Age "Appropriate" Movies

If it were up to Riley, he’d probably still be watching Caillou, Thomas the Tank and Winnie the Pooh.  Actually…he discovered YouTube a number of years ago so he continues to watch episodes since we can’t monitor his every waking moment.  *Sigh*  I somehow justify all the Disney movies (101 Dalmatians, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Mermaid…you get my drift) as “Classics” therefore watchable and appropriate at any age. 

Around the time that R was in grade 6 or 7, “I” decided it was time for him to start watching more “age-appropriate” movies.  After all he surely must be getting tired of watching The Land Before Time and their bazillion sequels?!?  OK…I exaggerate slightly.  There are only 13 of them as of today on Wikipedia.   

The question…what comes next???  The next step…”real” people movies.  This, of course, needs to involve toilet humour and all sorts of hopefully improbable situations such as leaving your child behind at Christmas and not noticing until you arrive at your destination airport or something like that.  One of R’s favourites of this genre was Kindergarten Cop.  Watching it through R’s eyes is truly an eye-opener.  Even though you can probably count the number of swear words on one hand and most kids (parents for that matter) hardly notice…yup…you got it…R seemed to zone in on one of those select few words.  It starts with a B; ends with a D; has 5 letters in between and is defined on the on-line dictionary as “a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child”.  The scene goes something like this…the woman is extremely upset and frantic and yells “B*****d” at Arnold.  Now on the upside…R uses it only when he is extremely upset and frantic which is a positive in that he is relating to the feelings of the woman.  On the not-so-upside…when you’re in McDonald’s and they run out of “small brown bags” for his french fries, it’s a Saturday afternoon and there’s a whole bunch of families with small children deciding on what Happy Meal toy they want…not so good. 

Think about it…D