After we felt it was time to introduce D to more media and to movies, we decided to establish a twice monthly family movie night. Things went great with Mary Poppins and Kiki’s Delivery Service, and movie night seemed like a sweet time for family bonding … until A Bug’s Life.

Someone had recommended the film to us, praising the animation, acting, and witty writing. I took a quick look at the review on Common Sense Media, an incredibly useful website that offers ratings and reviews of media for kids. It said the movie was good for ages five and up and gave it five out of five stars. We were good to go.

At the time, I may have also read the reviewer’s one-sentence summary that called the film a “cute animated tale with some mild peril.” Knowing that D was sensitive to seeing animals in danger, I should have scrolled down the page and read the full review after seeing the words “mild peril.” If I had, I would have seen that the rest of the review reveals that the film contains “images that could be scary to very young children [and] sensitive kids who are not comfortable with suspense or jeopardy.”

Maybe watching insects in danger doesn’t disturb most young children as much as seeing cute, fuzzy mammals or people in peril, but apparently D was just as sensitive to threatened bugs. Less than ten minutes in, a swarm of violent, menacing grasshoppers invades an ant colony, and a seemingly rabid grasshopper snarls and snaps at the captive young ant princess. D begged us to turn it off. We paused the movie and assured her everything would turn out OK.

She agreed to continue watching, covering her eyes and peeking through the cracks between her fingers for several portions of the film, such as a scene in which a bird tries to catch the bugs who come to assist the ants and a suspenseful combat scene in which the story’s ant hero gets the tar beaten out of him, after which he and the future queen of the ants are pursued by the frightening leader of the grasshoppers. We kept the movie on, figuring she had to get over fears—the tough love approach, I suppose.

After all, Common Sense Media said it was good for five-year-olds and she was six. But the movie was wrong for D at that age, and if I had read the full review on the organization’s website, I probably would have realized that. This was a mistake I didn’t repeat. I use Common Sense Media all the time to make decisions about movies for my daughter, but in our case, I need to carefully read the full review, and if violence, danger, suspense, etc. are mentioned in the description (especially if animals are involved), I add at least a couple years to the recommended age. This is the most helpful tool for parents of sensitive kids I’ve found, but I have to take into account my kid’s particular needs to use it effectively.

After seeing A Bug’s Life, D was so traumatized that she refused to watch movies for several months. We finally eased her back into movie night by promising to watch some films with live people (not animated) and no animals. The first of these was Singin’ in the Rain, which was thankfully a great success.