What is appropriate? I’m asking myself this question after receiving a bizarre email from my son’s preschool.
It asked if parents had objections to the children in the 4 and 5 year old class watching G and PG movies. I feel the question is bizarre because how can one not know that it’s inappropriate to watch full length PG movies in preschool? It’s preschool, why are they watching movies anyway and how can you justify PG…in PRESCHOOL?
Many parents who responded to the email thought PG movies made for kids are fine and had no problem with it all.
I’m one of the parents who complained the first time a PG movie was shown. It was G-Force. The poster has guinea pigs holding machine guns. I didn’t want my kids to see this movie, but because my youngest goes to this school, he did. The preschool director said it was a mistake and it would never happen again.
It did happen again, last week, when the kids watched Planet 51. Full disclosure; I took my preschooler to the premiere of this movie. Looking back, I don’t think it was appropriate for his age and not something I would want him to watch when I wasn’t there. A friend of mine complained to the preschool director that the kids were shown this movie, which is what led to the email.
Some of the parents didn’t want their kids to watch movies at school, but what struck me was that they also had a series of other complaints, from lack of supervision to educational content.
It’s interesting to me how the one narrow topic of what movies should be shown has raised so many other festering issues. I wonder why these parents hadn’t said anything before, or if they had, what action was taken?
The last two occasional parent meetings at the school were cancelled by the director. The parents voiced concerns in the emails about issues that I have been talking to the director about for 2 years. If more parents would speak out, maybe it wouldn’t have to come to a mass email with parents going back and forth.
I chose this school for my kids because I liked the teachers, we can walk to it, and the parents seemed nice and down to earth. In the intervening years I’ve had many concerns about how the school is run. When I come back to the question of “what is appropriate?” I’m certain it’s not PG movies, unhappy parents and an unresponsive preschool director.