Are you like me? Do you remember everything about your child’s first movie experience? Did you fret over whether your child was ready for a movie in a theater? I’ll bet you waited until your child would sit still for a movie at home. My daughter loved watching videos.
Some of the Golden Books videos were her favorites. But most of these were 30 minutes, 40 tops. My husband and I knew that most full-length movies were close to an hour. Our daughter at 3 had not asked to see a movie in the theater, much less requested to see Tarzan. But, we wanted to take her to the movies. Tarzan was the most recent release back in ’99. So, we took her to see it.
It was…not a good idea at all. We didn’t read any movie reviews. Now I would head to Commonsense Media to read up on what the movie was about and what age of child should see the movie. Back then we entered the movie theater blindly and were blindsided when Tarzan’s mother and father were killed — off screen but dead nonetheless — by a tiger. Our daughter did not register what had happened — a true blessing. We all got through the movie…just barely.
For our younger children, we waited until both were 4 years old for the first movie experience. Our younger daughter saw Lilo & Stitch. She loved it. Not scary. Good music. A successful experience for all of us. With our son, we weren’t on a timetable of any sort for his first theater movie experience. He was 4, but with sisters who were almost 5 and 7 years older than him he had watched many full-length movies at home.
One weekend while his sisters were at their grandparents we decided to treat him to a movie. He was starting to notice that his sisters got to do things that he didn’t get to do as he was not old enough…like stay overnight with the grandparents. We made a big deal out of the fact that we were taking him to a movie. We knew he would absolutely love Cars. What we didn’t know was how much we would love Cars. In fact, he talked about Cars so much that his grandparents took his sisters the next month. His grandparents wanted to see it as well!
My son is now 8. He’s talked about Cars 2 since I brought back some Cars Online stuff from Disney Online’s booth at Toy Fair ’10. In fact at this year’s Toy Fair, I saw a huge Lightning McQueen made out of thousands of Lego pieces.
Until Cars 2 releases, June 24, here’s a few things to keep you busy…
- Lightning Puzzle Book itunes app
- Enter to win in the State Farm Agents on a Mission Sweepstakes
- and finally here’s a Car 2 trailer
You know where we will be on June 24!
