Why Silence During Movies is Overrated

I am one to enjoy a good movie in silence, but when it comes to time with the kids, I have stopped fighting for the quiet focus time. 

Most of the time the TV is running some kid show or another, while my little wildlings intermittently watch and run around playing & doing their thing. But sometimes we actually sit down and watch a movie together.

We used to fight the entire movie long over me wanting them to sit quietly and focus on the movie, but now I don't bother.

There are 2 reasons I stopped fighting and started just going with it :

1) It's a pointless battle. Kids are just.. not quiet. It's something I've just had to accept. I realized too that if I was constantly fighting with them just to try and watch the movie in silence, it would make the whole point null and void. The point of watching a movie together is to CONNECT. What's more disconnecting than fighting and forcing silence?

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2) Because I unschool. I saw the value in allowing my child to shoot question after question and comment after comment at me during certain activities, and one of those times is when we watch movies together. If I'm spending the entire time fighting with my kids, or worse, succeed in teaching them to be silent during movies - We miss many learning oppourtunities! After nearly 6 years I have finally just let go, and I love the result!

Tonight we chose to watch Finding Nemo together (which Z hasn't seen since she was little) and not 10 minutes into it, well, see for yourself :

"Why is he called a clown fish, is he part clown? But I thought clowns were human?"
"WOW how did she have 400 babies?"
"That's so sad that his mom died. I'd be sad if you died."
"What type of fish is Dory?"
"Why does Bruce have so many teeth?"
"Why did he go crazy when he sniffed her blood?"
"That's so cool that she can read, can you help me learn to read?"
"Why did that ball blow up?"
"Why would there be bombs under water?"
"What are bombs for?"
"Why did they get loopy over that little light."
"WOW the ocean is so deep! How deep is it?"
"Oh look, a starfish!"
"That's so nice that those fisheys cheered her up!"
"Wow that's mean that they mocked him. Jerks! Don't they know its not nice to bully!?"
"That's cool how they acted things out. What a fun way to communicate!"

Ok, maybe it was more than 10 minutes, but you get my point. And instead of shushing her and getting upset, I engaged. I answered her questions, I asked what she thought, I Googled things. I did give basic answers because she was shooting them at me too quickly to keep up, but had she struck on one she wanted to know more about, we would have paused the movie and delved into the topic. That's unschooling for ya. 😉

Sure, it can be annoying as sh** when I'm actually engaged in a movie, but my relationship with her is more important than being able to watch a movie in peace. If I want to focus on a movie/show, I just watch it after the kids are in bed. That's the beauty of Netflix (or whatever streaming service).

I figure there will be a time when I need to teach her that it's not polite to talk so much while watching a movie with someone, but now is not that time. Now is the time to enjoy her maddening curiosity and nurture her love of learning and cherish them being little.

They're only little once, you know.