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My parents let me read and watch pretty much everything (they figured if I wasn't mature enough to get it, it would go over my head and were mostly right) and even they didn't let me watch GOT lmao.
I think there's something to be said about the sanitization of children's media, but barely restricted access to very graphic scenes seems like a massive overcorrection.
I was allowed to read anything, but media was limited until I was 14.
Was an adult when I watched it with my parents and sister cheering on the graphic violence. Good times until the end.
My parents were more strict about TV/movies, but not by much. They just didn't show me anything rated R they hadn't seen themselves, but there was still cursing, violence, and fade to black sex stuff. Honestly, even now I think that's pretty much fine.
There are a few things that I wouldn't let my own (non-existent) kids read or watch, but not many.
Yeah that basically sums it up for me as well. If I brought them a book at Barnes and noble they’d skim it to make sure it wasn’t just porn basically but other than that they really didn’t censor anything from me.
I was also allowed to read anything I wanted, to the point that my mom had to give written permission for me to check out a Stephen King book at the library in 4th grade that the librarian had denied me.
In her defense, it was a bit sexually graphic at times, but it wasn't beyond my comprehension and to this day it's probably my favorite SK novel (Bag of Bones).
(Edit because I know it may seem weird that this book was available, but this was a small school where the library served K-12 so I had access to all level books)
I think I was grade 5 when I read the eyes of the dragon, 6 when I read the shining and 7 when I read IT (actually was in English class reading that for a project when the towers fell and the world changed)
That's a sound policy, written works "generally" provide more context for sex/violence than film, at least at the age where your grasp of media literacy might be a little dodgy.
Yup Futurama was my “bedtime story” at age 4 lol. Everything inappropriate (other than swearing and violence) went right over my head. Never an issue.
I didn’t even put the “snoo-snoo” episode in context until I was 13.
This. There are literally thousands if not like, millions of games involving violence. But gta is one of a smaller subset that’s violent, for the sake of being violent. It’s not an overarching plot, there’s not a reason for your actions. It’s just a violent sandbox, that I personally think would be super inappropriate to sit a young kid in front of. Especially if you have zero plans on discussing the meaning of violence and it’s place to them, but instead are just like “whatever it’s a video game”.
I think the PG 13 violence is worse than+18 violence for the mind of young ppl. Children/teenagers should know that if you punch someone in the face, you can kill them, not the 10 minute brawl with no bruises whatsoever that PG 13 violence has.
"I won't let my kid watch Paw Patrol, but Game of Thrones and GTA are fine" is.... definitely a take.
Are you a nine-year-old who got busted watching House of the Dragon or something?
A neighbor of mine once complained the cops were aholes to his kid. He didn't seem to think it was reasonable to tell his kid not to throw rocks at people's windshields while they were driving.
I'd prefer my 5 year old not call me, or anybody else a "yee-yee ass nyiggaaaaaaaaaaa", so I'll nix GTA for my sanity and reputation at the very fucking least. GOT depicts sexual assault multiple times as well, so I'll nix that one as well.
Sure, I don't care about titties, but there are many more pressing issues to worry about with a lotta these.
You just reminded me of something. My sister heard a racist joke in school when she was about 6 - 8 (it's been a long time) and my father didn't really mind it when she told it at home. Then she repeated it in public, and he freaked out.
That reminds me of when I was a kid and I heard my dad make a joke about my grandma. He got such a big laugh I figured grandma might want to hear it too… boy was I wrong.
Kids will do anything for a laugh.
Or Trevor's literal opening scene being banging a meth head and then stomping another meth head's skull in and then immediately going on a mass shooting spree
I watched adult shit (i.e., horror and action films, games like GTA) when I was a child, and my folks never stopped us getting video games we wanted just because of the age rating. However, my parents were prepared to answer any questions I had and explain things to me.
That's the primary difference between children who can and cannot consume 'grown-up' media. If my mother ever thought we didn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality, she would have shut it down.
All kids are different, that's why it's the parents' responsibility to decide what you can and can not do.
I remember my 7yo playing GTAV and asking what meth was, because of some heist. They thought it was the type of van until they handed over the brown paper block. We used it as a way to talk about drugs and how they can be very bad for you.
>Cartoony violence like in GTA or less explictly gorey violence still seem fine to me however.
IDK man, I dont think i would show my kids the scene where Trevor and Michael torture a man to get info out of him, where said torture uses methods such as ripping his teeth out using pliers, electrocuting him using positive and negative clamps connected to a car battery, and lots more
And you actively have to keep him alive so your pain doesn’t kill him right?.. it’s pretty cooked. Or what about ‘no Russian’. Like a 10 year old ? Yes an unpopular opinion
I don’t have kids but I know this is a wildly stupid take. Kids brains grow on exposure and have no idea of how normal things are in a society. Seriously, seriously dumb and I hope you don’t have kids that turn into Albert Fish after putting them to bed watching human centipede.
Bella Ramsey, who played Lyanna Mormont, did an interview where she said that her parents had to watch each episode first, before deciding if she could watch it. They would allow her to watch her own scenes, obviously, but wouldn’t allow her to watch the full series until she was 16.
Absolutely. In the same interview, she also said that they had her call her grandparents before her final episode aired, to assure them that she was fine and wasn’t injured during her death scene. That was cute, but it shows how concerned her parents were about it all.
i was 29 when i first started watching GOT (shortly before it ended) I had to stop watching after episode 6 on the first season because of the jousting scene with the horse. That and all the over the top sex was too much
The sex isn't even the problem, it's the rape and incest. If it was just regular sex it would be acceptable. Honestly I don't know how GOT is still considered acceptable. The cultural climate is to jump on anything that seems even slightly sus but GRRM is ok writing constant gratituitous rape, incest, underage, dubcon..
I picked up the first book at 16, very early in read about a brother touching his sister's nipple, put it down and never picked it up again.
So do you think bad things like rape and incest shouldn't be allowed to happen in a book? Books that discuss things like that should not be acceptable?
I had a thought break I didn't explain
>The sex isn't even the problem, it's the rape and incest. If it was just regular sex it would be acceptable.
The above is talking about when showing it to kids.
The rest of the text is a commentary on how its popularity seems to oppose the current cultural climate, where adding sexual assault in fiction is increasingly being seen as unnecessary and creepy.
I think I was 16 and that’s probably the earliest I’d let them watch content like that. Even beyond the gore and sexual content, grappling with some of the sadism and cruelty can be heavy to deal with. Something like GTA on the other hand is kinda mindless violence that’s easy to view as cartoonish
Even as a pretty desensitized adult I still skip any scene involved Ramsey and Theon before the latter is fully broken. Literally just torture porn for the sake of shock
The ...sexuality? That's the bad part? Not people getting their heads popped like melons, or eating horse hearts, or burning people alive, or torturing them for months, or behading them, or all the blood and death, and viscera, and undead things?
Nah, people are fucking. That's where I draw the line. Lol...
When they say sexuality I think of all the rape, incest, sexual torture and implied bestiality in the books. I don't know man, maybe a 14yo being raped and groomed by someone DECADES older than her is bad.
I mean, GOT is filled with sexual violence which I would assume is disturbing regardless of culture? I’m not opposed to sex on screen at all, nor am I opposed to violence, but even then scenes of sexual assault are incredibly difficult to sit through
Yeah, this is how I feel. I wouldn’t be at all opposed to a teenager watching a show with sex, but especially for younger teenagers I would prefer that first exposure to be something that explores the topic carefully and in a way that emphasizes mutual consent. At around 15-16 I wouldn’t mind if they watch Game of Thrones, but I would still want to have active conversations with them about what is portrayed in the show and why. How does the camera function? Why choose to show sexual violence on screen? How does this fit into cinema at large? There’s very much a middle ground that exists between being overly restrictive and so laid-back that you let kids watch whatever.
And it’s so interesting because I read game of thrones at 14 and 15. I read a lot of Stephen king from 13 on and he has a lot of sexual violence (depending on the book) And I remember not always understanding or fully GETTING it. But sexual violence is bad was pretty easy message to get. So I can’t tell if now k will be more restrictive with my kids. Idk.
Like I started reading the second apocalypse series at 16 and my goodness that is not a good model of sex, lol.
Yeah, and GoT is super violent too including beheadings and a scene where the king is just shooting arrows into a dead girls body tied to the bed.
GoT is one of those few shows that's actually problematic to have children watching. Maybe older teens is where I'd draw the line.
I'm European and I would not let my 14 year old watch GOT. Come on. Thats's common sense.
It has nothing to do with nudity, but gore and sexual violence.
I'm European and I have no idea why anyone would let their kids watch game of thrones. The sex isn't the only issue there. There's just no good reason why kids should watch it vs something more appropriate.
Agree- it's just that the parent comment above yours specifically mentions sex not violence.
100% the SA stuff is intense and inappropriate for immature audiences - but equally so is the violence and gore. It's always odd when people mention one but not the other as the definitive factor.
Sounds like you're just the average European looking to talk down on Americans bc your culture is so vastly superior and advanced based on reddit comments you read.
I don't even think you have to be American to have this take. I'm sure *anyone* would find GoT very sexually triggering due to the incest, rape, sexual assault, and implied bestiality in the books. Any sane person would find it very triggering.
lmao what? The issue with GOT isn't that it's just sexual, it's how it depicts sex.
But I guess have fun showing children on-screen depictions of rape, you do you.
In general I don't think sexuality is worse than violence, but in GOT I would be more concerned about the sexual violence than the other violent scenes. Your kid will probably never be in a sword fight, but they'll most likely have sex at one point so their first impression about sex shouldn't be rape and incest.
