Reply to 12 and 14 year olds reading young adult books with sexual content

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you would consider punishing her for this. IMO, punishment is in order when a child breaks a house rule or does something wrong. Unless you had house rules regarding appropriate reading material that were known to her prior to this incident, it makes little sense to punish her under condition one. Do you feel that it is somehow wrong or inappropriate for her to read this type of book? If so, I can see why you would be upset and considering punishment but based on what you posted it doesn't seem like your DD realized that this was something you would consider wrong of her, so I wouldn't punish her for something she didn't realize you disapproved of.

My own view and approach towards such an incident is likely very different to yours, but for what it's worth I would not have a problem with kids in that age range reading books with pretty much any type of sexual content unless the "book" would be considered pornographic material under a legal standard. Other than that, I have almost never* censored media, especially print media such as books. Reading about things they might be curious about is far preferable as a means of learning about them than actually doing those things would be at that age, and if handled without judgement can be a good way to initiate a discussion that kids would probably otherwise do pretty much anything to avoid. Also, depending on the book and the child in question, they could be reading the book for the plot and pretty much skipping over the sex. That doesn't seem likely to be the case in the scenario you posted but I wanted to mention the possibility.

Just to throw this out there, I read several rather explicit books in middle/high school (think VC Andrews, etc.) and it certainly was not because I had any interest or intention in actually having sex or behaving in a promiscuous way... I was actually really shy about such things and kind of a prude and it was kind of thrilling to read things that were so 'edgy' in my mind and the complete opposite of anything I had any experience with or even really any concept of. I think it's entirely possible that many girls who read these type of books do so in order to have a "safe" non-threatening way to shock themselves with something that's completely out of their comfort zone. So while it is a good idea to talk with your daughter about sex, relationships, and self-respect, especially if her choice of reading material shocked or concerned you, I don't necessarily think you have immediate cause to worry that your child is unnaturally interested in such adult activities or in particular danger of being more likely to make inappropriate choices for her age simply based on this one incident of explicit reading material.[/quote]

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