Your Child's Awesomeness Quotient

So, dear readers, I received this important question today.  It's a question of epic-proportions and life-altering eternal consequences, Read below.

"Carissa, can you please write about the appropriate age for children to first watch Star Wars and Lord of the Rings so as to minimize nightmares and night terrors and maximize on spiritual growth and initiate the process of becoming awesome. I personally think three years old is good, but my wife disagrees and would be willing to take your advice."

Well, let's walk this line carefully. There is indeed so much at stake, as you so well stated....both Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings are crucial to your child's all around awesomeness development.

Let's break it down.   Three year olds cannot discern between fact and fiction, imagination and reality. They aren't even close to abstract thinking, if they see it.....it's real, and no one can tell them differently.  In all seriousness, I agree with your wife, three years old is too young.  Most children start having bad dreams around the age of 3 1/2 or 4. Why?  For this very reason, the things they are exposed to in the day time, come to haunt them in the nighttime. What age do children start requesting night lights and leaving the door open?  Three years old? Again....for the same reason.

Each child is different, but across the board.....three years old is a really sensitive age and way too young for such intense movies.   (We haven't even talked about how obsessed this age gets with reenacting violent scenes).  Anyway, although there are many life-development lessons to be gained in the exposure of such classics at an early age......the cons way out-weigh the pros!

So, with that in mind, I have laid out a reasonable movie plan to help your child take baby steps towards his/her awesomeness development:  This has been tested/re-tested on my own children throughout the years, and I stand by it.

Try to understand that exposing your child early could potentially cause your child to come down with the dreaded, 'scaredy-cat big baby' syndrome, which would significantly reduce your child's awesomeness quotient. 

4-5 years old  Introduction to Star Wars IV (as it's generally the tamest of all)
5-6 years old     Star Wars V and VI
6-9 years old    Repeats of Star Wars IV, V, and VI can also be shown as this will aid in awesomeness development, other classics like the Neverending Story, Spiderman 1,  Superman, and other classics will also help.  As much as your tempted....make your child wait for the newer Star Wars.
9-12  Star Wars I, II, and III can be shown. More than once.
Finally as your child has been taking these baby steps into awesomeness, you can introduce them to the all time classic, LOTR  between 10-13 years old.

We can talk another time about appropriate classic movie exposure for the early teen years.

Hope this helps.
Carissa!