What are parents afraid of their kids reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't hate if a parent wants to control what his/her child reads. I do hate if a parent wants to control what every kid reads. So if a parent goes to the library and tells their kid, hey you can't read Cujo, it's too scary for you...I'm good with that. But if that parent went to the library and said, hey no one can read Cujo, it's too scary...yeah, I got a problem with that. There are few things I truly hate more than book banning.

I could see a school library putting in a requirement that certain books need parental approval. I know I don't want my 12 yo kid reading Fifty Shades of Grey right now and would like to think that a reasonable library wouldn't let a kid under a certain age check that book out. It's fine if parents want to permit it, but kids shouldn't be able to do so without parental approval.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I was at the library the other day and a girl who looked about 11 years old came in with a woman who was presumably her mom. She picked out a book for school her and brought it to her mom and her mom kept insisting the book is inappropriate and wouldn't let her check out the book. Just why. What the fuсk was she afraid of her kid reading? It's not like she was checking out a porn magazine.

For me: I would be steering my young kids away from books that depict coercive or abusive relationships as desirable or positive. There's a lot of romantasy that I don't want my kids to read until they're a little older and have developed more of a filter. Coercive/possessive behavior is not romantic, even though it can be fun to read about for older teens and adults who KNOW it would be a huge red flag in read life.

For violence, there are some things you can't unsee (mentally). My fifth grader is both very interested in history and pretty sensitive, and there are certain books about the Holocaust that I've told him I would like him to hold off on for a few more years and I've explained why. There is a lot of good age-appropriate content available-- he doesn't need to be reading Elie Wiesel's book Night or visiting the Holocaust Museum's adult exhibit yet (we're talking about visiting their excellent children's exhibit "Daniel's Story" this summer.)

At the same time, I'd be okay with him reading The Hunger Games if he wanted to, although we'd discuss it together.

A lot of things are kid and situation-dependent.

[Anonymous]

Some parents don't want their kids reading about sex or violence, including military or police stories. Some don't want them reading fairytale or watching TV violence including police shows.

[Anonymous]

TV violence has been a bad influence on our society. Some parents don't even want their kids watching the news for that same reason.

[Anonymous]

There’s a lot of pretty strong sexual content in some nominally “YA” books that I think was too mature for our kids when they were like 11 and better held off on until the kids are a little bit older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on whether your kid is reading at grade level or not. When I was in elementary school, everybody (teachers, parents, school librarians, public librarians etc) was so excited about how far above grade level my reading skills were, and kept challenging me with “harder” material that I was definitely not emotionally or psychologically ready for. In hindsight I was definitely very behind on the social-emotional scale. There are things I read when I was eight, ten, twelve….that just shattered my heart, terrified me, made me feel uncomfortable and alone, and therefore ashamed, and have stuck with me through the decades. As a kid I was unable to express these feelings, and adults just saw a “very smart” young girl who understood and was stoic and seemed unbothered and “wise beyond her years” etc. about what she was reading. I wish I’d had more guardrails

THIS. I have a 3rd grader who reads at a middle school level. She reads grade level stuff but she churns through it fast and she needs longer, meatier books to keep her interested and occupied with reading. It's hard because I'm not going to read every freaking YA novel myself, so I read a lot of reviews, get recommendations from friends with older kids where I can vet for specific content based on what I think she'd be ready for, etc. There are lots of books that would be okay for a 12 year old but not for an 8 year old. I will say that DD actually will speak up sometimes when she feels a book feels too adult for her, but I feel like I need to be involved too, talking through it, it's not fair for an 8 year old to just have to navigate that on her own.

I was also a super advanced and voracious reader at a young age and I read a ton of inappropriate stuff, mostly from my parents home library, at age 8/9/10. Including my mom's extensive collection of trashy crime novels that included violent descriptions of like prostitutes being murdered. And my mom had read those books and knew I was reading them and didn't even stop to have a convo with me about what was in them. The ridiculous part is my mom was super uncomfortable talking to me about sex or puberty or relationships, too, so basically she knowingly let me learn a lot about those topics from trashy novels but was too embarrassed to talk them through or even check with me on how I was handling all that adult content.

I guess the cool thing now is to just let your kids consume whatever media they want but I feel like this is really lazy parenting and it's worth it to put in a little more effort than that.

Get your kid some nonfiction books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they don't understand something, it'll go over their head, and if they are interested, they'll ask you about it. If they already "get it," it's not too mature for them.

Completely false. If this was true, you would have no issue with your kid reading The 120 Days of Sodom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

What was the list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have a rating system for movies? There is a difference between G rated movies and R-rated movies.

There’s a big difference between visualizing what is read vs passively watching someone else’s visualization. Younger/more immature kids have less ability to visualize violence. If a child doesn’t want to share what they read, if it’s too embarrassing or scary to read aloud, if they’re too embarrassed to talk about it? They need to wait.

A well-written book is hard not to visualise. If a child reads something they don't feel like they can share, it's already too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

What was the list?

If you google “classic boys novels” you’d get the gist of it. I ended up ordering Redwall from another library. There was nothing offensive about any of the books but they were purged regardless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That book Lawn Boy

But why? It has great and deep things, with lines like “ What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick?” I said. … “What if I told you I sucked it?” … “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s dick in my mouth.”

We all know why people want to normalize this content for 10 year olds.

Not Lawn Boy again.

1) This book is not intended for 10-year-olds. No one is advocating for this book to be marketed to or suggested to 10-year-olds. The main character is an ADULT talking about something that happened to him AS a 10-year-old. The character has a difficult history, which he has not healed from. The character is trying to shock the character he's talking to, so he says it in a shocking way (and although this kind of thing DOES happen to more kids than we'd like to think, it IS shocking) but not a titillating or "sexy" way. No one who reads this scene in context and good faith could possibly honestly believe that the author is... what, trying to get 10-year-olds (who the book is not intended for) to have oral sex? Because he gets off on that or something? Is that what the "we all know why" statement is supposed to imply?
2) Depiction is discussion, not approval or normalization. The character talking abouts something does not mean the author is advocating for it. Many, many books depict a character talking about something inappropriate or harmful without people assuming that the AUTHOR is in favor of the harmful thing being discussed. This is basic literacy.

Lawn Boy was in elementary schools: https://katv.com/news/nation-world/porn-disguised-as-education-parents-upset-by-books-pulled-for-neisd-review

The people who advocated for it to be banned from elementary schools did the right thing. Do you agree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I was at the library the other day and a girl who looked about 11 years old came in with a woman who was presumably her mom. She picked out a book for school her and brought it to her mom and her mom kept insisting the book is inappropriate and wouldn't let her check out the book. Just why. What the fuсk was she afraid of her kid reading? It's not like she was checking out a porn magazine.

Could be anything from course language to sex to same sex relationship to dating at all or something mom considers too violent or scary or different religious beliefs , maybe it didn't meet the standards for a book report.it could be a anything. I'm assuming you're a parent as you're posting here and you well know every parent has different opinions as long as she wasn't trying to ban it for everyone else it doesn't matter much.

I think it is spelled "coarse".
Coarse and course mean two different things.