You Should Show Grave of the Fireflies to Your Kids
You Should Show Grave of the Fireflies to Your Kids
Viral posts online suggest Grave of the Fireflies should never be shown to kids. Here's why they are wrong.
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Depends on how old your kids are... Are they old enough to understand suffering and loss? Then it's time to make your kids suffer and lose some of their free time in order to learn something important; like any good parent!
You'd rather have kids do it when they're supervised and have love and support then when it is suddenly thrust upon them with no warning, that's for sure.
No, they should have an older sibling who gives them a copy as a prank and all their friends come over to watch it.
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Ahem... The film is rated...
- USA: Not rated by the MPAA. Considered "suitable for all audiences" on the Central Park Media VHS release. TV-PG on the Sentai Filmworks release.
- Germany: 6+ (Apropriate for ages 6 and up.)
- France: Tous publics (General Audiences)
- India: U (Unrestricted public exhibition, suitable for all ages.)
- Hong Kong: Level 1 (Suitable for All Ages.)
- Canada: G and PG for Quebec and Manitoba respectively.
- Japan: G
- Saudi Arabia: PG
- Singapore: PG
- Italy: T (Recommended for persons of all age groups.)
- Taiwan: 0+ (Suitable for all ages)
- Netherlands: 9 (Ages 9 and up)
- Nigeria: PG
You'd know that if you read the post! Funnily enough, it also links out to an neat article discussing a study showing parents aren't reading scary stories to their kids... And why that's bad. Here it is just in case ya need it! Heck, on other bits of social media, I heard about schools showing kids the movie in 5th to 6th grade, in the US even!
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its not meant for children, German fairytales aren't either
Woah there! German fairy tales were meant for children! That's explicitly their target audience.
The whole point was to scare the children into behaving a certain way. Like, "don't go wandering off alone. Bad things can happen!"
If you just tell your kid that they won't listen. However, if you tell them a story about how kids that wandered off alone into a forest got cooked and eaten by a witch then maybe they'll stick to the village (and be wary of strangers).
Even though it's a fictional, animated depiction of what happened near the end of the WW2 it's depicting something that actually happened. I don't think there's going to be any problems in regards to separating fiction from reality with this movie.
If anything, the movie is tame in comparison to the actual, real-world devastation of nuclear war.
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@YourPrivatHater @riskable Over 100,000 WWII vets are still alive, today. People are being bombed right now, shelled right now, having white phosphorus dropped on them, right now.
None of this is a "long time ago." It is within living memory.
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@YourPrivatHater Most seem to disagree. Child psychologists disagree. Ratings boards in multiple countries disagree. Kids who have, and continue to watch this movie in Elementary schools growing up healthily is big evidence against it being inappropriate too.
Maybe you're just wrong? Maybe folks shouldn't hide the truths of the world from their kids?
A roflcopter parent
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My child at age 8 knew exactly what the reality was when her great-grandmother died and saw us all grieving.
She knew exactly what the reality was when, at age 9 and 14 respectively, she saw our cat had to get injected with fluids every day just to live, and our dog had to get euthanized.
She knew exactly what the reality was when in elementary school two kids died in a house fire and she knew them.
I would probably agree that typically only a teenager and above could properly appreciate a movie such as Grave of the Fireflies. And I completely agree children should not be purposefully traumatized, but not all of them have the luxury of being sheltered from traumatizing experiences. Some could handle such a movie and understand what is going on. But to be fair, I have never shown this particular movie to my kid.
Read the whole post, give it a serious shake. It cites child psychological studies, shows how kids today are healthily handling stories like these in Japan, and even acknowledges secondary trauma and avoiding triggers for already traumatized people. There's a lot of nuance when you get past the title.