumatised by it, usually if there's anything even somewhat risqué we have to sign a form, like for some of the theatre she's attended.

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Agincourt_Tui@reddit

Would you expect to sign a form when they learn about the Holocaust... See mounds of human hair, mass graves, etc? There'd be endless form-signing if schools had to account for every instance that someone may find traumatic

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Amdrauder@reddit

Mounds of desecated bodies taken in black and white ancient cameras versus HD dismemberment and arterial spray, bit different, i know one has an age rating and one doesn't

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Agincourt_Tui@reddit

One is real and the other is not, but my broader point is that the amount of people that would find those photos distressing is not zero. It's also possible to show SPR before a lot of the more gratuitous parts happen

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starsandbribes@reddit

It is interesting how parents now shelter kids so much, but I don’t actually know the long term damage seeing these things do. I think its natural that kids are going to want to see content above what their parent allows, its like another world.

When I was 9 my friends big brother gave us a VHS of American Pie. Now obviously in a million years i’d never show a 9 year old that but I can’t actually tell you what difference it made in my life. I’m curious if this generation of kids are less likely to rulebreak or if they get a hold of an older cousins streaming password and go nuts watching things they shouldn’t at sleepovers? Thats what i’d have done if I was young.

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Amdrauder@reddit

I can remember being fascinated by alot of the films, became a massive reader because of it and super interested in science, i can't really think of anything negative to come from it other then me trying to tell my friends about it and they didn't have a clue wtf I was on about, daughter has turned out similar but she's just been subjected to that stuff at other people's houses who's idea of parenting is an unrestricted tablet but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

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starsandbribes@reddit

Wait super interested in science from American Pie films?

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Amdrauder@reddit

No, from the ones I watched, aliens, predator, terminator etc, I couldn't make it through american pie as a kid as I just cringed so hard I basically snapped in half

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maksigm@reddit

Kids are individuals, so it depends pretty much entirely on the kid, rather than the parent.

I could handle very mature stuff at a very young age, but I know the same stimuli would've been traumatising to some other kids the same age.

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GodBeard85@reddit

It's a lot easier with streaming services compared to when I was a kid, you can't just pass a vhs or dvd around to watch, you can just age restrict there android phones on Google family and on individual accounts on Netflix/Disney/Crunchyroll etc

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PrincessPK475@reddit

My parents didn't stop us watching anything really.... Mistake. Even though I didn't find a lot upsetting or think I was affected at the time I was morbidly curious and fascinated...., it materialised in later life in a lot of ways and resulted in a lot of maladaptive thinking about the world and sex and relationships

I don't keep rigidly to ratings per se with my own kids now, I use my own discretion e.g. I'll consider things rated 15 for my 13 year old..... 18's are off the table though until they are at least 16+ and even then It won't be blanket application but discretion applied on a case by case basis.

A 12 year old should not have been allowed to stay up late watching true crime, horrors and drama's with graphic sex and rape scenes 🤦‍♀️

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HirsuteHacker@reddit

I was playing GTA VC when I was 8 lol

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Hey_its_chunky@reddit

My parents used to punish me with films, if I was up later than usual and wouldn't go back to bed they would insist on putting horror films on until I did or they would say things like "The Grudge will get you if you don't go to bed" and since I was horrified of the grudge I'd shit myself (not literally) and run off to bed

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AdApart5035@reddit

It depends so much on your individual child.

My daughter was always extremely sensible and aware of her limits and comfort zone, so if she wanted to watch something she could watch it. I knew she'd say if it was upsetting or making her uncomfortable. If she'd asked to watch something like Terrifier, I'd have asked her to wait a couple of years but she was never interested in that sort of stuff.

I, on the other hand, was always desperate to watch the horror films everyone said were shocking or scary when I was a kid. I was allowed to watch The Exorcist when I was 12 or 13, which I found a little bit boring because I was too young for it. That probably stopped me from trying to watch more extreme things like Cannibal Holocaust. I'd be a menace if I was young these days with such easy access to video nasties through streaming services. If you have a child like me, I do think there's a case for controlled exposure to the things they're fascinated by.

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DrugSnake@reddit

Me and my brother aged 8 and 10 would have played every resident evil available to us and watched every horror movie we could get out hands on at HMV. Hasn't done us dirty we just love horror stuff. I have a 4year old girl now and not sure where I sit

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sleepyprojectionist@reddit

I was brought up by my grandparents.

They had absolutely no objections to me watching violent action films, but my gran would go into an absolute tizzy if I saw a boob.

In that respect I had quite a sheltered upbringing. I don’t think that I was ever given “the talk”.

In fact, whilst I was in school I was warned off girls as they would distract me from my studies.

It was a weirdly puritanical way to be brought up that felt more like how some kids are raised in the US.

