I've always been very careful about what our girls watch on tv. Cbeebies and Nick Jnr pretty much sum up the live tv and we have a large number of U and PG rated DVDs like Angelina Ballerina and Little Einsteins.
So, yesterday I took the girls to an early showing of Tales of Despereaux at the cinema, rated U. One of my girls was rather distressed at the point where the mouse is attacked by rats and a mean looking cat (all in cartoon). She ended up sat on my knee covering her eyes whilst I murmured to her about the brave mouse beating all the naughty rats and he saved the princess... telling her the story but allowing her not to see it in detail.

I was quite surprised that it bothered her so much but it gives me a slight sense of pride. Because we've been so careful, they haven't seen anything frightening on tv and the 'mild peril' seen on cartoons is suitably alarming to them. Not that I want them to be afraid, more that I don't want them to be so inured against violence and unpleasant behaviour as so many kids are.

I recorded Finding Nemo on Sky+ yesterday and let the girls watch it today and the same thing happened, the sharks were too much for her so we turned it off and went outside to play. I later fast forwarded past all the scary parts and left the rest for them to watch but even then, certain parts alarmed her so we talked about what a brave fish it was and then watched The Magic Roundabout to help her forget. We had to turn off Beauty and the Beast a couple of months ago as the beast was just too scary. Even Flushed Away nearly had us turning off at one stage.

Now, I realise it may seem like a step too much protection but I so intensely dislike the relative norms of television, where people are fighting and arguing all the time. Someone I knew had a baby when I was about 17 and her daughter used to get up in the night from the age of about 2.5 and go downstairs and watch tv at night. She was caught with The Amityville one night and from then on was allowed to watch anything she liked as it didn't seem to bother her. This, years later, still seems very wrong to me.

On the one hand it's so silly it's funny and on the other I'm glad that my daughter is disturbed by something designed to provoke emotion.

What about your kids?

Well you know how old Charlie is and I don't think he understands what he's watching really, apart from he does copy ITNG (At the start with kid and the parent and the hand thing, he does it to himself ARGH) so I can't really comment as to what he get's like when something 'scary' is on, BUT I don't think it's a step too far in protection, I think it actually might be a good thing that she get's a little nervous. I know this'll probably sound really silly but when the scream movies came out I was about 8-10YO, I know of people the same age as me who watched them, and three are in prison, one for stabbing somebody, the other two for beating somebody so badly it was fatal... I'd say that it's down to what they saw on TV.

If you think it's right for the girls to not watch something, that's your choice, and I don't think you're doing a bad job of parenting really from what i've seen, you're a super mum :)

My daughter used to be the same - and I got to the point where I worried that I was bringing up some kind of "girly-wuss"!! She too couldn't watch Finding Nemo and other films that I thought young children "should" enjoy! She also got quite upset with stories that we read to her with sad bits in them. But I agree with you - I would rather it be that way!

She's now 7 - and still doesn't like anything with fighting in, or sad endings in books (now we read longer stories to her, we often end up reading an extra chapter just to get to a nicer bit!!). Her TV tastes now are quite "interesting" - including Come Dine with Me / Extreme Dreams (with Ben Fogle) and Time Team!!!