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Dear care and food,
My 11 year old daughter held a movie night for her best friend’s birthday. This was on a Saturday night. We had heard in advance that they would be watching two movies that would be appropriate for an October party: Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas. My daughter had seen both movies before and was not intimidated by either. She generally accepts “scary” movies well (although I’m comparing her to her brothers, one of whom was scared of Tangled).
In the car on the way home from a birthday party, she broke down in tears and said she had watched The Nightmare Before Christmas.
scream. The kids would stay in the basement, eat pizza and cake between movies, and then the parents would stop checking on them until it was time to get home. Her behavior has changed since then. She said the movie wasn’t scary, but it was very bloody and made her feel uneasy. Although she usually loves being alone in her room, she spends as much time as possible in the living room and gets irritated when no one is around. She doesn’t feel comfortable showering or sleeping alone. She will be worried if she hasn’t seen her family for a while.
I don’t really know what to do here. When I was in high school, I would sneak into the theater to see Scream, but the situation was very different and, for lack of a better word, less traumatic. My husband and I are conflicted about whether we should discipline her further. I’m also wondering whether I should talk to the host’s parents about this (we both agree on how much to trust her parents after this) or the parents of the other guests at the party. I am. And I don’t know how to help my daughter.
– still screaming
Dear Mr. Still
Why don’t you start by training her further? For what? She was at a party and someone showed a scary movie. She told you about it right away. You should never discipline her. Your daughter was scared and is left a little shaken by the experience, but she doesn’t need to be punished for it.
Feel free to ask other parents to contact you as well. However, I’m almost certain that they already know that this party has already gained notoriety among the children’s peers and neighbors. And I will not speak too harshly of the birthday girl’s parents. Couldn’t they have been more rigorous in checking what movies their children were watching? of course. But the kids were in the basement, where they belonged, and the parents were upstairs, where they belonged, and there were times when an 11-year-old would outwit his parents. That’s it.
I had to start saying no to my rich friends’ expensive outings. Her reaction was infuriating. I haven’t dated in years. My 11 year old son has strange thoughts about my new boyfriend. My wife is lazier than my father, who is the most indifferent and does nothing. But it turns out it’s much worse than that. Help! My wife keeps sneaking the kids into bed.
Broadly speaking, this is a small potato. Your daughter saw a movie she wasn’t ready for. This is what has happened to nearly every child in America since the invention of the VCR, and relatively few have been permanently scarred as a result. And while Scream is clearly too much for most 11-year-olds, from your own experience watching the famous horror classic Rapunzel, you can tell us what kind of movies scare kids. You will remember that you have no idea. (When my wife was a little girl, she slept on the floor of her brother’s room for a year after watching The Wizard of Oz as a particularly scary movie.) Her logic was to carry the baby before it gets kidnapped.
Be kind and gentle to your little girl. Let her join you in the living room. Buy her a night light and sit with her until bedtime a few times. Within a week or two, or maybe a little longer if she’s like my wife, she feels better about things and this event becomes an important part of her own pop culture origin story. We guarantee that it will be a part that you will remember vividly.
—Dan
