A disastrous cinema trip and park fun
Up until now, I’ve never taken N to the cinema. While he does go through phases of watching films, he doesn’t always watch them in one go. So I’d always avoided the cinema with him. He did got to see Peppa Pig a couple of years ago for a friend’s birthday, but it was a collection of several short episodes so easy to digest and cope with.
This weekend we didn’t have time to get away from town, so I suggested a cinema trip. N agreed and we decided on kids club to see Finding Dory. N’s watching Finding Nemo several times and found that ok, so I wasn’t too worried.
It all started off well, with N persuading me to let him have a kids pack of food (popcorn, water and a tube of smarties), until he moaned I’d eaten too much of his popcorn. Our prebooked seats were good – standard seats with plenty of leg room and no-one blocking the view in front.
N loved the trailers. It’s great to see the excitement though a child’s eyes. And seeing the cute short film Piper (about a cute baby oyster catcher) was sweet.
But, Finding Dory was another matter. 45 minutes into the film and N was getting bored and scared. Sigh. ‘I want to go home now’. We held on for a bit but there was no chance of getting him to sit through the whole film.
For the first time ever, I had to walk out of a film. Thankfully I’d only paid £2.50 a ticket as it was the kids club showing. But it was embarrassing walking out. And annoying that I didn’t get to see the end of the film.
So it’ll be a while before I take N back to see a film. It’s weird because Finding Dory was essentially the same as Finding Nemo, and he watching Spiderman which I would say is much scarier! Maybe it’s the surround sound and the darkness that makes a difference.
To brighten our day we did take a walk and cycle in the park so the morning wasn’t a total wash out. It was just not quite the Sunday morning I was expecting.
How old were your children when they first went to the cinema? How do you get them over the ‘scary’ aspect?
So hard to know when the time is right. Both of my kids love going to the cinema, but then we often have movie nights at home, too, as we all enjoy films. My son first went last Christmas to see the new Star Wars film which I think was a good intro for him as he loves all of the other films.
Oh bless, the cinema is either a win or lose with kids isnt it? We took our kids to the cinema in May and for our three year old it simply did not work.
So hard to know when’s the right time. I think with movies he knows he’d be fine,but with new films which are obviously what you see, you’ve no idea until you’re there.