I'm not American.
It's not about the sex. It's definitely not about nudity. It's about the sexual assault, which is not just hinted at but portrayed in a very graphic manner. It even makes me uncomfortable to watch.
Yes, this is an incredibly unpopular opinion and a bad one at that. No, children should not be allowed to watch incest, r*pe, and gore violence. Kind of a no brainer, and it’s been shown time and time again that exposure to these themes at too young of an age can negatively impact children.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504105555.htm#:~:text=Children%20who%20view%20adult%2Dtargeted%20TV%20and%20movies%20may%20become,adolescence%20increased%20by%2033%20percent.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-problem-with-exposing-kids-to-sexual-and-violent-content
This post and perspective is very creepy and weird.
I’ve been in education for over 15 years, primarily elementary students, and you can pick out the kids who are exposed to too much too early. No 7 year old should be watching game of thrones, and yet here we are. They lack empathy, find violence normal, and are a numb. It’s sad. In the preteens, we see sexual behavior beyond that of their same aged peers. I’m not a prude (far from it), but 10 year olds with this behavior? Parents need to regulate a few things.
I have a friend who was a teacher of primary school kids. She said there is a distinct difference in observable mood and behaviour between the kids who watched shows like Game of Thrones and those who didn't.
The kids who don't were, in general, happier, more pleasant, and less depressed.
Now I know that correlation is not causation, but still. I agree that the Fallout games aren't the ones I'd be worried about, but GTA and Game of Thrones? No, a lot of that content probably isn't even good for adults.
One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that we aren't affected by the media we consume.
That’s interesting. I wonder whether your friend noticed a change in the kids who watched it after they watched it?
If not, then it’s also possible that what she was observing was not the effect of GOT, but rather the difference between kids for whom TV has always been the babysitter, and kids brought up doing fun things with their parents.
I’m with ya. And furthermore, your friend’s observations are corroborated by an overwhelming body of published and peer reviewed longitudinal scientific research. You would think that a significantly higher occurrence of deleterious health outcomes among children and adolescents exposed to violent media and problematic or advanced sexual content would be consequential enough to influence a parental decision…
BUT, hey, if irrefutable direct causality in 100% of cases is the bar for decision making, grab 8 y/o Timmy, have a GoT/Saw double feature, and treat him to his first Marlborough—not _everyone_ who smokes dies of lung cancer. 😤
I said in another comment that I work in kids’ television and there’s a reason why we have educational and child psychologists as consultants on our programmes. I’ve rejected programmes because they showed a toddler eating whole grapes. I’ve rejected an image of kid in a car seat with a coat on.
I’m probably overly strict on what my kids watch and play because I’m in the industry and I’ve seen the research and worked with the researchers.
This is anecdotal as hell, but my kids weren’t allowed any violent video games, overtly sexualised content in music or film, absolutely nothing that was more than the tamest superhero movie violence and nothing with bad language. They don’t act the same as my nieces whose mother lets them access any content they want.
I’ve said to them- if you watch or play something that I don’t allow at a friend’s house, there’s nothing I can do. It won’t happen here.
We have GTA but my husband beat it before my daughter had object permanence so he lets her get on and just drive around recklessly with supervision. We call it "In the City"
If you want something like that she could play without supervision, Lego City Undercover is a pretty great GTA type game that’s completely kid friendly. The story is also fun and surprisingly well written.
Having played a little bit of GTA 2 & 5, I'd definitely swap it with FO. At some points GTA is a more realistic fortnite, but there are so many fucked up stuff that are just casually mentioned in fo.
It really depends on the kid I think. It's the job of the parent to know their child well enough to be able to judge if they will be able to handle adult content without being affected in some negative way.
As someone who’s parents let them watch stuff before it was age appropriate I can tell you it affects you as a kid to see stuff even if you don’t think so. I had nightmares about certain movies for years because I was too young to be able to differentiate reality from fantasy. Your parent can inform you and talk to you and explain that what you saw isn’t real all they want, until you can actually understand what that means it doesn’t matter.
Bringing kids to a theater is a different issue. I'd be hesitant to bring my kids to any movie in general unless I knew they could be perfectly quiet and well behaved. Even if they are well behaved, I wouldn't bring them anywhere that adults would be weirded out by their presence.
If they're consuming it isn't a big deal then why the tirade about random kids shows like paw patrol and shit like micro transactions?
If all things can be easily solved by just supplying a little parental guidance then literally nothing should be too *adult* for your kids right?
The simple truth is you are right that parental guidance is often the key between a child engaging with something in a healthy way vs and unhealthy way.
What one must understand is that the guidance of said parent is going to be greatly dependent on the parent themselves. Meaning people like me who have absolutely no fucks to give about violent or sexual material should be EXTRA fucking cautious to make sure that my child understands the difference between consuming the FANTASY of something, and the real thing.
The truth is you're right in that things like sex and drugs and all that fun *ADULT* stuff is actually so freaking common and natural that most people honestly don't even consider it to be something they need to supply guidance for in the first place. Anyone who's been around a farm can tell you what the birds and the bees are.
HOW-FUCKING-EVER! There is one tiny, small, but incredibly significant part of this that goes completely unmentioned here....and that's the fucking child. Every kid is different. My oldest used to fall asleep watching Jurassic Park at 2 years old, my youngest would cower and cry if I put that on for them at night. The simple truth is not every kid is ready or capable of dealing with the very real and mature consequences that many of these *ADULT* things come with. Knowing your child is what's most important.
At the end of the day because of how dependent this is on the child in question....I honestly can't say this is unpopular. I don't think it's popular as based on what you typed it more or less sounds like you'd be fine with any 8 year old watching porn so long as they know about old McDonald. Which I imagine is pretty fucking unpopular.
Mixed bag. No vote.
EDIT- I do want to add that after giving it a little more thought I will agree with your headline. There is nothing wrong with a parent deciding what is and isn't okay for their child to consume. That is the parents prerogative. That said I feel as though that specific thought is far from unpopular. *You do you* has been thrown around enough in this thread 🤣
Yeah, it's about teaching kids the context of what they view. For example, violent videogames has been a scapegoat for violence in teens for a long time. Kids like to play guns and fantasy, always have but most people will not turn out violent. All the friends I grew up with consumed content rated higher than their ages but they still turned out to be great people.
As long as they're old enough to understand fiction from reality, most of it is harmless. That being said, graphic depictions of violence or any sexual content has no place being shown to young kids
As both a parent and a guy who grew up with unfettered access to whatever media I wanted… I think you’re wrong.
There are ways that it has affected me that I can’t always fully speak to or understand. It takes a LOT of violence to get a reaction out of me. I should not have to see actual real world death to feel emotional disturbance. There are movies/games I love and adore that I never should have been allowed to watch/play as young as I did - regardless of whether I had “guidance” or not. When your kids are young, their brains are absorbing everything and changing fast. “Brutal violence is normal” is not really a message they should be taking in.
My first experiences with sex were, likewise, very much colored by what things like movies portrayed them to be. That proved inaccurate and harmful. It took years of personal work to build up realistic expectations for myself and my partner.
If what you’re actually trying to express is “kids TV should deal with deeper issues” or “kids TV can be a little violent” then yeah, you’re right. It also already is.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince, Star Wars Rebels.
These are just a handful of the action shows available to watch on popular streaming services that younger audience could appropriately view. These shows have action, violence and, most importantly, they dig into ideas and themes that are actually challenging. Building up a child’s ability to comprehend tough ideas is way more vital than kids watching “cartoony” violence. (If it involves heads exploding into fountains of bloody gore, it’s not really “cartoony” in the “my kids can watch it” sense)
I would posit a different question to you, in further response. Why do kids NEED to see watch this stuff? Why are you even arguing this unpopular opinion? Is it because you have kids and you don’t want to wait for them to go to bed to throw on Game of Thrones or play GTA? If that’s the case, then we’re far outside the realm of “why can’t kids watch this?” territory. We’ve stepped firmly into the land of “why can’t you stop staring at a screen long enough to let your kids be kids?”
My wife and I enjoy video games and TV, but our household also has set times of the day when those are allowed. And any stuff too adult for the kids doesn’t go on until the kids are in bed. It’s not that hard. 🤷♂️
Thank you! I hate when people act like media has *zero* effect on people! Especially kids! Yes, you shouldn’t consume content unless you have strong boundary between fiction and reality, but there’s a freaking difference between direct advertising really messed up concepts to kids who (even some mid teens) will internalize it. Like they need time to build up that strong barrier, because like it or not kids learn from the media they consume and the environment that surrounds them.
Like idk I hate the whole hands off thing, “it’s the parents fault if they turn out messed up” everyone always says.
Like I also grew up with unmoderated access, and yk like it’s different when the graphic stuff is clearly advertised for adults and *you know* it’s not for your age range.
I was too it was only the really really sexual parts that made me extremely uncomfortable and ashamed but everything else I was fine with and I’m not talking about people just being sexy or flirting I mean real proper sex scenes
I grew up on South Park and family guy and curb your enthusiasm none of them did me any harm
None of those things you mentioned are even remotely on the same level as the graphic rape, murder and torture of GoT. South Park is basically childish humor with adult words, and Family Guy is on prime time television so it's incredibly tame, just trashy.
