parenting baffles me

[jazzfish]

... good thing I don't have to do it.

Elseweb a friend asks, heavily paraphrased, "my preteen kid wants to read Hunger Games. i'm not letting her right now, because she's hypersensitive and it would freak her right the heck out. thoughts?"

Which to me sounds entirely wrong-headed. I was brought up with free rein in my reading material: if I could reach it, I could (try to) read it. The notion of telling a kid "no you can't read that you're not ready for it" is foreign to me. I could see "it's kinda disturbing and might be a little old for you; give it a try and we'll talk about it during/after, and if you're too freaked out it's totally okay to stop." But saying "you can't read that"... does that ever end well?

This is apart from the question of poisonous drek like Twilight, which someone else brings up in comments and to which I have no easy answer.

Thoughts?

(I'm not identifying the friend because I don't want to be That Guy With No Kids Who's Telling Her How To Raise Hers; likewise, I'm not asking her this directly because I don't know how to ask that without either sounding like That Guy Etc or making it her job to educate me on the nuances of parenting that I'm missing.)

Comments

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

As Sherwood said, it's a tough call sometimes. Looking at my own reading history, there are books I encountered too early. _The Painted Bird_ comes to mind right away. There is one scene that still shows up in my most frightening nightmares--even though I was reading Stephen King at the same age (about eleven or twelve).

With Dev, it's been rather simple on that front, because reading has never been pleasurable for him. The question remains, though, of whether to restrict content. I think "filter" would be a better term--making sure he is seeing the work clearly. That's not so much as issue now since he's nearly 16, but it was a few years ago. Not only did we discuss the use of violence, but we talked extensively about the use of sex and sexuality. Too many parents, imo, do the former and avoid the latter.

Often it isn't the content, but the viewpoint of the reader/viewer that makes the difference. To my kid brain, King was obviously fiction so "scary scene" didn't translate into "possible event." Kosinski was real enough to be possible.

[jazzfish]

'Filter' is a really excellent word/attitude. And that sounds like what to me is the ideal way to handle disturbing/not-age-appropriate content.

(I have not read The Painted Bird, and I'm not not sure I want to... :)

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

Your life will be none the poorer for skipping it, imo. :)