The thing is kids mature at different rates, so although BBFC ratings are useful as guidance it’s really a judgement call about what you think your kid can handle.

You can only go so far to protect your kids, but sometimes it can backfire. I grew up being shielded from any sex or nudity and it instilled in me that it was dirty. I wish my grandparents had felt comfortable enough talking about this kind of stuff. Instead I grew up repressed and deeply uncomfortable talking about intimacy. It took me years to get over it.

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Awkward-Tax102@reddit

Use our judgement, daughter is nearly 12 and we have seen some 15s with her but it's on if we think it's appropriate, language is ok, she's at secondary school so hears it all already and knows not to use it, violence, to a degree but like torture and stuff probably not, sex try to avoid as she's at that awkward age of adolescence. Typically find an older film rated 15 is just as or less gratuitous than some more modern pg-13 rated stuff

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Agincourt_Tui@reddit

As someone who works in a school, there's little point in shielding your kids from bad language - they'll have heard every swear word by the end Y7 week 1... and that's if they haven't already used/heard it in primary.

The scarier thing would be what they've seen and shared with each other on their phones. The safeguarding incidents I've heard about, that were shared widely amongst the kids, would shock you.

Honestly, watching Terminator 2 should be the least of parents' worries. Better to expose your children to films/entertainment yourself on your own terms rather than leave them to discover it in the wild (obviously within reason).

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ScrambledLegs4@reddit

My dad made, yes made me watch deliverance when I was 10 years old. I never forgot that l, it haunted me for weeks, I couldn't concentrate at school at all it was horrible.

Ill let me oldest (5) watch pg stuff and maybe a bit higher if ive seen it but no chance she can watch 15s or 18s until shes mature enough

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dnikebot@reddit

wtf? i saw that film at about 16/17 and it fucked me up even then, but 10????

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ScrambledLegs4@reddit

I know he said it was very important that I watched it to warn me of dangerous men. Suppose in his head he was protecting me but I honestly think it did more damage than good

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notthatbluestuff@reddit

I was a big horror movie buff from the age of 12/13 so saw a lot of 15s and 18s with little to no parental supervision. Now that I’m a father myself, I have been thinking about it. My daughter’s only 3 months old but I’m conscious about the screen time she’ll have when she’s older and the media she’ll consume. I’d like to think I’ll set restrictions for her own good - but there’s only so much you can do once they hit a certain age.

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ClimbsNFlysThings@reddit

Three months is probably a little early for nightmare on elm street but I admire you're not so fatigued you have the additional mental capacity to think about it!

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TheRiddlerTHFC@reddit

I take them as guidelines only.

Some films get certificates for bad language and forget that the playground teaches them more swear words than I know for example.

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ramapyjamadingdong@reddit

I don't look at age ratings. I never paid attention to them as a kid and don't look at them now as an adult. I use judgement. If I think it could be scary e.g. the later Harry Potter films, we watch together so that we can explain the context or special effects.

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haidee9@reddit

As a teacher a lot of parents don't seem to care enough. The % of 6 year olds who had watched squid game in a class I taught a few years ago was absolutely wild to me , well over half . Then you've got the unfettered access to anything on the internet where too many parents just let kids sit and be sucked in by harmful algorithms.

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evenifihateit@reddit

The content matters more than the age rating

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_Diskreet_@reddit

Totally depends.

Daughter is 11 and we started watching stranger things when she was 9. She absolutely loved it and I knew she would.

My other daughter is 5, at this current rate my belief is she would not want to watch stranger things and suspect it would scare the shit out of her at the same age.

My nephew is 11 and he can’t spend a night away from my sister in law with out crying for his mummy, so I would not let him watch anything I let my eldest watch.

Each kid is different. If in doubt don’t let them.

Common sense media is a great place to gauge a film or tv show for its content if you don’t know it personally.

Watched The Thing on laser disc with my dad when it came out. Probably was about 9. Mum freaked out. I thought it was the best evening ever.

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garok89@reddit

My kid is 3. We take a lax approach to actual age ratings but are very on top of the type of content.

Eg. He loves superheroes so he has access to a lot of the classic superhero shows from the 90s and 00s, but the level of violence in them is minimal.

Despite loving Teen Titans Go, he doesn't like normal Teen Titans (pretty much the only superhero show I never watched myself) because there is more violence in it. He asked to put it off and we haven't put it back on since.

He also has access to a lot of superhero movies, but we avoid any that are too dark, gritty, violent, or he might find scary.

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RoadNo7935@reddit

I find them a useful starting place. If my 8YO wants to watch a 12, we’ll take a look at common sense media to see why it’s a 12 and judge it from there. The first time he watches a 12 we always watch it together, but after that he can watch it on his own (eg whilst I’m doing bathtime with his little brother). We talk about swearing, he knows he’s not to use swear words and we don’t use them in front of him.

