When to Introduce Your Children to Star Wars, Batman, Doctor Who & Other Iconic Geek Franchises

There comes a time when your young son or daughter discovers your shelf shelves wall of DVDs & Blu-rays. Some of the images and cover art are appealing. The most important decision you can make as a parent begins: How old should my child be before he or she watches this?

With a little one on the way I’ve been pondering the point at which my little guy should be indoctrinated into the major geek worlds. Here’s what I’ve decided:

Star Wars – 6 years old

And by all means, start with Episodes IV, V & VI. Why destroy the world for a kid at such a young age? Let the child enjoy something good for a few years before saddling her with prequel baggage. The Force Awakens now provides a whole new entry point for a new generation.

Many of the animated series and specials are great entry points as well for younger viewers. I’m thinking the first time that mine is home sick from school the two of us will sit down and have ourselves a little Star Wars movie marathon.

Superheroes – 2 years old

As soon as a kid is old enough to know about television, he’s going to discover superheroes. It could be a commercial, or a cartoon, or who knows what. They’re everywhere now, completely mainstream. I mean really, do you remember how you first discovered Batman? Probably not but we all knew of Batman as a child.

Thanks to Netflix it’s even easier for kids to discover these characters. I’d start with Batman: The Brave and the Bold for DC and Super Hero Squad for Marvel characters.

Doctor Who – never too young

As my wife said, “there is no such thing as too young for Doctor Who. He should go from teet to TARDIS. From boob to blue box. From C cup to Cybermen. From D cup to Daleks. From breasts to BBC.” I can’t argue with any of that.

Star Trek – maybe never

Ugh. I don’t know. Whenever your kid wants to pay attention to way too much talking per action-ratio programming. I’m not trying to antagonize the Trekkies, but Star Trek is not what kids are looking for.

The new movies could be better but all those lens flares and explosions and quick camera work done inside an Apple store could trigger a Pokemon-style epileptic reaction.

Wrestling – 8 years old

This depends on whether or not you’re a terrible parent. You’ll need to “kill the magic” to a point and teach kids that it’s all a show. It’s pretend. If you don’t, you run the risk of them grappling with their friends and you getting an angry call from a parent down the street because your little angel RKO’d her son. Also, maybe stay away from the hardcore wrestling until they’re at least teenagers.

Of course I reserve the right to change my mind on these opinions at any time once I actually have a child.

Kevin Hellions is the creator of Team Hellions.  Hailing from upstate New York, you can find him enjoying everything from 2CW to the Young Adult (meaning comic book) section of the local library.