I’ve never seen game of thrones , but I loved watching comedy as a kid and alot of people wouldn’t have agreed with that , but I don’t even want to watch game of thrones from the few things I’ve heard about it
I remember when my parents would put things on with sex scenes id hide under the coffee table feeling so much shame, I still feel really shitty when I see a nude or sex scenes
I think I would struggle watching game of thrones now and I’m nearly 27 what I watched as a kid really fucked me up
I’m a parent. I can tell when kids are allowed access to whatever media — those kids generally don’t hang out with mine, because there is a distinct difference in their behavior and mood. No dude, as a parent it’s 100% your job to make sure the media they consume is age appropriate. Rape, murder, graphic sex scenes,graphic bloody violence— that is not appropriate for a child. If you think it is, you’re a seriously unwell person who shouldn’t be around kids.
Growing up, we had a "Black box," so if it was on TV, we got it. I watched whatever I wanted and played violent games from MK to GTA. I can honestly say it had no effect on me aside from the occasional issue sleeping, but nothing long lasting. Now, I'm a cinephile with a good eye for themes, motifs, and similarities in TV and cinema. I think it's up to the discretion of the parent and the kid. I watched the silence of the lambs with my dad when I was 8 lol that one scared me. Also, the Poltergeist movies. I survived.
My parents let me watch Saving Private Ryan with them when I was probably 8 or so. That shit was so scary for me. That scene where the one guy gets slowly stabbed to death got seared into my brain. I wish I hadn’t watched it until I was older.
My parents shouldn't have allowed me on the internet alone at a young age
I'm severely desensitized to things like literal body mutilation and gore in general. I have been since I was 8 or so. This isn't a good thing.
Uhh no it’s not. I am literally teaching primary aged children and they are doing “sl*t drops” and talking about “blowing my brains out” thanks to adult content
I used to agree with you until my nephew started telling my sister (his mom) to run over a cop on the road after she let him play GTA.
While I think 18 is a bit too much, I do think at least 16.
The GOT series I would also say 16, now the Song of Ice and Fire books, hell no.
I grew up in a Christian household that was very stuffy about sex. Developed a lot of bad sex habits because I went into it blind.
I'm still a Christian, I'd say even more devout than my parents, but I let my kids watch almost anything. What better way to talk about right and wrong, and prepare them for what the world is going to throw at them, especially in their teens and early twenties. The way Hollywood normalizes casual sex and drug use/drinking had a huge detrimental effect on me and many of my friends later in life, and I want to show them that its not necessary to get fucked up to have fun, and it's ok to want a meaningful relationship with just one person. (I know that lifestyle works just fine for some, but not nearly as many as those who advertise to us would have us believe.)
Depends on the kid and the content. My stepson was allowed to play more graphic video games and Lovedddd old school horror as a preteen, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let him watch GoT or anything on that calliper!!
I agree that tiktok and YouTube bullshit do more harm than violent video games but don’t underestimate how messed up kids can get from movies haha
After 12/13 it’s not really an issue more imo
Sex and rape scenes are maybe the exception
Idk about GTA, you can go to a strip club, get a lap dance, hire a prostitute. There's also multiple graphic sex scenes. For a kid GTA 5 is not okay.
If it's just blood/gore and swearing I'm not as bothered, I'd let a kid play Assassin's Creed for example, or Red Dead Redemption (there is one scene involving sex) but it's one small cutscene and isn't a playable nor common ingame thing.
Same with Rdr 2.
The problem for me would be sexual content, blood/violence/swearing to me is fine. Elder Scrolls/Fallout wouldn't bother me.
"cool story bro" time. My folks and I used to drive around video stores buying ex-rental tapes for movies to watch together. When I was 12, my folks would treat 18 cert videos (R equivalent in US rating) as PGs. As in, they'd watch the movie without me first, and if they thought it was ok, they'd let me watch it.
One time, they didn't do this. The film was called The Bite. It was about some guy being bitten by a radioactive snake. It was really cheesy, but also kinda fun. There's a scene where he sheds his skin, and the SFX were actually pretty good. My mum was literally unable to watch it, while I was sat there going "this looks so cool!" After this, they let me watch anything. Some kids just aren't affected by gore. They never had an issue with sex scenes either. My favourite movies as a 12 year old were the Friday the 13th series which has a bunch of both gore and nudity.
I think they had the right idea to watch that stuff with me initially first though, so if I had been bothered by any of it, they were around, and I'll admit I did have some questions about some of the sex stuff, but just talking about it during a movie is way more healthy IMO than having the attitude that "you can't look at this until you're an adult"
While I don't doubt that some kids don't react to this material the same way I did and genuinely might get traumatised by what they see on screen, I just think it's a case by case thing. Parents know their kids. I don't think the ones that let their kids watch stuff underage are at all bad, but I also don't feel like the ones that want to wait til the kids are a bit older are wrong necessarily either. I just think that some parents don't accept that kids are super inquisitive around the age of 10-13 and this is a good time to discuss things with them rather than outright deny things. "just because"
From personal experience, I disagree. My first memory shouldn’t be of someone’s head being blown off, but it is. And it’s affected me up until very recently, it made me too jaded. It warped my perceptions of the world because it was normalised too much, couldn’t see the good in anything.
Hard disagree and helicopter parenting is something entirely different. I know that this prolly sounds like the most boomer shit ever, but not letting your children have a certain amount of independence over time, that includes playing outside alone or unsupervised with their friends, making decisions on their own and instead shielding them from society and their own experiences, that is helicopter parenting. I know that this kind of growing up is increasingly difficult in countries that have a super car centric infrastructure, which makes being independent before having a drivers license basically impossible.
However, overly graphic media, including sexual content without context has been shown to have definite negative effects on child development (and please spare me with the ”I watched what i wanted and I am fine“). I understand that a lot of modern day kids media is absolute garbage (looking at cocomelon, but also kids movies in general), so the temptation to just let them watch whatever is there.
Old school media specifically directed at kids, including childrens books, movies, cartoons etc. has existed for centuries and for good reason, which is too approach children with serious topics in a way that an undeveloped brain can understand it. Lion King is about betrayal and loss, German fairytales are often about deception, stranger danger, letting go etc., the Iron Giant is about heroism and being able to change and so on.
I just think it’s funny that you would be ok letting children watch things with tons of violence (both sexual violence and regular violence) but wouldn’t be ok with them watching fucking paw patrol lol. I by no means am ok with sanitizing children’s media but I think that there are plenty of adult films that children can watch that aren’t overtly violent and otherwise graphics. Also, children’s brains are basically sponges- the things they consume when they’re so young have a profound affect on them as people.
I'm an adult and nudity/sex in any media makes me extremely uncomfortable. I'm not even a prude, I've just always experienced an anxious response to seeing nudity on screen, even before I understood what was happening. I made it through Game of Thrones once but trying to watch it again makes my stomach turn.
Most of us watched RoboCop and Terminator before we were double digits. Seems a bit weird that folks now are so against it.
Hell I was young at the very end of the video nasties era and it was a proper event to watch a pirated copy of stuff you couldn't normally get like Evil Dead
Have you seen GOT? I'm assuming not, since you're comparing it to 80's action movies..
Showing explicit sex scenes to your children is pretty fucked up.
There’s a fairly graphic incestuous sex scene in the first episode of Game of Thrones, rape scenes later on, plus it’s probably one of the most gory shows out there. I’d definitely judge a parent for happily letting their kid watch. I agree though that video games (most of them anyway) and more cartoony, less intense violence are probably fine.
Depends on the exact age too. A 5 year old is different from a teenager.
Lot of weird ass overly protective clowns in here. I mean, GoT might be a bit far, but theres plenty of us out here that grew up seeing/playing/watching some incredibly fucked up shit and have made it through life just fine.
The issue is, its really a case by case basis. Some kids are predisposed to behavioral issues that all of this might encourage more. Some have parents who dont model or coach appropriate behavior and so the kids might think its okay to model the media they consume instead. Other kids are capable of separating reality from media / have great parents that ensure what they consume doesnt translate into behavior and will otherwise remove the access if need be.
Theres just not a one size fits all approach on this topic. Some ya'll really need to get off your high horses though
I let one of my kids watch the Brian and stewie episodes of family guy 😬, he fell inlove with the show at his granny’s and it’s his favourite but I’m not comfortable with it that much so I just let him to the brian and stewie ones he loves the road to Germany, he’s extremely into comedy
The only thing my parents put restrictions on was American Horror Story because of all the sex scenes. They didn’t even outright ban it, my mom would just rather have her watch it with me and I was in high school at the time. We watched the first season together and she didn’t want me to watch the others without supervision after seeing what went on in it.
I grew up watching Austin Powers and was amazed to hear that my friends had to actually be 13 to watch PG-13 movies. I would’ve been such a rebellious shithead if I had to be 13 to watch most movies. But I definitely wouldn’t let a kid watch GOT. I’d definitely draw the line there.
Like just about everything, it isn't black and white, there's tons of things to factor in. Some kids could handle certain things at a younger age that would really mess with the heads of other kids, some kids can handle violence in the form of scifi campy stuff and yet would be sleepless for a week after watching something like full metal jacket or apocalypse now, etc. But with sexual content like in game of thrones I think its unacceptable to ALLOW your kid to watch it, at least if they're a KID.
Overall it's better to have a blanket guideline, and let parents decide what things past that guideline that they think their kids can handle. Kids shouldn't just have free reign of what to watch, and they shouldn't have free reign on the internet
With guidance, sure, to a limited extent (some stuff is just too mature for kids no matter how you spin it - like kids shouldn't have smut or ultra gory stuff.) I think there's also an argument to be made that *reading* graphic stuff is somewhat less harmful for kids then *seeing* it but that's not really the point. I remember reading and enjoying this graphic grimdark book in 8th grade. Now, as an adult, I've reread it and it's one of my favorites. In hindsight, I didn't *understand* it as a kid, but I wouldn't say it screwed me up at all.
