Doper parents, what subjects in books/music/media do you shield your kids from? Why?

[Maastricht]

It will be years before MaastrichtSon will be old enough to handle the remote control. :) But this thread, Were you ever one of those children adults were trying to protect? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9292661) made me wonder. Many Dopers in that thread, raised when mass-media were relatively new, recalled how ineffectively their caregivers tried to shield them from stuff they didn't really need shielding from.
Having learned from your own past, Doper parents, is there any kind of messages, images or stories you try to shield your kids from nowadays?

Please specify the kids ages, and be as specific as possible. So, no "I shield my kid from gore" but "They won't be watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer untill they are twelve". I'm most interested in things you really shield your kids from, so don't mention the things your kids can watch under supervision.

To get started, here's a list of more or less shieldworthy subjects:
nudity, strong language, gore, suspense, sex, world news/world programs, religion or lack thereof, animals suffering, violence, news about sexual predators; real dangers like housefires.....

[Sarahfeena]

Having little tiny kids right now who don't watch TV, I don't worry about it too much. However, I did have an incident the other day that made me actually attempt to distract my 3-year-old. We were watching that Parker/Stone movie with the marrionettes...what's it called? Team America or something? Well, in this movie (which I found quite funny, by the way), is a scene where two of the puppets go at it in all kinds of positions. It was as graphic as porn, except that the male puppet didn't have any...um...equipment, as it were. (Hilarious) It didn't seem like something I wanted to have to explain to my daughter, so as I said, I distracted her until it was over.

I also tend to turn off nature programs when there's an animal that's about to get eaten. Don't think she's quite ready for that yet.

I think I will probably continue to play it by ear like that, but generally speaking, I think graphic sex and violence will be out until they are at least in HS.

[Algher]

Got two kids - 12 and 5.

I have found that the 12 year old covers his own eyes during any sexual scenes in movies that we watch (asking if it is over). If it is movie with an extended scene, he will leave the room. I tell him to leave if there is a rape scene (I don't like them either).

Action violence is fine, torture is not along with horror. This is due to nightmares more than anything. He, again, self censors. I had him watch Black Hawk Down with me when he was starting the "military stuff is cool" phase a year or so ago. It helped ground him a bit in reality.

Our 5 year old doesn't like "mommy daddy" shows, so he leaves the room on his own. Then again, he is happiest watching Food Network and prefers Rachel Ray to Cartoons. Judge me as you will on THAT one!

We expose our kids to most of what we watch. I have also made it clear to my older son and his friends that I can figure out what they have been doing on the computer so they should be careful what they do on our household machines.

In summary:
Sex scenes - older kid self censors.
Violence - OK with me, though I try to limit rape and torture viewing opportunities.
Control - little goes on in our house without our knowledge SO FAR.

[Shark Sandwich]

I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old. Both girls. I'm with Sarahfeena; about the only thing I shield them from is graphic sex and gore, but I'd have to add drug use too (shooting up, snorting, etc.). And I guess we adhere pretty strictly to the ratings on video games we let them play. Mrs. SS and I make it a point to try not to use foul language around them either, though the occassional slip does happen.

I guess I'm of the school of thought that if the parents don't make a big deal out of something, the kids probably won't even notice.

This may be kind of a hijack, but my daughters and I were watching some old school cartoons the other day like Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, stuff like that. I never realized how many cartoon characters smoked back then. Usually minor characters, but still. But to my earlier point: I guess it didn't seem odd to me when I was a kid, but it sure does now.

- SS

[norinew]

I've always let my kids read just about anything they want (they can have those mental images if they're willing to work for them!), but have shielded them from certain TV shows when they were younger. My youngest, almost 8, thinks everything her 16-year-old sister does is golden. So she would love to watch Family Guy. However, I won't allow it. There's just too much that's wrong in that show. I don't let her watch South Park, either, but since no one she reveres watches it, she doesn't ask about it too much. I can't think of anything I won't let the 16-year-old watch. She's pretty good at the self-governing thing. But when she was young, I wouldn't let her watch Beavis and Butthead or The Simpsons.

My in-laws rag on me about this kind of censorship. "We always let our kids watch everything on TV" is their war-cry. Yeah, well, there used to be a whole lot less of "everything" on TV!

Nudity doesn't bother me. People get naked sometimes. Sexual situations, when age-appropriate, don't bother me. People have sex, at some point, kids learn about this. I remember my middle daughter coming downstairs one night after watching an episode of Degrassi in her room, and asking what a "woody" was (she was about 12). We explained it to her. Nature stuff, as mentioned by Sarahfeena doesn't bother me, either (of course, my kids aren't as young as hers). The youngest is the proud owner of both a kitty who likes to hunt, and a tarantula that we regularly feed baby crickets to. She's well-familiar with the circle of life.

