Stranger Things is enormously popular in our girls' primary school, to the point where P4-to-P6-age kids have been watching it, and our girls (soon to be starting secondary/P7) have been left out of the conversation because they haven't watched it yet. They've started watching it with us now, and most of the stuff in S1 is OK for them - we've been watching a film a week with them for 6 years, and they're pretty mature and assured with media a couple of years above their level. Every October we do a horror marathon with age-appropriate horror films and a couple that push the envelope a little (last year it was "Sweetheart", "Lake Placid", "Nightbooks" etc.) so they're also reasonably savvy about that type of film, though we draw the line at some of the stuff other kids have been watching.
That said, having watched on a bit ourselves I know that "Stranger Things" starts to push out from the level it's at in the first series, so moving on with them is going to be a bit of a challenge and might have to be staggered a little bit over the next 6 months or so, with a quick "refresher" watch for us beforehand.
I'd have said that most of the first series or two of "Stranger Things" is suitable for a near-teen/early teen audience (though the horror/sexual content is a coin toss for us in some parts) but it does start to ramp up to the point that I'm not sure how parents of 9- or 10-year-olds could be justifying letting their kids watch it. I suspect a lot of them are being given unfettered access to Netflix and watching it themselves in their own rooms - "Squid Game" has been similarly popular, and I'd be surprised if that was being wholeheartedly endorsed by parents at the school.
It's always a bit of a challenge setting boundaries for media - there's always the temptation to say "well, watching that did me no harm!" and conveniently forget the week of nightmares, or to assume that just because violent media drifted off you it won't affect anyone, but the flip is that there is a tendency to shield too much and isolate your kids from what everyone else in their age group is talking about, or to lose the chance to have conversations with them about what they're watching.
That said, having watched on a bit ourselves I know that "Stranger Things" starts to push out from the level it's at in the first series, so moving on with them is going to be a bit of a challenge and might have to be staggered a little bit over the next 6 months or so, with a quick "refresher" watch for us beforehand.
I'd have said that most of the first series or two of "Stranger Things" is suitable for a near-teen/early teen audience (though the horror/sexual content is a coin toss for us in some parts) but it does start to ramp up to the point that I'm not sure how parents of 9- or 10-year-olds could be justifying letting their kids watch it. I suspect a lot of them are being given unfettered access to Netflix and watching it themselves in their own rooms - "Squid Game" has been similarly popular, and I'd be surprised if that was being wholeheartedly endorsed by parents at the school.
It's always a bit of a challenge setting boundaries for media - there's always the temptation to say "well, watching that did me no harm!" and conveniently forget the week of nightmares, or to assume that just because violent media drifted off you it won't affect anyone, but the flip is that there is a tendency to shield too much and isolate your kids from what everyone else in their age group is talking about, or to lose the chance to have conversations with them about what they're watching.