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A small victory
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 65787" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>It's the same thing, Terry, only a matter of degree. And it's also linked to extreme anxiety.</p><p></p><p>For a long time, we didn't realise that difficult child 3 didn't understand that what we were watching is fiction. It wasn't until we took him to a big screen presentation of "Mars Attacks!" in the village (in the school hall, they dragged out gym mats for the little kids to lie on and maybe fall asleep). difficult child 3 sat through it wide-eyed, complaining of feeling sick, hid his face and was aghast at the destruction.</p><p></p><p>As we were having supper afterwards, difficult child 3 was asking about the movie. "Did they put all those buildings back after they knocked them down?" He couldn't understand that it had all been pretend, nothing real got knocked down.</p><p>"And did they put those people back the ay they were? That lady and her dog who had their heads swapped? How could they stand doing that, even for a film?"</p><p>That's when the penny began to drop for us. Ten his next question - "And what about all those people that got carbonised? How could they bring them back to life?"</p><p>In vain we tried to explain, it was all pretend. They had done such a good job on special effects, he actually believed that the mayhem and destruction had actually occurred, purely for the sake of entertainment, and we got pleasure form watching other people actually suffer and die.</p><p>We finally were able to show him, using Lord of the Rings and the "behind the Scenes" features on the DVDs, how it's made to look so real. I think it wasn't until he was in a movie himself, that he could begin to understand. He had been in a short film and done OK (apart from a major anxiety attack, for a scene which is on screen for less than second). This last film has not yet been released, so we don't know what they will have done with the sequence. He was interviewed for a "making of..." features clip, along with difficult child 1 & easy child 2/difficult child 2 (who was having a bad appendicitis attack that day).</p><p></p><p>It's been a long haul for him to not only understand, but to handle it. </p><p>Today we watched a schools program for senior English students. It's British-made, called "Arrows of Desire" and is described as 'Poets on Poems'. He's watched this before but only superficially; now he's watching it more carefully as the poets analyse some rather obscure poems at times. They have each poem presented as a mini-film and then a series of poets discuss their views on it. He keeps asking, "They're only actors, aren't they?" like he needs to be reassured. Watching it a year ago they featured Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" which had difficult child 3 in floods of tears for the next few days. I know they will be showing it again - this is a repeat of the same series. We've talked about that poem since, I explained that you don't need to feel sad, the poem is not about how sad it is that someone's dying, only that the poet's father is dying and he (the poet) isn't happy about it. The only person upset about the death is the poet, not the man who is dying. He's already let go and moved on, which is what happens. But Dylan Thomas was still fairly young when he wrote it, and didn't understand. The miracle of that poem is that it contains so much emotion, and yet it is written to a mathematical formula (it's a villanelle).</p><p>Here's hoping he can handle it this year...</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 65787, member: 1991"] It's the same thing, Terry, only a matter of degree. And it's also linked to extreme anxiety. For a long time, we didn't realise that difficult child 3 didn't understand that what we were watching is fiction. It wasn't until we took him to a big screen presentation of "Mars Attacks!" in the village (in the school hall, they dragged out gym mats for the little kids to lie on and maybe fall asleep). difficult child 3 sat through it wide-eyed, complaining of feeling sick, hid his face and was aghast at the destruction. As we were having supper afterwards, difficult child 3 was asking about the movie. "Did they put all those buildings back after they knocked them down?" He couldn't understand that it had all been pretend, nothing real got knocked down. "And did they put those people back the ay they were? That lady and her dog who had their heads swapped? How could they stand doing that, even for a film?" That's when the penny began to drop for us. Ten his next question - "And what about all those people that got carbonised? How could they bring them back to life?" In vain we tried to explain, it was all pretend. They had done such a good job on special effects, he actually believed that the mayhem and destruction had actually occurred, purely for the sake of entertainment, and we got pleasure form watching other people actually suffer and die. We finally were able to show him, using Lord of the Rings and the "behind the Scenes" features on the DVDs, how it's made to look so real. I think it wasn't until he was in a movie himself, that he could begin to understand. He had been in a short film and done OK (apart from a major anxiety attack, for a scene which is on screen for less than second). This last film has not yet been released, so we don't know what they will have done with the sequence. He was interviewed for a "making of..." features clip, along with difficult child 1 & easy child 2/difficult child 2 (who was having a bad appendicitis attack that day). It's been a long haul for him to not only understand, but to handle it. Today we watched a schools program for senior English students. It's British-made, called "Arrows of Desire" and is described as 'Poets on Poems'. He's watched this before but only superficially; now he's watching it more carefully as the poets analyse some rather obscure poems at times. They have each poem presented as a mini-film and then a series of poets discuss their views on it. He keeps asking, "They're only actors, aren't they?" like he needs to be reassured. Watching it a year ago they featured Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" which had difficult child 3 in floods of tears for the next few days. I know they will be showing it again - this is a repeat of the same series. We've talked about that poem since, I explained that you don't need to feel sad, the poem is not about how sad it is that someone's dying, only that the poet's father is dying and he (the poet) isn't happy about it. The only person upset about the death is the poet, not the man who is dying. He's already let go and moved on, which is what happens. But Dylan Thomas was still fairly young when he wrote it, and didn't understand. The miracle of that poem is that it contains so much emotion, and yet it is written to a mathematical formula (it's a villanelle). Here's hoping he can handle it this year... Marg [/QUOTE]
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