Today, my children are enjoying another snow day. Unfortunately, after several inches of snow, it has now turned to a yucky freezing rain. So, instead of playing outside...building snowmen, sledding, or having snowball fights (Plan A), they are cooped up indoors.
Plan B involved watching a movie On Demand (which for anyone who does not know about this option, it's a movie rental program done directly through your cable company, so that noone needs to venture outside.) Trying to find a movie that is appropriate for my 7 year-old to view, as well as being entertaining enough for my 12 and 14 year-olds is not always an easy task. One of the tools that I utilize in choosing movies for my kids is the Dove.org website.
That got me thinking... How many parents out there are not even aware of the Dove Foundation's fabulous website? Maybe I ought to give it a mention on my blog...
According to their website:
"Since 1995 The Dove Foundation has been publishing our movie reviews on the Internet. Well over 100,000 families rely on these reviews each month to help them make informed choices about the entertainment their family can watch with confidence."
For those of you with young children, you know how difficult it can be deciding whether a particular movie will be appropriate for your child to view. Luckily, this wonderful website from the Dove Foundation gives in-depth information about the wholesomeness of family movies.
As my children get older, I find choosing movies even more difficult. Sometimes, a movie is labelled with a PG rating, but what exactly is the questionable content? This is where I find Dove.org to be the most helpful. They give specific information divided into the following 6 categories: sex, language, violence, drugs, nudity, and other, which contains any uncategorized references including those related to religion or the occult.
For example, a movie that my 7 year-old son wants to see, Hotel For Dogs is reviewed. In addition to a short synopsis of the film, they give the following specific information:
Sex: A couple kiss.
Language: OMG/G-5; Crap-2
Violence: Young kids pawn a rock in merchandise box for money; dog steals hot dog; foster parent grabs boy; children break into dog pound.
Drugs: None
Nudity: A butt crack is shown; cleavage.
Other: Issues dealing with foster parents and children; dog bathroom humor; caseworker lies to foster parents.
This way, you now have very specific information about what you may (or may not) find objectionable. Right down to a running count of curse words. This is so much better than just relying on the MPAA ratings of G, PG, or PG-13, don't you think?
Upon doing a little research today at Dove.org's website, I realized that they are a not-for-profit organization and they not only have reviews of current films and videos, but they also review books and audio CD's.
Before allowing your children (or anyone's children, for that matter) to watch a film, click on over to the Dove.org to see whether or not it's Dove-approved.