Every child longs to be told adventure stories about children like them who endure terrible, scary things and somehow make it, make it through and are saved at the end.
Every child longs to be told stories that understand what it feels like to be small in a big, fantastic, scary world, and what it's like to endure and make it anyway.
And every child longs to be told of children just like them, lost and alone in a big world, who are rescued by loving parents and become part of a beautiful loving family.
And every child, like virtually every adult, wants to have stories where they get to feel real sincere emotion with sincerity and feeling, and dream real beautiful dreams and not be all cynical and CSI, and where they get to go on to an actual, honest-to-God happy ending.
Which is why movies and stories like The Rescuers, Escape from Witch Mountain (the original movie, not any remake), Little Orphan Annie (any classic version, including the newer ones (including the wonderful newer one with a black Annie)), An American Tail, Finding Nemo, and The Land Before Time speak to children (such as me as a child) so, so much and so, so deeply.
These are movies that understood us as children.
Movies that really, truly understood.
Although it does not follow that pattern, you can count Steven Spielberg's E.T. as another movie that really, truly understood us as children.
And, for that matter, that really, really understands us as adults as well, for, well, Steven Spielberg before the Nasty 90s broke his heart in 1994 is just that good.
And sometimes, not infrequently at all, you find movies that as a child speak to you as a child so, so well
And then when you watch it as an adult who has seen children through the eyes of a parent, speaks so, so deeply to us as parents.
(In my case, they're all my kids. Every child in the world. I love them all as my own.)
Little Orphan Annie is one of those. Finding Nemo is another.
Virtually every Pixar movie is made especially, above all, for the loving parent in all of us.
And this makes them great for kids, because as kids, we never realized just how deep a fundamental bond there is between parents and children- not just between us as individuals, but in the whole conception of our emotional world.
Any movie that really, really speaks to the loving parent in all of us is likely, if it is child-friendly in the slightest, to be absolutely wonderful for kids as well.
Just some deep philosophical thoughts about children, parenthood, and stories!
Movies are such a wonderful way to experience stories when they are done well!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. Every child yearns to be told that they are valuable people who need and deserve love even when they cause trouble. And this is why the Problem Child movies resonate with children, and this is why strict angry Calvinist discipline does not work and produces angry dangerous adults like gang members and terrorists. In order to grow up into adults who are strong enough to show mercy to others when they are in pain, children must first be shown mercy when they are in pain and causing trouble. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. This is why discipline without love is worthless, with children or with anyone else. Far better is discipline with love, discipline with what Dan Fogelberg described with these words: 'He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand/ his gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand' It makes all the difference in the world if there is love with the discipline, the more love the better