I once read in Entertainment Weekly that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie like to have regular movie-watching parties with the kids on a regular basis. She said,
We always have one night a week where everybody stays up late, watches a movie, and stays in our bed. We have, like, a slumber party.
At the time, they merely had four kids (ha!) between the ages of 2 and 6 (compared to my youngins at only one and three) and I thought my boys were way too young for that. Welp, fast forward a bit and we’re doing it here too.
Now that Holden and Milo are a whopping four and two, we’re ready for some very-very-G-rated movies shown early in the evening.
[As I write, Holden is howling in fear at the tractor-tipping scene in Cars. C’mon kid, you can do it!]
1st Family Movie Night
Here’s how we’re doing it tonight:
- We ordered a pizza to arrive at 5:45
- We laid out a fleecey blanket on the floor for a picnic
- We started up the second most G-rated movie in the house (2nd to Finding Nemo)
- We’re hoping when it’s over we can tuck them snugly to bed by 7:45 and enjoy the rest of our evening
All y’all with more experience squeezing in dinner and a movie before an 8 pm bedtime, do you have any tips for next time?
Need help finding decent age-appropriate movies? Try using this website.
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I’m starting my first attempt at NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) for this month of August. More about that later, but I’m gonna try not to overrun this site with my efforts because its still the Whitney-and-Heather show, so I’ll write up some product reviews, family rants (on my secret personal site), and safety posts to round out the extras. Sorry in advance if I do start to drive you nuts.
We have 4 kids ages 7 down to 2. We have been having family movie night for a while. It’s Friday Night Movie Night at a our house. We are super careful about what we watch and it’s really hard to find appropriate movies for young ones. I use http://www.kids-in-mind.com/ to look up movies. Also, we figured out that it doesn’t have to be an actual feature-length movie. Kids are flexible and are happy to watch the new Backyardigans show or something similar.
For us, it’s not what we watch, but our efforts at making it a special family time that’s important. Our kids have grown to expect popcorn with M&Ms as our standard movie night snack. Oh, and our 3-yr-old has to turn off all the lights:).
We do the old Saturday Matinee at home and keep our evening to ourselves!
We also have a family tradition “Friday Night is Movie Night”. Our little guy is 5. And part of the ritual is to order in. That way it’s a break for all of us. I’m not afraid to swap in some tame treehouse fare though and tout it as being the same thing as a movie though. The mere nature of the movie format seems to be to elicit enough tension/fear/stress, whether it’s Disney or whomever, that it literally has our little guy on the edge of his seat. And probably covering his ears, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut while squealing. All in the name of a happy Friday with the family! And yet, he claims to love it. Human being are so curious. Anyway, the link you provided with various age appropriate reviews should help a lot. Thank you so much!