The youngest sometimes asks me when she'll be old enough to watch Family Guy. My stock answer is "when you're 13". That doesn't necessarily mean she won't be allowed to watch such things before then. But it largely depends on the kid. My oldest is, and always was, very easily influenced. She didn't have very strong inner values. So I tried as hard as I could to protect her from stuff like that for as long as I could. My middle daughter is much more level-headed, and much more reliable when it comes to being self-directed. She's not easily influenced by peer pressure. So I leave it up to her. We'll see how it goes with the youngest.

Oh, and there are certain things that I don't allow just because I don't want to be exposed to them. There's some show on TV called Mr. Meaty that just makes me want to puke just to look at it. The youngest is definitely not allowed to watch that. And America's Funniest Home Videos, because, as I explained to my kids, some things are just funny, some things are funny and mean, and some things are just mean. Mostly, AFHV is just mean. I don't want to support that.

[Dinsdale]

One odd thing I noted is that you can't really predict what will or will not bother a particular kid. For example, my kids were really upset by Mars Attacks. As best I can figure it out, it really bothered them that the aliens were saying "We mean you no harm" and then going ahead and harming everybody they met.

Another thing that seemed to bother them on a case-by-case basis was "meanness." They might not be at all phased by a loving sex scene, but they'd be very upset by a scene where someone was just mean to someone, especially out of the blue. Sorry I'm not coming up with a good example.

My eldest was in kindergarten when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred. I remember other parents saying their kids were bothered by it. I don't think my daughter ever knew about it at the time, as we never watched the news around her and she didn't read the paper.

My youngest is now 16, and she pretty much refuses to watch R-rated movies. Just says they tend to stick with her in ways she finds unpleasant. Kinda limits our family's choice of videos. Of course she was our family's biggest fan of the Sopranos. When we were working our way through the taped seasons she'd say "Who wants to watch some entirely inappropriate TV?"

[Sunspace]

It will be years before MaastrichtSon will be old enough to handle the remote control....Don't bet on it. My friends' three-year-old can operate my computer, at least in the sense of pointing and clicking on a kids' website.Having learned from your own past, Doper parents, is there any kind of messages, images or stories you try to shield your kids from nowadays?I wonder about this, too. It's not "three network television stations and the local newspaper" anymore. Given enough determination, you can find anything these days. But I also remember being a kid. Before puberty, sex was either uninteresting to me, incomprehensible, or occasionally even repellent. What was comprehensible was violence.

I think that, if I had kids, I'd be very cautious about portrayals of meanness and unkindness, as others have mentioned.

[Dinsdale]

Here's another one - interpersonal relations we consider undesireable. Say, sitcoms where the kids are extremely disrespectful of their parents, or the parents are complete idiots, or kids are disrespectful of other peoples' feelings or property.

I'm not saying that some comedy cannot be derived from such situations, but in much of what passes for comedy, the sole humor appears to be the kids being shits.

Not sure exactly where it falls, but I remember my kids not being comfortable with Married with Children.

[Dung Beetle]

My kids are eleven and sixteen (boy and girl respectively, if it matters). They have always been allowed to read whatever they want, or listen to any music they choose. However, I've shielded them from some movies and TV shows, and monitor their internet use. I haven't really thought about why only visual media until just now, but I guess it's because music and books require the child to use their own imagination, whereas a movie could show a kid something so horrible they could never have imagined it, and vividly, too.

Movies don't pose much of a problem. The "torture porn" such as Saw or Hostel is what I'd keep from them; heck, I protect myself from it. However, I recently allowed the boy to watch Nightmare on Elm Street. I watched it with him and was prepared to turn it off if it got too intense, but he had no problem with it.

The TV show they are forbidden to watch is South Park. I watch it myself and (despite Mr. Slave's moving speech) I just balk at the thought of them seeing something like the Paris Hilton episode. I also despise Family Guy, though it's a little late to ban it now that they've seen them all.

So I guess my problems are with realistic violence and …well, not sex, but sex treated in a cavalier, joking, or dirty manner. Family Guy is often stupid and just has a mean, ugly edge to it. Of course, the kids think it's a laff riot.

[WhyNot]

Another vote for "it depends on the kid". But it also depends on you - on what your hot button issues or your "I don't want to explain this yet" issues are. Even if your kid might be ready, if you're not ready, then you (the unit of you and kid; it'd be nice if English had a second person plural) aren't ready.

My bugaboo is realistic violence. The kind of stuff of CSI or Law and Order; things that can and do happen to real people. Ridiculously over the top cartoonish violence in, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, doesn't bother me, because it's easy to explain away as "Hollywood special effects, that doesn't really happen, you know."

