1. We are streaming it through our Wii and wondered if there was a way to customize the home screen so as not to show innappropriate movies while looking for something to watch.
2. I would LOVE some movies/tv show recommendations that you have found on Netflix that your family loved!
We have NetFlix and I don’t think you can modify the home screen. I agree though!! We have it on password protection so the kids have to ask us to sign them in each and every time. I think if you have the password protection on, you should be able to lock out certain ratings…but that is my thinking and there is NO way to contact NetFlix with that idea either!!
They just recently updated it for a “Just for Children” tab so that may help a bit.
If my kids (ages 8 and 11) are watching NetFlix I stay in ear shot of it…just in case. Even some “kid” movies are not acceptable to me these days.
You can go online and set your Parental Control Settings in the account so it won’t show things above a specific rating, like R and above are blocked is one option. Only drawback to that is many documentaries may end up blocked if they are labeled NR (Not Rated).
What ages do you have so we know movies to recommend?
Shows my hubby and I have watched/are watching together (not with the kids) include:
– Robin Hood (this is a BBC series)
– The Biggest Loser
– Jericho (we’re working on this slowly, a bit too likely to happen for me at the moment in my hormonal pregnant state)
TV shows we’ve seen with the kids:
– Cake Boss (we skipped a few episodes, most are good)
– Dirty Jobs
– 17 Kids and Counting
– Redwall (cartoon series based on the books, oldest was thrilled)
– Liberty’s Kids
TV Shows my mostly young family (10 and under) enjoyed:
We called Netflix about the home screen issue. They said the only way to really change that is to rate the shows you DO like and the more you rate, the more of “those” types of films will be shown on the home screen. We’ve found this to be helpful. My husband and I are the only ones with access and don’t let the kids (even our 16yo) watch it on their own – we only use it as family viewing. We’ve never had cable tv or regular tv, so netflix is our source for good family shows and movies. There are so many, but you have to search carefully. Right now, we’re enjoying 17 kids and Counting and 18 kids and Counting (Duggars). We also have the netflix mail DVD’s and are watching the good ‘ole Little House on the Prairie series. Blessings, Heather
We only search for movies/shows on the computer. We find what we want to watch via the computer and put it in our cue that way. Then, when we pull up netflix on the tv, the kids only see the title that are in our que. We don’t watch it very much, so we only have the streaming option now. I love not having cable!! I think you’ll be so glad you did it. 🙂
We haven’t had cable in our home in over 5 years and don’t regret it one bit! We have Netflix and Hulu Plus and only pay $16/month rather than the $80 or more for cable/satellite. We haven’t figured out how to keep undesirable movies/shows off our home screen either. Here are some of our favorite shows that you might enjoy:
Peter Pan (the Broadway musical starring Cathy Rigby)
Cheaper by the Dozen (the original show, not the one with Steve Martin)
anything with Shirley Temple
Sense & Sensibility (with Kate Winslet)
Food, Inc.
The Beautiful Truth
The Gerson Miracle
Miracle on 34th Street
Nutcracker
Flipper
Dennis the Menace (from the 50s)
Creatures That Defy Evolution, vol. 1-3
Andy Griffith
How Stuff Works
Disney Oceans
The Book of Ruth
The Case for Faith
God of Wonders
I could keep going and going! We really enjoy having control over what is coming into our home, no commercials, and the ability to watch anywhere, as long as we have our laptop with us!
We got rid of cable a couple of years ago now and love having Netflix. Currently, my boys enjoy watching the Wind in the Willows series. We enjoy watching some Animal Planet shows together like Meerkat Manor. There are also lots of National Geographic documentaries. Some others that we’ve watched alongside something we were studying in homeschooling were Linnea in Monet’s Garden, Oceans, Blue Planet, Creepy Creatures, Liberty Kids. Be aware that many of the animal/science documentaries talk about evolution. I usually just pause the show and talk to my boys about it, but there have been a few that were very heavy with it and we have turned it off.
Wow, how do you guys find all these? I tried looking for National Geographic documentaries, and didn’t find any… of course maybe what is available is different in Canada than in the US?
A lot of the science shows we watched seem to no longer be on there… we were watching mythbusters and they took that off, we were watching The Planets, and that is gone too.
Right now we are enjoying The Blud Planet – Oceans.
For Kids shows my kids like
The classic Pink Panther
Max and Ruby (a total favourite… it is a Canadian show so maybe only on Canadian Netflix?)
Bernstein Bears
Angelina Balerina (now my kids want to dance all the time)
and occasionally Arthur, Franklin, etc.
We are watching Murder She Wrote, Early Edition, and a few other shows from that time period.
We just watched Apollo 13 the other day – my son loved it (and I counted it for history)
Yay!!! So many recommendations! I have actually been praying about the cable issue for about 2 years now but my husband, being the sports junkie he is, was just not willing to give it up. Imagine my suprise when Monday morning when we woke up, just out of the blue he says he thinks it should go! I’m telling you sometimes when we’ve been praying for something so long that when God answers so clearly, it just blows our mind! We have an antennae that allows a couple of local stations for news and sports events that will be on those channels but other than that nothing! We went from 200 channels + DVR to that. I am so grateful!
I have already found several things on Netflix that are super exciting for us, like 8 seasons of Andy Griffith! Yeah! So, I’m making a list of all your suggestions and will work on queueing some up. Is there a limit on how many you can queue? Oh, and my kids are 9 and 5.
I really have just thought Netflix was for movies only, but some of you have listed things that are tv shows (like Max and Ruby). So, does that mean Netlix carries episodes of certain shows, too? I don’t know why that would surprise me because we have always picked up dvd’s of tv series we enjoy, but I guess I didn’t realize all that they carried.
Maybe after Christmas, if we finally start receiving the funds we are expecting (but that’s for another thread later), I can consider getting Netflix. It doesn’t sound too expensive.
We have Netflix also. We have both streaming and DVD by mail, which is about $15 a month. We stream lots of shows, but for movies, there’s a lot that’s not available on instant that you can only get by DVD. We also stream through our Sony DVD/Blu-ray player, and we do not have any issues with the homescreen- no previews play, and no suggestions pop up except as a small picture. But we always just go to our instant queue and select what we want to watch after we’ve selected on our account on the computer first. That way, there’s no surfing for movies on the DVD player.
We have been able to find lots of documentaries for school, lots of VeggieTales and many G-rated family films on instant streaming. We also have basic cable, but that’s mostly for our love of certain channels like Food Network, Turner Classic Movies and Hallmark Channel.
We have been using Netflix, cable/sattelite free, a little over a year now. I discovered that there is a difference in what shows on your home screen depending on what device you’re using for streamimg. You can set the Roku to show only your Queue, which is what we are doing now. I had thought when we got our Wii that we’d use that on the main tv and move the Roku to another tv. BUT, I did not like that my ds could browse through so many things that were not on our queue. So I’ve kept the Roku on the main tv. It would be nice for my husband and I to be able to watch netflix downstairs, but it defeated my purpose of having that control of what the kiddo sees on tv to have a wide open netflix menu on the Wii. I think the cost of the Roku has gone down quite a bit to make it worth considering if you want to have that kind of control of what comes in to your tv. Just thought I’d toss that tid bit out there.
I’ll have to browse through our queue and come back for the other question. I know I’ve found several things on Netflix from folks mentioning them here. Its unfortunate that you pretty much have to know the title of something to find it. Netflix’s search feature leaves much to be desired in that you can’t just search by keywords or subjects. But they do have lots of great content.