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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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[/quote]

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.[/quote]
Get your kid some nonfiction books.[/quote]

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