Writing violent stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may also be her way of grappling with concepts she wasn’t quite old enough to deal with, if you’re correct that it stems from TV watched during COVID restrictions. She’d have been only 11 or 12 at the time, right?.
When kids are young, they use pretend play, but as they get older, writing can play a similar role.

But honestly, it’s a much better way to deal with boredom than filling her head with even more nonsense from TikTok or YouTube. If it were my daughter, I’d encourage her to keep at it. (Mine is a voracious reader with a vivid imagination, but has unfortunately never showed any interest in writing.) What about buying her a book of creative writing prompts that might give her some alternative ideas to work with?

Don’t mention her current content, just say you noticed she’s been writing a lot, and you thought she might like this cool notebook and nice pens, and you spotted this creative writing book that seemed interesting.

I really don’t think that creative kids would like a book with writing prompts. I think they’d hate it. I would let the DC write what she likes, it’s a creative outlet. My DC writes dark stuff and I think it’s really good - it’s her outlet and she’s a normal kid.

[Anonymous]

If, as you say, it's some kind of fanfiction, then I'd find it especially unalarming; more like a kid participating in a culture or subculture. My kid reads girl-drama books and draws endless cartoons about kids being mean to each other, despite being a nice kid with a nice group of friends.

I agree that you could ask about it in a curious way and even say in a non-shaming way that you found it a little upsetting and not how they are in their regular life, and ask if there's anything big upsetting them that you don't know about and ask if they would tell you if anything really was. But I wouldn't see it as a sign of depression or repressed murderous instincts.

[Anonymous]

Meant to add--if you "found" it on her phone, you may need to be prepared for some reaction there, unless you've established that you'll be checking her phone regularly. And you might need to be honest with yourself, if you haven't been already, about why you read material on her phone and in her notebook. I'm not judging you, but I feel like it will affect the conversation with her.

[Anonymous]

This was my daughter (she 20 now)
Was very into fanfic. Hamilton fanfic, Kpop fanfic. All of what she was reading and writing (I saw because she logged in on my laptop) was basically porn - and a lot of gay porn. She wrote one lovely story where Jefferson and Hamilton get it on... She outgrew it, thankfully.

[Anonymous]

It's was all about rape (and porn as mentioned by PP). Clearly, people with disturbing fantasies and a lot of IRL trauma. Definitely not suitable for any 13 year old who loves Anime and was introduced to it by a friend at school. A lot kids write them based on their own experiences/trauma, but base them on "characters." Make sure you talk to your child.

[Anonymous]

Before jumping to conclusions I’d just ask kid about the stories. Show interest. It could be they just like the genre and writing something far different than their own experience.

Ask first.