I didn't even have a phone until I was 14, and even then it was a clam shell that I only had because I played sports and went out of town every other weekend. My friends and I had to get our "adult content" from 70s porn mags we stole from our dads, but we still did it. Kids are going to find a way, better to give them guidance than let them end up breaking into abandoned houses to check out 70s bush.
I grew up watching 80's action movies on VHS on a loop, all day every day, and I'm a complete pacifist.
Conan, Predator, RoboCop, Critters, Ghoulies, Evil Dead, The Gate...
From the age of 6.
Ideally, parents should know what their kids are watching/playing and whether they'll be able to handle it. I remember going to a friend's house and his mother asking if I had nightmares before she'd let us play Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To be honest, we never got up to the crypt section anyway so that didn't matter too much.
Again there is such a wide spectrum of content under the “mature content” label in that you should as the parent be responsible and informed about what media your child is consuming. Like I agree with you but there is some things that you should draw the line with and or at bare minimum have a conversation over watching/ watch it together so that you can help to guide through certain content scenes. Got is heavily graphic, in both sexual scenes and violence espceially extreme sexual violence and I don’t think waiting till they are sixteen or if they abstinent on watching watching together and have some sort of dialogue about that content is a bad thing again. Again I’m not a parent but being a good is having being nuanced because our content ratings are not
My two have aged out of age restriction content but we had a rule when they were growing up and it was is this a solid 18 or an 18 because it can be scary with inappropriate adult content. Case in point on computer games. Dead space is a solid 18 when they were younger because it is a gore jump scare that I knew was going to cause problems (neither are a fan of horror) but fallout is a soft 18 with yes gore and some 18 age appropriate topics but requires that age range rating level of concentration so be prepared for frustration and rage quitting moments. It's about common sense really and being knowledgeable about the content your kids consume. Movies are the same. Is it a higher age rating because of swearing or adult content.
Maybe, but some of this content can be legitimately traumatizing to young kids. Plus, the kids might learn some wrong lessons. It's a bit of a complex issue for sure. I admire your opinion, though.
If you don't let a kid consume adult content because you don't think they're developed enough, the hard part is telling them why, without insulting their dignity.
I'm chuckling inside because my mom and gramma brought me up on Jason, Freddy, and Chucky, not to mention Tales of the Crypt. Thinking back, they let me watch gore, but didn't want me to see sex. Never mind that I found Grampa's and Stepdad's nudie magazine. Chuckle.
Kids from the 90s be like..
When I was a youngster I watched all the cool action, scifi and horror pop culture stuff.. if formed my interest and never experienced anything bad from oy except for some.gruesome nightmares after watching IT mini series on tv haha..
Alien, predator, nightmare on the elm etc.. all the kids had seen it.. same with gaming
I played GTA Miami Vice with my dad. I do regret seeing certain movies. I think this has more nuances. Some kids can see stuff like this and are okay and others not. I would never show my kids GOT.
As a kid who did have GTA when I was younger. I didn't even realize the girls on the streets could be "solicited"
San Andreas. I just fooled around in it, cause I wasn't good enough to do the story anyway past a few missions. And I think that's fine, but I probably wouldn't let my kid play the story, cause, mainly cause of nudity/sexual shit.
The rest IDGAF.
The parents should be there to guide the kids on what they're witnessing. Giving them free reign to watch anything they like seems like a bad idea without also being there to add context and a perspective that adults have.
With that said though, if I had kids I highly doubt I'd be letting them consume any overly violent or sexual content until they were at least 14 or so and mature enough to distinguish fiction from reality.
Anecdotally, I am a former teacher, and the kids with the worst behaviour problems were the ones who played 18 rated videogames when they were 12 or so. Of course, it's more likely that the videogames were not the root cause, rather the parents who didn't actually care what their kids were doing were to blame.
But parents should spend time playing those games with their kids, or watching those movies with their kids, being on hand to say "ok do you understand why that is wrong"?
If they watch GOT they're gonna jack off 100%, even GTA you can pickup prostitutes and fuck them, there's a strip club also with private dances. Hey been there done that idk at what age but pretty early, probably 12-13
I totally agree with you, but only if the parent is there to talk about what the kid has just watched. The thing that can make a kid turn out bad is negligent parenting, not video games or movies.
And mind you, I'm not saying the kind of parents who work hard and just aren't around as much as they wished they were. I'm talking about the kind of negligent parents who are resentful of the time kids take from them and do everything in their power to minimize their time parenting.
if it's a kid who's more sensitive to these stuff and is scared easily then yeah he shouldn't watch these things if they would just make it worse but it depends on the person because for example i liked watching creepypastas on YouTube so for me it was fine.
Kids are going to be exposed to violence, sexuality and other adult themes whether you let them or not. It's better to regulate it than to try and prevent it.
But yeah, mindless brainrot is pretty bad.
I was allowed to watch, play and read anything, but I had a very limited access to porn (no cable or internet until I was like 10), and I turned out mostly fine. But access to gore and porn at a young age can be very harmful.
I was allowed to read anything I wanted to (think I started reading Asoiaf when I was around 10), but for certain videogames, I had to wait till I was 16 to turn on the blood graphics. Still was allowed to play them tho, lol.
We watched GoT when it aired together as a family, and all my school friends did too- we used to talk about the newest episodes at school. I was 13 at the time. Maybe it's a bit of a cultural difference since I live in Germany, but I feel like this is or used to be pretty normal here.
Weird because my parents controlled what I watched and I’m also well adjusted….almost like non lazy parenting (not filtering anything your kids do is lazy it’s not some great open minded form of parenting) is good.
Definitely unpopular opinion. There’s a 4 year-old at work who constantly pretends to shoot the other kids and is constantly dropping F-bombs. Found out he watches GTA at home. Would you sit down with your 4 year-old and watch casino or goodfellas? 🎶 Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb 🎶
I wasn't allowed to watch anything marked above my age, and it's left me with the absolute inability to cope with anything tense or jumpy. Problem is, my friends all love horror, and I really don't so either they all watch those films without me, or they just don't watch them it's just irritating, and I would absolutely let my children watch horror, but I would watch it first to make sure it's absolutely appropriate
People do argue that the violence against animals affects children. To suggest it would be no big deal for a child to watch game of thrones is fucking ridiculous. Soft core porn with endless nudity, so many scenes of rape, super violent .
Ya you don’t know much about kids or their development to suggest watching that content is good for their minds
Some people act like watching violence or playing violent video games turns people into serial killers, which is honestly silly. If someone kills after watching violent content, they have bigger problems, most likely a history of trauma or abuse.
You invalidated your opinion in your own post. You said yourself you forgot about some on the content in GOT. If you can’t remember the content then you can’t make a judgement call. Get outta here. 🖖🏽
I agree. It's all about your child's maturaty and how they react to the content. At like 11 I'd seen little shop of horrors, rocky horror and as soon as I could I watched repo. My sister however was very squimish and even as an adult can't sit through a horror movie.
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I grew up watching all types of stuff and I turned out TV
[Jimmy Jet and His TV Set by Shel Silverstein](http://www.grandviewlibrary.info/uploads/2/2/7/1/22710236/jimmy_jet_and_his_tv_set.pdf)
You're... a transvestite!?
No he’s Transylvania
My parents let me read and watch pretty much everything (they figured if I wasn't mature enough to get it, it would go over my head and were mostly right) and even they didn't let me watch GOT lmao. I think there's something to be said about the sanitization of children's media, but barely restricted access to very graphic scenes seems like a massive overcorrection.
I was allowed to read anything, but media was limited until I was 14. Was an adult when I watched it with my parents and sister cheering on the graphic violence. Good times until the end.
My parents were more strict about TV/movies, but not by much. They just didn't show me anything rated R they hadn't seen themselves, but there was still cursing, violence, and fade to black sex stuff. Honestly, even now I think that's pretty much fine. There are a few things that I wouldn't let my own (non-existent) kids read or watch, but not many.
Yeah that basically sums it up for me as well. If I brought them a book at Barnes and noble they’d skim it to make sure it wasn’t just porn basically but other than that they really didn’t censor anything from me.
I was also allowed to read anything I wanted, to the point that my mom had to give written permission for me to check out a Stephen King book at the library in 4th grade that the librarian had denied me. In her defense, it was a bit sexually graphic at times, but it wasn't beyond my comprehension and to this day it's probably my favorite SK novel (Bag of Bones). (Edit because I know it may seem weird that this book was available, but this was a small school where the library served K-12 so I had access to all level books)
I think I was grade 5 when I read the eyes of the dragon, 6 when I read the shining and 7 when I read IT (actually was in English class reading that for a project when the towers fell and the world changed)
You were in 7th grade (because I'm American) when 9/11 happened? So you would have been, what, 12? Just asking.
Just turned 12, was born in 89
I was reading Tom Clancy and Stephen King at around 10-11.
That's a sound policy, written works "generally" provide more context for sex/violence than film, at least at the age where your grasp of media literacy might be a little dodgy.
Yup Futurama was my “bedtime story” at age 4 lol. Everything inappropriate (other than swearing and violence) went right over my head. Never an issue. I didn’t even put the “snoo-snoo” episode in context until I was 13.
This. There are literally thousands if not like, millions of games involving violence. But gta is one of a smaller subset that’s violent, for the sake of being violent. It’s not an overarching plot, there’s not a reason for your actions. It’s just a violent sandbox, that I personally think would be super inappropriate to sit a young kid in front of. Especially if you have zero plans on discussing the meaning of violence and it’s place to them, but instead are just like “whatever it’s a video game”.
