All you need is a musical: Deborah Jackson tells how she found uplifting videos for her children

FOR MOST parents, the debate about children and videos is not concerned with the extremes of sex and violence, but the growing market in made-for-children media.

Thomas the Tank Engine, Rosie and Jim, Duck Tales . . . if they're not watching them at your house, they'll be watching at their friends'. Children's appetite for them seems insatiable, which is perhaps why many parents feel just a little guilty as they press 'play' on Spot the Dog for the hundredth time. It's an easy way to amuse the children, but does it do any good? Could they overdose on repeated screenings of Peter Rabbit and Friends?

Yet, just recently, my children and I have discovered a shared interest that has involved a considerable increase to our video library. As a child, I was fascinated by the big, set-piece, cinema musicals. I cried my way blissfully through The Sound of Music, and while other children played mummies and daddies, I danced around the lounge pretending to be Maria von Trapp. After Oliver] I was Nancy, believing that as long as I was needed by the ruinous Bill Sikes, there I must be. Following West Side Story, I became Maria, promising the dying Tony that (someday) there'd be a place for us.

It is 25 years since I ran away to the swing at the bottom of the garden and pretended I was escaping from an Austrian nunnery. But about a year ago I came across the show section in my local video store. There they were: South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, even Mary Poppins, all waiting to be rediscovered.

If possible, I record the old films on television, so we can keep copies for ourselves. But I never show them 'cold'. The first port-of-call is a music shop, where cheap, easy-to-follow sheet music is still available. Just about managing to follow the chords on the piano, I take the girls, aged six and three, through each score.

It is the powerful narrative quality of the songs that brings them alive to the young child. Consider the desolation of Oliver singing 'Where is love?' to the mother he never knew; the longing of a mother's matchmaking in 'Happy Talk'; or a child's deep desire to be understood in 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'.

I encourage my children to see the underlying emotions behind the songs. Before we have even seen a moment from the movie, they are hooked. And as we watch the video, the excitement mounts. 'Which one is Dorothy Gale?' 'Does she love him yet?' 'Are they going to die?' Only the best films prompt such scrutiny and fascination - some of the new Disney feature films would work just as well.

The first screening of each film is an event, a time when we won't be interrupted. Sometimes I invite young friends round for a special supper and a private view. I take care to explain any difficult dialogue and prepare them for particularly dramatic moments. I hold their hand through the scary bits, cuddle them when they cry, and encourage them to question, anticipate, and reflect. Even such young children love to get a sense of what is beneath the skin of each scene.

Afterwards, they role-play endlessly, taking it in turns to be a favourite character. Frances, the six-year-old, is often moved to write out the songs in her own inimitable spelling. Alice, nearly four, has sported a plaster on her middle finger all week, in honour of Gretel von Trapp. They are not passively addicted to the films, but move through them, growing in awareness.

And they sing. Not with nursery-rhyme perfection, but with heartfelt intonation and full use of their bodies as they retrace the steps of their inner dreams. I wonder how many video nasties - or purpose-made children's video nicies, for that matter - bring such joy into the house.

So much of life is incomprehensible to children, so much television is meaningless to them. By repeated watching of the musical videos, they get a chance to explore, fantasise and be inspired. Just as children love to have books read and re-read in an effort to understand, so they are able to respond to these classic musicals on video. Perhaps the time has come to stop complaining about what videos are doing to the kids, and find ways to use them constructively.