It’s summertime at the Parrett house, and now that we have teens and preteens, that means that we aren’t hiring help to watch over our kids when my wife and I aren’t around (hooray!). Our family schedule varies pretty significantly week to week, but there are always 2-3 days per week when my kids will need to entertain themselves at some level. Like the red-blooded Americans that we are, we OCCASIONALLY (not for hours and hours at a time, not with the inane garbage that markets itself as youth-oriented YouTube these days, but also not never) allow our girls to turn on the good old’ television in the summertime. I’ll give you a few moments to recover from the shock of that revelation… (please reach out to us if you need to cancel your support of our ministry following this disturbing information).
Ha. Now then: I don’t use a TV as a babysitter in the summer, but I do realize that a good movie on a hot day can be a fun way to spend small chunks of one’s youth. I’m also keenly aware that the streaming services out there want to use every tool in their toolbox to keep me (or my kids) consuming entertainment “junk food”. One mindless show will roll right into another if we’re not careful to limit ourselves and our children. I spent some time this summer thinking about a few data points on this topic:
1) There are quite a few movies that have had a huge, positive impact on the way I think about the world. Learning to watch a movie properly is actually a life skill not terribly different from learning to digest great literature. I want to both expose my children to great films AND teach them how to chew on these films, rather than just turning their brains off and enjoying the flashing lights and comfy couch and cold AC.
2) Most of the content pushed at my kids is just absolute junk. As a father, it’s my job to curate for them which content will be nutritious, and which simply won’t be in front of them. Much of that content – movies in this case – is stuff that they’ll initially turn their noses up at. On some level, I care about that about as much as I care that they rejected their veggies at age 3. That is to say, I’m still going to INSIST that they acquire a taste for the good stuff.
3) My kids are pretty motivated by the television as a treat/reward, and I’d like to use that drive for a positive end. So: how can I use their desire for TV time to drive them to improve their minds, building intellectual (maybe even spiritual) capital, throughout their summer vacation? They’ve got a lot of work to do around the house, and watching video entertainment is NOT the primary goal of their days.
So with a self-satisfied sigh, and a smug gaze into the distance, I hereby announce that I’ve come up with the Parrett Summer Movie Program (PSMP): it addresses all three of these areas for my daughters while also, without any heavy-handed enforcement from me, limiting the time they desire to spend in front of a TV this summer. I’m giving the PSMP away for FREE(!!) to the first 200 million readers of this blog post, so act fast and keep reading if you’d like to be one of the lucky few to receive a complimentary copy of this revolutionary program!
Here’s how it works:
First, I created a list of movies that I felt had significant redeeming value. That could be because they told a story that reflected some aspect of life that I find worth consideration (most reflect The King himself), or because they are particularly beautiful, or because they tell a story that I think will be helpful to my daughters. That list, which I know you want to see, is coming. Stay with me.
Second, I made some rules:
- Rule #1: You can watch a movie whenever you want as long as you’ve completed everything on your parent-created to-do list (like I said, we’ve got chores, sports, dinner cooking duties, etc. – movies can’t bump those things, but you might pick a movie over playing with the neighbors if you’ve got a couple of free hours).
- Rule #2: You can only watch movies on Dad’s list this summer. No YouTube. No Fresh Prince of Bel Aire reruns (although I like that my kids like these). No Dude Perfect, etc. If that big screen in the living room is on at any point this summer, you’re watching a movie (exceptions are always made if and when the Dallas Mavericks make the NBA playoffs).
- Rule #3: Once you start a movie – even 1 second of playing the movie – you cannot watch anything else until you finish it (does this make me “strict”? Sure. I’m comfortable with that. These are the rules, people.)
- Rule #4: After you’ve watched the movie, you owe Dad a solid essay in which you’ll provide:
- A summary of the plot
- What you think the significant themes of the movie are
- Reasons you think Dad put that movie on the list
- Truths the movie conveys.
I don’t have a word length requirement, but the essay must be thorough. Having been at this for a couple of months, I’ve never gotten less than 3 pages. I’m open to a shorter essay… just haven’t seen that yet.
And that’s the PSMP! When I started this innovative program, I thought it might turn my daughters into little Siskell and Eberts: they’d be glued to the TV screen and would force me to reconsider the unlimited nature of Rule #1. To my delight, that has not happened. What has happened has been better than I expected! Allow me to gloat:
· The very first movie picked off the list was a black and white film (hint: I chose a LOT of black and white films) that had been remade recently and significantly dumbed down and lame-i-fied. My kids picked that one thinking they were getting 2020’s action, and the MOMENT that the black and white screen started rolling they protested mightily. I pointed them to rule #3. After some moans and groans, they finished the movie and realized just how fantastic it was and produced mostly decent essays covering the basics. (This moment was a WIN for the PSMP.)
· The first few rounds of essays I got were just OK, with a lot of grammatical issues. Sigh For one of my kids, this was a point of focus last year, so this has given her good practice in dealing with careless mistakes and has continued to build on the momentum from last school year going into her fall. Bonus!
· Because the bar is decently high for what needs to be produced in order to move on to another movie, I haven’t had to limit their consumption at all. They are watching one or two movies a week, but I’m not getting hassled with requests for screen time outside of that. The essay acts as a governor! Genius!
· When they do watch, they are generally watching with a critical eye and enjoying what they are seeing instead of turning off their brains. This is the biggest win: they are developing the habit of critical thinking when watching entertainment!
As you can see, I think this has been a raging success. I’ll give you my list now, but I also give you full freedom to make your own list. There are almost certainly movies on my list that you’d prefer not to hand your kids (or are age sensitive), and there may be movies on your list that I would toss. That’s OK. My goal was to create a catalog that worked for all three of my children (I have a second grader up to a high school student… and not all of the movies below work all the way down the age spectrum for us, FYI), contained some great topics for them to ponder, and didn’t expose them to content that would not be appropriate for the whole bunch. Whether I nailed it or not, you can decide, but I’d encourage you to try this system out if TV is either a struggle or never a source of developing intellectual capital in your home!
The Parrett Cinematic Summer Extravaganza
1. A League of Their Own (1992)
2. The Truman Show (1998)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
4. Apollo 13 (1995)
5. Casablanca (1942)
6. Waking Ned Devine (1998)
7. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
8. Jesus Revolution (2023)
9. Wargames (1983)
10. Citizen Kane (1941)
11. The Pink Panther Strikes Again
12. Harriet (2019)
13. Cinema Paradiso (1988)
14. Miracle (2004)
15. The Elephant Man (1980)
16. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
17. A Hidden Life (2019)
18. Chariots of Fire (1981)
19. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)
20. Great Expectations (1946)
21. Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
22. Temple Grandin (2010)
23. Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
24. The Man from Snowy River (1982)
25. Joni (1979)
26. The Winslow Boy (1999)
27. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
28. The Sandlot (1993)
29. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
30. The Miracle Worker (1962)
31. Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
32. Ben-Hur (1959)
33. The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend (1991)
34. The Goonies (1985)
35. The Short Game (2013)
