Blog Posts by Common Sense Media

If your kids like a little spookiness along with their tricks and treats, this list of scary (but not too scary!) Halloween movies is sure to hit just the right note.













Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie

After Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) gobbles all the trick-or-treat candy (and immediately feels remorseful, on top of having one monstrous tummy ache), Lumpy (Kyle Stanger) and best friend Roo (Jimmy Bennett) embark on a brave quest to find the dreaded Gobloon.






It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

It's almost Halloween, and the optimism is infectious. Linus (voiced by Christopher Shea) is crafting his letter to the Great Pumpkin (think Santa in a pumpkin patch), Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) is thrilled about being invited to a party, and Lucy (Sally Dryer) has the perfect witchy costume.







A Very Brave Witch

Eight Halloween-themed stories bring popular and lesser-known books alive for children. The DVD includes a read-along option where kids can follow the text at the bottom of the

Read More »from 10 Sweet Scares for Small Ones

To this day, the only movie that has directly given me nightmares is Watership Down. I saw it when I was 7 or 8, and I'm sure that my parents had only the best of intentions. Yes, it was based on a serious book about societal conflict, but it was also an animated movie about rabbits ... some of whom happened to be absolutely terrifying, with their ragged appearance, red eyes, and evil intentions.

You can argue that Watership Down isn't really a little kids' movie -- and I would be the first to agree. But what about movies that are meant for kids and families and seem innocent enough at first glance? Some have scary scenes that seem to come out of nowhere -- or just happen to push the wrong buttons for certain kids. An informal survey of our readers, editors, and friends turned up these prime examples (warning: possible spoilers!) of blindsides they didn't necessarily see coming:

• The Wizard of Oz: Most people find the Wicked Witch's flying monkeys extremely creepy, and the

Read More »from Watch Out!: "Family Movies" with Shocking Scares

Some facts

• The younger kids are when they see a scary movie or TV show, the longer-lasting the effects will be.

• Kids who watch scary material often have nightmares or anxiety.

• Kids ages 2 to 7 often can't distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Advice & Answers

Are they ready for brain-eating zombies?

Your 9-year-old is clamoring for a scary movie at the video store. Not just any scary movie, but one where people are cut up with a hacksaw. Is it OK for her to be scared silly by something so gory? Or will she have nightmares for a month? (Will you?) It's good to know what works for kids by age, so you can keep the frights within the fun zone.

What are scary movies?

Kids love scary films. The trick is finding movies with age-appropriate thrills. Something that terrifies kids at 5 (ghosts, evil characters, major peril) will be a non-issue at 15. Scariness comes from fear of the unknown, from surprise, and from fears about the loss of a loved one. Depending

Read More »from Scary Movie Tips

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, from when I was 5 and my mom made my Big Bird costume out of a paper grocery bag to the year I glued Play-doh horns to my forehead in a messy attempt at a devil.

Now that I'm a parent, my kids and I take our costumes seriously. And I love seeing what they'll choose. There was the year my son wanted to be a firefighter AND a princess (he wore a red plastic coat over his big sister's party dress). And the time my kindergartener wanted to be Michael Jackson, but then changed her mind after I'd made the costume. Last year, our entire family went as characters from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Books, TV, and pop culture are great places to get inspiration for Halloween costumes. But for the last few years, our elementary school Halloween parade has been more about mass marketing than inspiration. From boys in puffed up Iron Man garb and girls lost in reams of Little Mermaid organza, the marketing machine seems to have

Read More »from How to Carve Consumerism Out of Your Halloween

Online Homework Help for Research

International Children's Library
Parents need to know that the International Children's Digital Library is a multicultural library that features carefully selected, age-rated and age-appropriate books. Childrenslibrary.org includes children's books from more than 40 countries and in 55 languages. The site is easily accessible and allows users to search for books by age, country, language, length, or genre. Parents can rest easy -- the site doesn't have any interactive areas, and the nonprofit organization uses strict policies on privacy and external links to keep kids away from inappropriate content. The limited amount of required information from members isn't sold or distributed to other parties.

ipl 2 for Kids
Parents need to know that ipl2 for Kids is a section of the huge Internet Public Library experimental resource, which is created and maintained by professors and students at library and information science programs. The site is organized by

Read More »from Homework Helpers for Any Subject

5 Essential Facts of Digital Life

Kids are the creators. It's all about participating, communicating, making music, images, videos, and posting written content. And the content that's there? Kids must be able to know if it's credible or not.

Everything happens in front of a vast, invisible, and often anonymous audience.

Once something is out there, it doesn't go away. Everything leaves a digital footprint.

Information cannot be controlled. Anything can be copied, changed, and shared instantly.

Distance and anonymity separate actions and consequences. Kids think they can get away with unethical or unacceptable behavior because they don't see immediate consequences.

Advice & Answers

Our kids use media differently

We may think of our kids' online, mobile, and technological activities as "digital life," but to them, it's just life. Their world is as much about creating media as it is about consuming it. Media devices have converged and become extremely powerful and

Read More »from Digital Life: Our Kids' Connected Culture

Help Your Child Search the Web Like a Pro

"Let's google dinosaurs." Sound familiar? Searching the Web is so commonplace that even young children know what it means to "google." But when your children really need to do research for a report - or dive deeper into a subject they're interested in - it helps to know some strategies for improving their results.

Effective online searching can make a huge difference in the quality and relevance of the content your children find on the Internet. But it takes a bit of know-how to improve the chances of getting back the information they're looking for. You can help your child search smarter - and waste less time - by explaining how to search like a pro.

Why It Matters

Everyone knows there's a huge amount of data on the Internet. But only a tiny fraction of this information will apply to your child's needs. While most children know how to type a keyword into Google or Internet Explorer, they may not understand that there are

Read More »from Teach Your Kids the Secrets of Smart Web Searching

Kids curious about what happened during and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks can check out our list of kids' books for various ages, from picture books to tween novels, that describe or touch on the tragic events of that day. These compelling stories show the extraordinary heroism of ordinary people. And one celebrates the towers before they fell, when one man dared to walk between them on a tightrope.


Time Ryders (Alex Scarrow, 2011)
Parents need to know that this fast-paced adventure takes the idea of time traveling to a different level, and is a hard book to put down. The first of four books (with more to follow), it centers on three time-riding agents whose mission is to save the world from the interference of other time-traveling manipulators. It does contain quite a bit of violence, and the three protagonists are endangered by evil characters and cannibalistic mutants. But overall, good triumphs over evil and the three protagonists grapple with some important issues and hard

Read More »from Best Books for 9/11