Today we rented Monsters Inc.  We thought it would be a fun, low-key thing to do together, as the holidays have left the kids weary and wanting to stay home a lot more.  But, while the idea may have been a good one, the movie wasn’t a good one for Franny.  After ten to fifteen minutes, we stopped it because it was too scary for her.  Because the kids don’t watch television and movies are special activities that we do only occasionally, we had Franny choose a Christmas special DVD to watch instead.  That show ended early, as well, for the same reason.  I felt bad that Franny didn’t get to watch her movie (Cole isn’t really all that interested, anyway)  but it also made me think about movies and media and the different messages that children absorb watching them.  In this case, it was more a matter of Franny not understanding what she was watching; Monsters Inc. is a very sweet story and most of the monsters are not scary.  We tried to talk to her about what she was scared of and also explain to her what she was watching, but she just wasn’t ready for it.  I’m not complaining.  The kids love their books and having those remain their main form of media entertainment is a good thing.  There are very positive movies that I know the kids will enjoy and even benefit from, once they are ready.  We’ll still have our movie nights, but we’ll just use a little better discretion and some of those wonderful Disney movies we’ll just table until a later date.