It would be hard on him if we were stricter; lots of his friends watch 12s and have done so since they were quite small (year 1 / age 6) and we only let him watch them once he turned 8. That meant there was a 2 year gap in his Jurassic park knowledge; a big deal for a primary age kid. We had to relent so that he could join in playground games.

15s we will wait until senior school, but I don’t have a set age in mind for them. It probably depends on the content. I’d be less comfortable with something with lots of graphic violence/rape over say Bridgerton!

My parents were more strict. I remember going to see Titanic in the cinema for my friends birthday and it was my first 12. I was 11 so it felt like a BIG DEAL.

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National_Machine9800@reddit

Completely different levels of content and risk to what we had.

The content available now is extreme and actually real, so the trauma is magnified. There is also actual risk of exploitation in various forms through the platforms/content, so unless you are very aware of what they are doing there's potential harm.

Then there's the addiction issue of having that content or even just the device constantly there. This also increases the impact of aspects like bullying, where children can no longer go somewhere "protected" to escape it, it follows them wherever they go.

Even just the capability of taking and sharing images all the time is harmful, imagine if all the bad/embarrassing parts of our lifes as children were recorded and shared forever...

But it's far easier said than done, a real struggle as a parent.

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DufflessMoe@reddit

Not sure watching real violence on YouTube was the intention of the question.

It's more, 'would you put on Jurassic Park for a 9 year old?'

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TheLoneEcho@reddit

We used our judgement. Age restrictions were in place and strictly enforced on any of the streaming accounts they had access to, and we password protected ours.

As they got older we changed the restrictions. If they wanted to watch something that was outside their age range, we would either watch it first, or check the parents' guide on IMDB.

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mdmnl@reddit

The BBFC/PEGI ratings are useful but I decide case by case. My kids are generally less interested in movies than I was - I consumed voraciously and without parental oversight.

My folks trusted me entirely but that led to me watching the likes of Robocop and all Arnie's greatest hits when I was "too young".

I never had an issue with it but I find my kids are more squeamish/less interested in more mature stuff anyway. Despite happily watching the MCU movies, the Suicide Squad sequel was much too gory for my eldest and be just stopped watching. Have to respect his decision - better to know what you like and not suffer through what you don't.

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Perfect-Goal7978@reddit

Very much depends on the content and the child. For example I watched nightmare on elm street at 11 and was fine and I wouldn't let my 10 year old even watch Jurassic park or jaws because of her fear and anxiety

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lilletia@reddit

I don't intend to go too far above an age rating, personally, especially if I don't know the content. At the moment, my little ones are so little that we're still judging which baddie is too scary.

Personally, I like to use judgement based on as much information as possible - what's the reason it got that rating? I'm more likely to allow (when the time comes) an 18 rated film if it's language related than if it's including drugs, guns, gangs etc. Is it multiple themes and incidents, or just a single instance?

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WGSMA@reddit

I use it to inform my own judgements but ultimately we decide

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cuccir@reddit

I don't really consider the numerical element of age ratings at all.

My daughter only has access to age restricted media platforms. If she wants to watch something else, I look up qualitative information about it ie what is the content and why is it age restricted, and then make a judgement based on that and my knowledge of my daughter.

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Acceptable_Mud_9249@reddit

It's individual to the child really, my 12 year old has started watching horror movies with me and we're working through the marvel movies. I screen the horror movies for sexual content and violence/gore level. My 9 year old is not interested or ready for horror movies, I don't think she'll dip her toe in there until she's in her mid-late teens, and she can take or leave marvel.

Comparatively, I had noone guiding or screening my viewing at that age. My mum ignored us the vast majority of the time. Fortunately I was a sensible kid and didn't expose myself to anything I shouldn't have.

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onlysigneduptoreply@reddit

I let my 10 yo watch 12s but that's it.

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matmos@reddit

Digital media has robbed kids of so much, we failed you all. Fortunately smart phones didn't really take off until my kids were over 13/14 so wasn't an issue for long. My daughter enjoyed many aspects of the childhood I had, barefoot childhood I call it.

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pemberleypearls@reddit

Depends on the themes. I have no trouble with my 9yr old watching Taskmaster (with me) for example, as I don't mind them with exposed to (friendly) swearing at times.

I don't mind some fight scenes in movies as long as the violence isn't too graphic. I avoid stuff with sex scenes.

I basically go by whether they would be upset by something. But as another poster said, I think it also makes a difference whether you're watching it with them.

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beetrootfarmer@reddit

I think it depends on the kids and if you're gonna be there to discuss any difficult topics or themes. My parents were somewhat flexible but usually when they knew the themes wouldn't upset me and often watched with me to discuss.

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