firefly and kids, help.

POSTED BY: AshCrouch
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 07:19
VIEWED: 3005
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BORIS

Friday, May 22, 2009 3:52 AM

I used to run vacation care and after school care. Kids don't like to be talked at about what they should or shouldn't be doing, but they love hearing stories, and relating to the themes in stories can help them make sense of the world and put things like morality into a digestible context. The kids loved hearing our stories about many different fictitious characters including the cool crew of Serenity. Adapted Firefly stories were great for enhancing the whole "stick together Coz we are a unit" loyalty thing we had going on at our center. Some of us used elements of Firefly in our stories to strengthen our take on inclusion,diversity and acceptance, and also to encourage kids to stand up for what they believed in and look after each other. On a couple of bus rides to excursions me and the Firefly loving members of the team improvised a kid friendly version of the theme song which the kids loved and were singing for days afterwards...kinda wish I'd written it down. Now it's about 7 years later and a number of those kids are older teens who love Firefly and Serenity, and a whole lot of other stuff they were introduced to by us, and as far as i can tell they have not suffered any ill effects. There are some good lessons to be learned from the interactions between people in the series you just have to adapt them to the age group. I'm sure most of them are into Harry Potter, which frankly is a lot scarier than Firefly at times. Kaylee and zoe are great role models for girls. And Wash is cool too as he's a geek, but he's tough when he needs to be and he's valued. Basically when you are dealing with kids, be creative and draw on whatever you need to enhance the lessons you teach them. I f Firefly has some stuff you can adapt that you think will be appropriate and useful go for it.

STOWEAWAY

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:42 AM

I have two little boys 6 & 8 yrs old. I don't consider Firefly to be a good learning tool for them -- in terms of watching entire episodes. Their world is still too black & white to understand the subtleties and duplicity of the characters. But I do agree that snippets could be used to convey a message.
My kids have only ever watched Shindig & my oldest watched Safe. He really liked the part in safe when River talks about the cows remembering who they are. And he was touched by the sibling affection between River & Simon. The attempt to burn them alive was a discussion point for us about how some people fear what they don't understand.
Believe it or not, I found Dr. Horrible to be a better conversation piece with my kids. We talked about what makes a true hero. For some reason catchy tunes made the lesson easier to learn.

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SHINYGOODGUY

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 7:19 AM

Firefly is entertainment, very good entertainment.
When it comes to kids, one must approach these things delicately - because kids are impressionable.

Having said that, it can be a useful teaching and discussion tool. For me, I would say that 12 or 13 years old is a good jumping off point. A parent or adult caregiver could use Firefly as a type of right of passage. When my son was younger (about 10-12 years old) and we would watch a movie together he would often ask me questions about what he saw or what was said.

I, of course, would take that opportunity to talk with him about the message behind the film or breakdown his question to the point where he understood. Sometimes the conversation would take several sessions to complete. But, almost always, he would learn something and so would I. I always knew what my son was watching whenever he was with me - very important when they're very young.
By the time he was 14 y.o. I started letting him watch some R-rated movies with me. 99% of the time we would discuss it.

Firefly is a well written show that has some valuable themes and interesting approaches to life's little foibles. It is in the teen years (12-17 y.o.) when things are not so black and white and kids meet up with some gray and fuzzy areas. This show covers those gray areas fairly well.

SGG

Tawabawho?

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