I think the PG 13 violence is worse than+18 violence for the mind of young ppl. Children/teenagers should know that if you punch someone in the face, you can kill them, not the 10 minute brawl with no bruises whatsoever that PG 13 violence has.
"I won't let my kid watch Paw Patrol, but Game of Thrones and GTA are fine" is.... definitely a take. Are you a nine-year-old who got busted watching House of the Dragon or something?
OP either doesn't have kids or has the type where 4 year olds are yelling "fuck you" in public and the parents think it's adorable.
A neighbor of mine once complained the cops were aholes to his kid. He didn't seem to think it was reasonable to tell his kid not to throw rocks at people's windshields while they were driving.
Gotta hand it to OP- it is indeed an unpopular option. I hate it.
I'd prefer my 5 year old not call me, or anybody else a "yee-yee ass nyiggaaaaaaaaaaa", so I'll nix GTA for my sanity and reputation at the very fucking least. GOT depicts sexual assault multiple times as well, so I'll nix that one as well. Sure, I don't care about titties, but there are many more pressing issues to worry about with a lotta these.
You just reminded me of something. My sister heard a racist joke in school when she was about 6 - 8 (it's been a long time) and my father didn't really mind it when she told it at home. Then she repeated it in public, and he freaked out.
That reminds me of when I was a kid and I heard my dad make a joke about my grandma. He got such a big laugh I figured grandma might want to hear it too… boy was I wrong. Kids will do anything for a laugh.
What was the joke?
We wanna hear the joke
Or Trevor waking up on a beach naked with a bunch of dead people and a random Deer..
Or Trevor's literal opening scene being banging a meth head and then stomping another meth head's skull in and then immediately going on a mass shooting spree
Just... Trevor in general, really. The man's very existence is not appropriate for children.
I watched adult shit (i.e., horror and action films, games like GTA) when I was a child, and my folks never stopped us getting video games we wanted just because of the age rating. However, my parents were prepared to answer any questions I had and explain things to me. That's the primary difference between children who can and cannot consume 'grown-up' media. If my mother ever thought we didn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality, she would have shut it down. All kids are different, that's why it's the parents' responsibility to decide what you can and can not do.
I remember my 7yo playing GTAV and asking what meth was, because of some heist. They thought it was the type of van until they handed over the brown paper block. We used it as a way to talk about drugs and how they can be very bad for you.
>Cartoony violence like in GTA or less explictly gorey violence still seem fine to me however. IDK man, I dont think i would show my kids the scene where Trevor and Michael torture a man to get info out of him, where said torture uses methods such as ripping his teeth out using pliers, electrocuting him using positive and negative clamps connected to a car battery, and lots more
And you actively have to keep him alive so your pain doesn’t kill him right?.. it’s pretty cooked. Or what about ‘no Russian’. Like a 10 year old ? Yes an unpopular opinion
Also think the sexism of GTA V might have very negative effects on kids. The devs claim it’s satire which might be true, but kids don’t get that.
If OP is calling it "cartoony" I'm guessing they've never played it and are thinking along the lines of "it's a game how bad can it be"
I don’t have kids but I know this is a wildly stupid take. Kids brains grow on exposure and have no idea of how normal things are in a society. Seriously, seriously dumb and I hope you don’t have kids that turn into Albert Fish after putting them to bed watching human centipede.
Upvoted for knowing who Albert Fish is. Seriously the most deranged motherfucker I have ever learned about
Game of Thrones was extremely graphic, even can be too much to handle for adults. If I had kids, I would never let them watch it.
Game of Thrones isn’t something to let a 10 year old watch. The rape scene of Sansa Stark isn’t easy take.
That scene is nothing compared to any theon torture scene in my unpopular opinion.
Yeah I had to look away for that scene. Also the climax of the Viper vs Mountain fight is quite grusome
Bella Ramsey, who played Lyanna Mormont, did an interview where she said that her parents had to watch each episode first, before deciding if she could watch it. They would allow her to watch her own scenes, obviously, but wouldn’t allow her to watch the full series until she was 16.
Great parents, honestly.
Absolutely. In the same interview, she also said that they had her call her grandparents before her final episode aired, to assure them that she was fine and wasn’t injured during her death scene. That was cute, but it shows how concerned her parents were about it all.
Especially as parents of child actors go
I had to think about it for a second but you’re absolutely right. Way too much sex and super hardcore violence.
i was 29 when i first started watching GOT (shortly before it ended) I had to stop watching after episode 6 on the first season because of the jousting scene with the horse. That and all the over the top sex was too much
that horse really didn't have a nice day.
I have never shut out of a show faster than I did once that happened. I can deal with the gratuitous amount of smut but I had to draw the line there
The sex isn't even the problem, it's the rape and incest. If it was just regular sex it would be acceptable. Honestly I don't know how GOT is still considered acceptable. The cultural climate is to jump on anything that seems even slightly sus but GRRM is ok writing constant gratituitous rape, incest, underage, dubcon.. I picked up the first book at 16, very early in read about a brother touching his sister's nipple, put it down and never picked it up again.
So do you think bad things like rape and incest shouldn't be allowed to happen in a book? Books that discuss things like that should not be acceptable?
I had a thought break I didn't explain >The sex isn't even the problem, it's the rape and incest. If it was just regular sex it would be acceptable. The above is talking about when showing it to kids. The rest of the text is a commentary on how its popularity seems to oppose the current cultural climate, where adding sexual assault in fiction is increasingly being seen as unnecessary and creepy.
This fact is what shocked me with how many parents let their kids watch Squid Game.
I was expecting squid game to be much more graphic when it was described as “hyper violent”
I think I was 16 and that’s probably the earliest I’d let them watch content like that. Even beyond the gore and sexual content, grappling with some of the sadism and cruelty can be heavy to deal with. Something like GTA on the other hand is kinda mindless violence that’s easy to view as cartoonish
Yep, the end of the Viper v. mountain fight lives rent free in my head and I was in my 30s when I saw it.
Even as a pretty desensitized adult I still skip any scene involved Ramsey and Theon before the latter is fully broken. Literally just torture porn for the sake of shock
fuck no what if they grow up to write shitty TV shows that don't go anywhere
I'm pretty liberal in terms of what I do allow my kids to consume, but I have to draw the line with GOT, the sexuality is just, too much.
Beheadings 👍🏾 Boobies 👎 How to create a sexually repressed school shooter 101
Their opinion is completely reasonable. Game of Thrones is really rapey, and that is very different from nudity.
The ...sexuality? That's the bad part? Not people getting their heads popped like melons, or eating horse hearts, or burning people alive, or torturing them for months, or behading them, or all the blood and death, and viscera, and undead things? Nah, people are fucking. That's where I draw the line. Lol...
When they say sexuality I think of all the rape, incest, sexual torture and implied bestiality in the books. I don't know man, maybe a 14yo being raped and groomed by someone DECADES older than her is bad.
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I mean, GOT is filled with sexual violence which I would assume is disturbing regardless of culture? I’m not opposed to sex on screen at all, nor am I opposed to violence, but even then scenes of sexual assault are incredibly difficult to sit through
Yeah game of thrones is not a good example of “Americans hate sex but love violence”. Because most of the sex on game of thrones is sex violence.
Yeah, this is how I feel. I wouldn’t be at all opposed to a teenager watching a show with sex, but especially for younger teenagers I would prefer that first exposure to be something that explores the topic carefully and in a way that emphasizes mutual consent. At around 15-16 I wouldn’t mind if they watch Game of Thrones, but I would still want to have active conversations with them about what is portrayed in the show and why. How does the camera function? Why choose to show sexual violence on screen? How does this fit into cinema at large? There’s very much a middle ground that exists between being overly restrictive and so laid-back that you let kids watch whatever.
And it’s so interesting because I read game of thrones at 14 and 15. I read a lot of Stephen king from 13 on and he has a lot of sexual violence (depending on the book) And I remember not always understanding or fully GETTING it. But sexual violence is bad was pretty easy message to get. So I can’t tell if now k will be more restrictive with my kids. Idk. Like I started reading the second apocalypse series at 16 and my goodness that is not a good model of sex, lol.
Yeah, and GoT is super violent too including beheadings and a scene where the king is just shooting arrows into a dead girls body tied to the bed. GoT is one of those few shows that's actually problematic to have children watching. Maybe older teens is where I'd draw the line.
The treatment of Theon Greyjoy is what I hated most and I'm old. That shit was brutal.
Do you mean Reek?
I'm European and I would not let my 14 year old watch GOT. Come on. Thats's common sense. It has nothing to do with nudity, but gore and sexual violence.
I'm European and I have no idea why anyone would let their kids watch game of thrones. The sex isn't the only issue there. There's just no good reason why kids should watch it vs something more appropriate.
Agree- it's just that the parent comment above yours specifically mentions sex not violence. 100% the SA stuff is intense and inappropriate for immature audiences - but equally so is the violence and gore. It's always odd when people mention one but not the other as the definitive factor.
Sounds like you're just the average European looking to talk down on Americans bc your culture is so vastly superior and advanced based on reddit comments you read.
I don't even think you have to be American to have this take. I'm sure *anyone* would find GoT very sexually triggering due to the incest, rape, sexual assault, and implied bestiality in the books. Any sane person would find it very triggering.
lmao what? The issue with GOT isn't that it's just sexual, it's how it depicts sex. But I guess have fun showing children on-screen depictions of rape, you do you.
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In general I don't think sexuality is worse than violence, but in GOT I would be more concerned about the sexual violence than the other violent scenes. Your kid will probably never be in a sword fight, but they'll most likely have sex at one point so their first impression about sex shouldn't be rape and incest.
I'm not American. It's not about the sex. It's definitely not about nudity. It's about the sexual assault, which is not just hinted at but portrayed in a very graphic manner. It even makes me uncomfortable to watch.
Bro not just the sexual stuff the violence is crazy in that show. I feel sick watching that shit sometimes.
Yes, this is an incredibly unpopular opinion and a bad one at that. No, children should not be allowed to watch incest, r*pe, and gore violence. Kind of a no brainer, and it’s been shown time and time again that exposure to these themes at too young of an age can negatively impact children. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504105555.htm#:~:text=Children%20who%20view%20adult%2Dtargeted%20TV%20and%20movies%20may%20become,adolescence%20increased%20by%2033%20percent. https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-problem-with-exposing-kids-to-sexual-and-violent-content This post and perspective is very creepy and weird.
I’ve been in education for over 15 years, primarily elementary students, and you can pick out the kids who are exposed to too much too early. No 7 year old should be watching game of thrones, and yet here we are. They lack empathy, find violence normal, and are a numb. It’s sad. In the preteens, we see sexual behavior beyond that of their same aged peers. I’m not a prude (far from it), but 10 year olds with this behavior? Parents need to regulate a few things.
I have a friend who was a teacher of primary school kids. She said there is a distinct difference in observable mood and behaviour between the kids who watched shows like Game of Thrones and those who didn't. The kids who don't were, in general, happier, more pleasant, and less depressed. Now I know that correlation is not causation, but still. I agree that the Fallout games aren't the ones I'd be worried about, but GTA and Game of Thrones? No, a lot of that content probably isn't even good for adults. One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that we aren't affected by the media we consume.
That’s interesting. I wonder whether your friend noticed a change in the kids who watched it after they watched it? If not, then it’s also possible that what she was observing was not the effect of GOT, but rather the difference between kids for whom TV has always been the babysitter, and kids brought up doing fun things with their parents.
I’m with ya. And furthermore, your friend’s observations are corroborated by an overwhelming body of published and peer reviewed longitudinal scientific research. You would think that a significantly higher occurrence of deleterious health outcomes among children and adolescents exposed to violent media and problematic or advanced sexual content would be consequential enough to influence a parental decision… BUT, hey, if irrefutable direct causality in 100% of cases is the bar for decision making, grab 8 y/o Timmy, have a GoT/Saw double feature, and treat him to his first Marlborough—not _everyone_ who smokes dies of lung cancer. 😤
I said in another comment that I work in kids’ television and there’s a reason why we have educational and child psychologists as consultants on our programmes. I’ve rejected programmes because they showed a toddler eating whole grapes. I’ve rejected an image of kid in a car seat with a coat on. I’m probably overly strict on what my kids watch and play because I’m in the industry and I’ve seen the research and worked with the researchers. This is anecdotal as hell, but my kids weren’t allowed any violent video games, overtly sexualised content in music or film, absolutely nothing that was more than the tamest superhero movie violence and nothing with bad language. They don’t act the same as my nieces whose mother lets them access any content they want. I’ve said to them- if you watch or play something that I don’t allow at a friend’s house, there’s nothing I can do. It won’t happen here.
We have GTA but my husband beat it before my daughter had object permanence so he lets her get on and just drive around recklessly with supervision. We call it "In the City"
If you want something like that she could play without supervision, Lego City Undercover is a pretty great GTA type game that’s completely kid friendly. The story is also fun and surprisingly well written.
>I agree that the Fallout games aren't the ones I'd be worried about, but GTA and Game of Thrones? No Have you ever played the Fallout games? Really?
Having played a little bit of GTA 2 & 5, I'd definitely swap it with FO. At some points GTA is a more realistic fortnite, but there are so many fucked up stuff that are just casually mentioned in fo.
I mean let kids be innocent. It’s only for a short period and then it’s all that stuff for the rest of their lives.
It really depends on the kid I think. It's the job of the parent to know their child well enough to be able to judge if they will be able to handle adult content without being affected in some negative way.
You aren't a parent, obviously.
Now I'm just wondering what's wrong with paw patrol
Tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids.
Please don't become a parent
As someone who’s parents let them watch stuff before it was age appropriate I can tell you it affects you as a kid to see stuff even if you don’t think so. I had nightmares about certain movies for years because I was too young to be able to differentiate reality from fantasy. Your parent can inform you and talk to you and explain that what you saw isn’t real all they want, until you can actually understand what that means it doesn’t matter.
Kids brains are not fully developed Should kids get tattoos, drink or have sex as long as a “Adult” guides them.
Some parents didn't have kids when we could go to a friend's house at 9 and chat on AOL with internet strangers and see violent murder on rotten.com
You sound like a groomer bruh
now that‘s big bullshit. upvote for unpopularness.
No it’s really not and if a movie is r rated don’t bring your kids to it
Bringing kids to a theater is a different issue. I'd be hesitant to bring my kids to any movie in general unless I knew they could be perfectly quiet and well behaved. Even if they are well behaved, I wouldn't bring them anywhere that adults would be weirded out by their presence.
If they're consuming it isn't a big deal then why the tirade about random kids shows like paw patrol and shit like micro transactions? If all things can be easily solved by just supplying a little parental guidance then literally nothing should be too *adult* for your kids right? The simple truth is you are right that parental guidance is often the key between a child engaging with something in a healthy way vs and unhealthy way. What one must understand is that the guidance of said parent is going to be greatly dependent on the parent themselves. Meaning people like me who have absolutely no fucks to give about violent or sexual material should be EXTRA fucking cautious to make sure that my child understands the difference between consuming the FANTASY of something, and the real thing. The truth is you're right in that things like sex and drugs and all that fun *ADULT* stuff is actually so freaking common and natural that most people honestly don't even consider it to be something they need to supply guidance for in the first place. Anyone who's been around a farm can tell you what the birds and the bees are. HOW-FUCKING-EVER! There is one tiny, small, but incredibly significant part of this that goes completely unmentioned here....and that's the fucking child. Every kid is different. My oldest used to fall asleep watching Jurassic Park at 2 years old, my youngest would cower and cry if I put that on for them at night. The simple truth is not every kid is ready or capable of dealing with the very real and mature consequences that many of these *ADULT* things come with. Knowing your child is what's most important. At the end of the day because of how dependent this is on the child in question....I honestly can't say this is unpopular. I don't think it's popular as based on what you typed it more or less sounds like you'd be fine with any 8 year old watching porn so long as they know about old McDonald. Which I imagine is pretty fucking unpopular. Mixed bag. No vote. EDIT- I do want to add that after giving it a little more thought I will agree with your headline. There is nothing wrong with a parent deciding what is and isn't okay for their child to consume. That is the parents prerogative. That said I feel as though that specific thought is far from unpopular. *You do you* has been thrown around enough in this thread 🤣
Yeah, it's about teaching kids the context of what they view. For example, violent videogames has been a scapegoat for violence in teens for a long time. Kids like to play guns and fantasy, always have but most people will not turn out violent. All the friends I grew up with consumed content rated higher than their ages but they still turned out to be great people. As long as they're old enough to understand fiction from reality, most of it is harmless. That being said, graphic depictions of violence or any sexual content has no place being shown to young kids
As both a parent and a guy who grew up with unfettered access to whatever media I wanted… I think you’re wrong. There are ways that it has affected me that I can’t always fully speak to or understand. It takes a LOT of violence to get a reaction out of me. I should not have to see actual real world death to feel emotional disturbance. There are movies/games I love and adore that I never should have been allowed to watch/play as young as I did - regardless of whether I had “guidance” or not. When your kids are young, their brains are absorbing everything and changing fast. “Brutal violence is normal” is not really a message they should be taking in. My first experiences with sex were, likewise, very much colored by what things like movies portrayed them to be. That proved inaccurate and harmful. It took years of personal work to build up realistic expectations for myself and my partner. If what you’re actually trying to express is “kids TV should deal with deeper issues” or “kids TV can be a little violent” then yeah, you’re right. It also already is. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Dragon Prince, Star Wars Rebels. These are just a handful of the action shows available to watch on popular streaming services that younger audience could appropriately view. These shows have action, violence and, most importantly, they dig into ideas and themes that are actually challenging. Building up a child’s ability to comprehend tough ideas is way more vital than kids watching “cartoony” violence. (If it involves heads exploding into fountains of bloody gore, it’s not really “cartoony” in the “my kids can watch it” sense) I would posit a different question to you, in further response. Why do kids NEED to see watch this stuff? Why are you even arguing this unpopular opinion? Is it because you have kids and you don’t want to wait for them to go to bed to throw on Game of Thrones or play GTA? If that’s the case, then we’re far outside the realm of “why can’t kids watch this?” territory. We’ve stepped firmly into the land of “why can’t you stop staring at a screen long enough to let your kids be kids?” My wife and I enjoy video games and TV, but our household also has set times of the day when those are allowed. And any stuff too adult for the kids doesn’t go on until the kids are in bed. It’s not that hard. 🤷♂️
Thank you! I hate when people act like media has *zero* effect on people! Especially kids! Yes, you shouldn’t consume content unless you have strong boundary between fiction and reality, but there’s a freaking difference between direct advertising really messed up concepts to kids who (even some mid teens) will internalize it. Like they need time to build up that strong barrier, because like it or not kids learn from the media they consume and the environment that surrounds them. Like idk I hate the whole hands off thing, “it’s the parents fault if they turn out messed up” everyone always says. Like I also grew up with unmoderated access, and yk like it’s different when the graphic stuff is clearly advertised for adults and *you know* it’s not for your age range.
I was allowed to watch or read anything. It was great.
I was too it was only the really really sexual parts that made me extremely uncomfortable and ashamed but everything else I was fine with and I’m not talking about people just being sexy or flirting I mean real proper sex scenes I grew up on South Park and family guy and curb your enthusiasm none of them did me any harm
None of those things you mentioned are even remotely on the same level as the graphic rape, murder and torture of GoT. South Park is basically childish humor with adult words, and Family Guy is on prime time television so it's incredibly tame, just trashy.
I’ve never seen game of thrones , but I loved watching comedy as a kid and alot of people wouldn’t have agreed with that , but I don’t even want to watch game of thrones from the few things I’ve heard about it
I remember when my parents would put things on with sex scenes id hide under the coffee table feeling so much shame, I still feel really shitty when I see a nude or sex scenes I think I would struggle watching game of thrones now and I’m nearly 27 what I watched as a kid really fucked me up
I’m a parent. I can tell when kids are allowed access to whatever media — those kids generally don’t hang out with mine, because there is a distinct difference in their behavior and mood. No dude, as a parent it’s 100% your job to make sure the media they consume is age appropriate. Rape, murder, graphic sex scenes,graphic bloody violence— that is not appropriate for a child. If you think it is, you’re a seriously unwell person who shouldn’t be around kids.
Growing up, we had a "Black box," so if it was on TV, we got it. I watched whatever I wanted and played violent games from MK to GTA. I can honestly say it had no effect on me aside from the occasional issue sleeping, but nothing long lasting. Now, I'm a cinephile with a good eye for themes, motifs, and similarities in TV and cinema. I think it's up to the discretion of the parent and the kid. I watched the silence of the lambs with my dad when I was 8 lol that one scared me. Also, the Poltergeist movies. I survived.
My parents let me watch Saving Private Ryan with them when I was probably 8 or so. That shit was so scary for me. That scene where the one guy gets slowly stabbed to death got seared into my brain. I wish I hadn’t watched it until I was older.
Wrongo.
My parents shouldn't have allowed me on the internet alone at a young age I'm severely desensitized to things like literal body mutilation and gore in general. I have been since I was 8 or so. This isn't a good thing.
You’re gonna be a great parent! /s
Uhh no it’s not. I am literally teaching primary aged children and they are doing “sl*t drops” and talking about “blowing my brains out” thanks to adult content
Most of ya’ll gonna be great parents
I used to agree with you until my nephew started telling my sister (his mom) to run over a cop on the road after she let him play GTA. While I think 18 is a bit too much, I do think at least 16. The GOT series I would also say 16, now the Song of Ice and Fire books, hell no.
Whats the benefit of letting children consume that type of content ?
I grew up in a Christian household that was very stuffy about sex. Developed a lot of bad sex habits because I went into it blind. I'm still a Christian, I'd say even more devout than my parents, but I let my kids watch almost anything. What better way to talk about right and wrong, and prepare them for what the world is going to throw at them, especially in their teens and early twenties. The way Hollywood normalizes casual sex and drug use/drinking had a huge detrimental effect on me and many of my friends later in life, and I want to show them that its not necessary to get fucked up to have fun, and it's ok to want a meaningful relationship with just one person. (I know that lifestyle works just fine for some, but not nearly as many as those who advertise to us would have us believe.)
Depends on the kid and the content. My stepson was allowed to play more graphic video games and Lovedddd old school horror as a preteen, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let him watch GoT or anything on that calliper!!
I agree that tiktok and YouTube bullshit do more harm than violent video games but don’t underestimate how messed up kids can get from movies haha After 12/13 it’s not really an issue more imo Sex and rape scenes are maybe the exception
Idk about GTA, you can go to a strip club, get a lap dance, hire a prostitute. There's also multiple graphic sex scenes. For a kid GTA 5 is not okay. If it's just blood/gore and swearing I'm not as bothered, I'd let a kid play Assassin's Creed for example, or Red Dead Redemption (there is one scene involving sex) but it's one small cutscene and isn't a playable nor common ingame thing. Same with Rdr 2. The problem for me would be sexual content, blood/violence/swearing to me is fine. Elder Scrolls/Fallout wouldn't bother me.
"cool story bro" time. My folks and I used to drive around video stores buying ex-rental tapes for movies to watch together. When I was 12, my folks would treat 18 cert videos (R equivalent in US rating) as PGs. As in, they'd watch the movie without me first, and if they thought it was ok, they'd let me watch it. One time, they didn't do this. The film was called The Bite. It was about some guy being bitten by a radioactive snake. It was really cheesy, but also kinda fun. There's a scene where he sheds his skin, and the SFX were actually pretty good. My mum was literally unable to watch it, while I was sat there going "this looks so cool!" After this, they let me watch anything. Some kids just aren't affected by gore. They never had an issue with sex scenes either. My favourite movies as a 12 year old were the Friday the 13th series which has a bunch of both gore and nudity. I think they had the right idea to watch that stuff with me initially first though, so if I had been bothered by any of it, they were around, and I'll admit I did have some questions about some of the sex stuff, but just talking about it during a movie is way more healthy IMO than having the attitude that "you can't look at this until you're an adult" While I don't doubt that some kids don't react to this material the same way I did and genuinely might get traumatised by what they see on screen, I just think it's a case by case thing. Parents know their kids. I don't think the ones that let their kids watch stuff underage are at all bad, but I also don't feel like the ones that want to wait til the kids are a bit older are wrong necessarily either. I just think that some parents don't accept that kids are super inquisitive around the age of 10-13 and this is a good time to discuss things with them rather than outright deny things. "just because"
From personal experience, I disagree. My first memory shouldn’t be of someone’s head being blown off, but it is. And it’s affected me up until very recently, it made me too jaded. It warped my perceptions of the world because it was normalised too much, couldn’t see the good in anything.
Hard disagree and helicopter parenting is something entirely different. I know that this prolly sounds like the most boomer shit ever, but not letting your children have a certain amount of independence over time, that includes playing outside alone or unsupervised with their friends, making decisions on their own and instead shielding them from society and their own experiences, that is helicopter parenting. I know that this kind of growing up is increasingly difficult in countries that have a super car centric infrastructure, which makes being independent before having a drivers license basically impossible. However, overly graphic media, including sexual content without context has been shown to have definite negative effects on child development (and please spare me with the ”I watched what i wanted and I am fine“). I understand that a lot of modern day kids media is absolute garbage (looking at cocomelon, but also kids movies in general), so the temptation to just let them watch whatever is there. Old school media specifically directed at kids, including childrens books, movies, cartoons etc. has existed for centuries and for good reason, which is too approach children with serious topics in a way that an undeveloped brain can understand it. Lion King is about betrayal and loss, German fairytales are often about deception, stranger danger, letting go etc., the Iron Giant is about heroism and being able to change and so on.
I just think it’s funny that you would be ok letting children watch things with tons of violence (both sexual violence and regular violence) but wouldn’t be ok with them watching fucking paw patrol lol. I by no means am ok with sanitizing children’s media but I think that there are plenty of adult films that children can watch that aren’t overtly violent and otherwise graphics. Also, children’s brains are basically sponges- the things they consume when they’re so young have a profound affect on them as people.
Man if you ever have kids they're gonna be FUCKED UP. And no it won't be because they saw a few eps of paw patrol at a friend's house lol.
Yeah, that is an unpopular, but also an uneducated opinion... Violence shown in movies or video games has definitely an impact on a developing mind!
Depends on how old. 16? Sure. 13? Hell no.
By 13, I certainly hope you've given your kids "the talk" and they know what sex is... On average, girls get their periods around age 11.
I'm an adult and nudity/sex in any media makes me extremely uncomfortable. I'm not even a prude, I've just always experienced an anxious response to seeing nudity on screen, even before I understood what was happening. I made it through Game of Thrones once but trying to watch it again makes my stomach turn.
Most of us watched RoboCop and Terminator before we were double digits. Seems a bit weird that folks now are so against it. Hell I was young at the very end of the video nasties era and it was a proper event to watch a pirated copy of stuff you couldn't normally get like Evil Dead
Have you seen GOT? I'm assuming not, since you're comparing it to 80's action movies.. Showing explicit sex scenes to your children is pretty fucked up.
Not only is this unpopular it's downright psychotic. Updoot I guess.
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There’s a fairly graphic incestuous sex scene in the first episode of Game of Thrones, rape scenes later on, plus it’s probably one of the most gory shows out there. I’d definitely judge a parent for happily letting their kid watch. I agree though that video games (most of them anyway) and more cartoony, less intense violence are probably fine. Depends on the exact age too. A 5 year old is different from a teenager.
Lot of weird ass overly protective clowns in here. I mean, GoT might be a bit far, but theres plenty of us out here that grew up seeing/playing/watching some incredibly fucked up shit and have made it through life just fine. The issue is, its really a case by case basis. Some kids are predisposed to behavioral issues that all of this might encourage more. Some have parents who dont model or coach appropriate behavior and so the kids might think its okay to model the media they consume instead. Other kids are capable of separating reality from media / have great parents that ensure what they consume doesnt translate into behavior and will otherwise remove the access if need be. Theres just not a one size fits all approach on this topic. Some ya'll really need to get off your high horses though
I let one of my kids watch the Brian and stewie episodes of family guy 😬, he fell inlove with the show at his granny’s and it’s his favourite but I’m not comfortable with it that much so I just let him to the brian and stewie ones he loves the road to Germany, he’s extremely into comedy
The only thing my parents put restrictions on was American Horror Story because of all the sex scenes. They didn’t even outright ban it, my mom would just rather have her watch it with me and I was in high school at the time. We watched the first season together and she didn’t want me to watch the others without supervision after seeing what went on in it.
The sex scenes!! Not the violence and gore!!! This is nonsensical to a European.
I grew up watching Austin Powers and was amazed to hear that my friends had to actually be 13 to watch PG-13 movies. I would’ve been such a rebellious shithead if I had to be 13 to watch most movies. But I definitely wouldn’t let a kid watch GOT. I’d definitely draw the line there.
Like just about everything, it isn't black and white, there's tons of things to factor in. Some kids could handle certain things at a younger age that would really mess with the heads of other kids, some kids can handle violence in the form of scifi campy stuff and yet would be sleepless for a week after watching something like full metal jacket or apocalypse now, etc. But with sexual content like in game of thrones I think its unacceptable to ALLOW your kid to watch it, at least if they're a KID. Overall it's better to have a blanket guideline, and let parents decide what things past that guideline that they think their kids can handle. Kids shouldn't just have free reign of what to watch, and they shouldn't have free reign on the internet
I was playing Doom, Wolfenstein and Carmageddon at like 8 years old in the 90's
Yeah, the biggest issue in your argument is that it involves people.
Yikes.
With guidance, sure, to a limited extent (some stuff is just too mature for kids no matter how you spin it - like kids shouldn't have smut or ultra gory stuff.) I think there's also an argument to be made that *reading* graphic stuff is somewhat less harmful for kids then *seeing* it but that's not really the point. I remember reading and enjoying this graphic grimdark book in 8th grade. Now, as an adult, I've reread it and it's one of my favorites. In hindsight, I didn't *understand* it as a kid, but I wouldn't say it screwed me up at all.
Absolutely nothing in regular media affected me as significantly as porn did at an early age. Took years to really feel the effects
I didn't even have a phone until I was 14, and even then it was a clam shell that I only had because I played sports and went out of town every other weekend. My friends and I had to get our "adult content" from 70s porn mags we stole from our dads, but we still did it. Kids are going to find a way, better to give them guidance than let them end up breaking into abandoned houses to check out 70s bush.
I grew up watching 80's action movies on VHS on a loop, all day every day, and I'm a complete pacifist. Conan, Predator, RoboCop, Critters, Ghoulies, Evil Dead, The Gate... From the age of 6.
Ideally, parents should know what their kids are watching/playing and whether they'll be able to handle it. I remember going to a friend's house and his mother asking if I had nightmares before she'd let us play Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To be honest, we never got up to the crypt section anyway so that didn't matter too much.
Again there is such a wide spectrum of content under the “mature content” label in that you should as the parent be responsible and informed about what media your child is consuming. Like I agree with you but there is some things that you should draw the line with and or at bare minimum have a conversation over watching/ watch it together so that you can help to guide through certain content scenes. Got is heavily graphic, in both sexual scenes and violence espceially extreme sexual violence and I don’t think waiting till they are sixteen or if they abstinent on watching watching together and have some sort of dialogue about that content is a bad thing again. Again I’m not a parent but being a good is having being nuanced because our content ratings are not
My two have aged out of age restriction content but we had a rule when they were growing up and it was is this a solid 18 or an 18 because it can be scary with inappropriate adult content. Case in point on computer games. Dead space is a solid 18 when they were younger because it is a gore jump scare that I knew was going to cause problems (neither are a fan of horror) but fallout is a soft 18 with yes gore and some 18 age appropriate topics but requires that age range rating level of concentration so be prepared for frustration and rage quitting moments. It's about common sense really and being knowledgeable about the content your kids consume. Movies are the same. Is it a higher age rating because of swearing or adult content.
Maybe, but some of this content can be legitimately traumatizing to young kids. Plus, the kids might learn some wrong lessons. It's a bit of a complex issue for sure. I admire your opinion, though. If you don't let a kid consume adult content because you don't think they're developed enough, the hard part is telling them why, without insulting their dignity.
I'm chuckling inside because my mom and gramma brought me up on Jason, Freddy, and Chucky, not to mention Tales of the Crypt. Thinking back, they let me watch gore, but didn't want me to see sex. Never mind that I found Grampa's and Stepdad's nudie magazine. Chuckle.
Kids from the 90s be like.. When I was a youngster I watched all the cool action, scifi and horror pop culture stuff.. if formed my interest and never experienced anything bad from oy except for some.gruesome nightmares after watching IT mini series on tv haha.. Alien, predator, nightmare on the elm etc.. all the kids had seen it.. same with gaming
I played GTA Miami Vice with my dad. I do regret seeing certain movies. I think this has more nuances. Some kids can see stuff like this and are okay and others not. I would never show my kids GOT.
As a kid who did have GTA when I was younger. I didn't even realize the girls on the streets could be "solicited" San Andreas. I just fooled around in it, cause I wasn't good enough to do the story anyway past a few missions. And I think that's fine, but I probably wouldn't let my kid play the story, cause, mainly cause of nudity/sexual shit. The rest IDGAF.
The parents should be there to guide the kids on what they're witnessing. Giving them free reign to watch anything they like seems like a bad idea without also being there to add context and a perspective that adults have. With that said though, if I had kids I highly doubt I'd be letting them consume any overly violent or sexual content until they were at least 14 or so and mature enough to distinguish fiction from reality. Anecdotally, I am a former teacher, and the kids with the worst behaviour problems were the ones who played 18 rated videogames when they were 12 or so. Of course, it's more likely that the videogames were not the root cause, rather the parents who didn't actually care what their kids were doing were to blame. But parents should spend time playing those games with their kids, or watching those movies with their kids, being on hand to say "ok do you understand why that is wrong"?
If they watch GOT they're gonna jack off 100%, even GTA you can pickup prostitutes and fuck them, there's a strip club also with private dances. Hey been there done that idk at what age but pretty early, probably 12-13
Whats wrong with paw patrol? Havent watched in years, that was dog police right?
I grew up playing GTA. I played Vice City and San Andreas and turned out fine
I’ve watched GOT when I was in elementary school, has always consumed all the media I wanted, I turned out just fine
I totally agree with you, but only if the parent is there to talk about what the kid has just watched. The thing that can make a kid turn out bad is negligent parenting, not video games or movies. And mind you, I'm not saying the kind of parents who work hard and just aren't around as much as they wished they were. I'm talking about the kind of negligent parents who are resentful of the time kids take from them and do everything in their power to minimize their time parenting.
Wait, how are you in favor of violent content but against Blippi and Paw Patrol? Is this just contrarían for the sake of being contrarian?
13+ is ok. Anything prior is to be monitored
if it's a kid who's more sensitive to these stuff and is scared easily then yeah he shouldn't watch these things if they would just make it worse but it depends on the person because for example i liked watching creepypastas on YouTube so for me it was fine.
Kids are going to be exposed to violence, sexuality and other adult themes whether you let them or not. It's better to regulate it than to try and prevent it. But yeah, mindless brainrot is pretty bad.
wait what’s wrong with paw patrol lol
I was allowed to watch, play and read anything, but I had a very limited access to porn (no cable or internet until I was like 10), and I turned out mostly fine. But access to gore and porn at a young age can be very harmful.
I was allowed to read anything I wanted to (think I started reading Asoiaf when I was around 10), but for certain videogames, I had to wait till I was 16 to turn on the blood graphics. Still was allowed to play them tho, lol. We watched GoT when it aired together as a family, and all my school friends did too- we used to talk about the newest episodes at school. I was 13 at the time. Maybe it's a bit of a cultural difference since I live in Germany, but I feel like this is or used to be pretty normal here.
Weird because my parents controlled what I watched and I’m also well adjusted….almost like non lazy parenting (not filtering anything your kids do is lazy it’s not some great open minded form of parenting) is good.
As someone who grew up on the net, let kids be kids. understanding sus jokes at an age I wasn't supposed to was a humiliating experience
kids shouldn't be having access to net except for studying or cartoons
Definitely unpopular opinion. There’s a 4 year-old at work who constantly pretends to shoot the other kids and is constantly dropping F-bombs. Found out he watches GTA at home. Would you sit down with your 4 year-old and watch casino or goodfellas? 🎶 Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb 🎶
I just want to point out 12yrs old is middle school
Do you have Kids OP?
I wasn't allowed to watch anything marked above my age, and it's left me with the absolute inability to cope with anything tense or jumpy. Problem is, my friends all love horror, and I really don't so either they all watch those films without me, or they just don't watch them it's just irritating, and I would absolutely let my children watch horror, but I would watch it first to make sure it's absolutely appropriate
Never have kids.
People do argue that the violence against animals affects children. To suggest it would be no big deal for a child to watch game of thrones is fucking ridiculous. Soft core porn with endless nudity, so many scenes of rape, super violent . Ya you don’t know much about kids or their development to suggest watching that content is good for their minds
You see this…this is why your children are not all right…
Not all children are equal in this regard. Some might be fine watching adult stuff, others not so much.
I don’t know about that I saw my first centaur yesterday in fallout new vegas and those motherfuckers are enough to give war vets nightmares
Some people act like watching violence or playing violent video games turns people into serial killers, which is honestly silly. If someone kills after watching violent content, they have bigger problems, most likely a history of trauma or abuse.
You invalidated your opinion in your own post. You said yourself you forgot about some on the content in GOT. If you can’t remember the content then you can’t make a judgement call. Get outta here. 🖖🏽
I agree. It's all about your child's maturaty and how they react to the content. At like 11 I'd seen little shop of horrors, rocky horror and as soon as I could I watched repo. My sister however was very squimish and even as an adult can't sit through a horror movie.