My son (15 next month) early on was fascinated with special effects and moviemaking as an art and science. So, since I happened to love Buffy, it was a pretty easy decision to let him watch it with me when he was about 7. He wasn't allowed to watch it alone, I had to be there, and it was always recorded (pre-DVR days), so that I could Pause and Discuss as needed. Mostly he wanted to know things like how they timed the blood packs to go off at the right time, and why the fighting Buffy (stunt double) looked nothing like the talking Buffy - movie making stuff. That let me know that he was okay, he wasn't bothered by anything in the story arc, and he had a firm grasp that this was all very skilled make believe. I did get uneasy in the sixth season when lots of violent, although consensual sex and then a realistic attempted rape was perpetrated by one of the main characters, and I think I did edit out a few scenes there - but again, it was because it turned from cartoonish violence to something too unsettlingly real for my taste.

And be prepared to get it wrong sometimes, and deal with the appropriate apologies and talks afterward. I took him to see A.I. in the theater. I knew it was PG-13, but because he was fine with Buffy, I figured he'd be fine with this. I expected he'd be upset with the abandon-the-kid-in-the-woods scene, but he took that in stride. What really upset him was the Flesh Fair - robots being torn apart and melted with acid to the howls of a depraved crowd. The robots weren't even particularly humanoid, but for some reason that really got to him. He started crying a bit, and I asked him if we should leave, and he said no, but tell him when that part was over, and he hid under his jacket for the rest of the scene. We had a few talks later about bullies and people laughing at the helpless, and that helped work out some issues he had. Am I sorry he saw it? No, not really, because it was the impetus he needed to talk about some things that were bothering him. But I'm really glad I was paying attention and followed up on it.

He asked for the movie on DVD when it came out, by the way. He still watches it often, but still fast-forwards through that scene.


In theory, I agree with Dinsdale's comments about meanness and disrespectful relationships, especially kids. However in reality, it hasn't come up because neither my husband nor I are into that sort of television, and the kids haven't asked for it. Mostly, if we're not watching with them, my daughter's limited to Baby Einstein and Sesame Street, and my son watches a whole lot of Unwrapped and How's it Made and World War II documentaries. Which, I guess, is realistic violence, isn't it? But I feel like he's old enough to make his own decisions, and he's got a very good handle on what he can...uh...handle.

His books and video games are unlimited; books have always been his choice, and video games were kept under M until 13 or so, and now I don't really care what he plays, but he's required to pause it and shoo the little one out of the room if she wanders in while he's playing. That was actually his ruling, not mine, but I totally agree with it.

[BetsQ]

We have a 5 year old and a one year old. Our one standing censorship rule in the house is no Family Guy. I haven't seen much of it, but it's just not nice. On the other hand, we all sit down to watch the Simpsons every night at 7:00. There's lots of inappropriateness there, but it's my kind of inappropriateness, so it's all OK. I do discourage the watching of nature shows in which Bad Things happen to animals, especially if the bad things are done by humans. We don't have cable, so there aren't all that many TV options.

As for movies, we took #1 kid to see Transformers and The Simpsons movie in the theater this summer; both were rated PG13. In general, I'm OK with anything PG, but PG-13 or R movies are decided on a case by case basis, although most won't appeal to him anyway.

I don't know what I'll do when he figures out how to surf the net!

[norinew]

How's it Made
Well, the first step in the process is to take the apostrophe and "s" off the first word, and transplant it onto the second word. . . :p

Seriously, though, our youngest is entranced by those shows, too. I think it's all that automation.

[Marienee]

My kids are 8 and 5. I try to shield them from news reports about bad things that happen to children. Eldest really went through the wringer about the juxtaposition of a couple of news stories last year involving deaths of children. He was afraid to go to school, afraid to go play with his friends at their houses -- he couldn't figure out how those things could happen and why it couldn't be avoided. That last was the problem, really. But truly, the whole nation of Holland was in shock and there was a good deal of public mourning (as you may recall) and in some ways that helped him to deal with it. At least he had the comfort of knowing that he was not the only one.

But honestly, there was no shielding him from that. It was wall to wall coverage, you couldn't even turn on the radio without it being discussed. So we talked about it a great deal. Still I did try to avoid news coverage of incomprehensible bad things happening to children for a time while the Holloway/Jesse stories were current.

On both sex and disrespectful relationships I have to say, well, it's Dutch TV, I would have to turn it off entirely, lol. You can't fight the dominant culture. But they are very good about having it off the air in kiddie prime time, I have to give them that.

ETA, then changed my mind. I'm indecisive today.

[cher3]

We don't have a TV, so that solves a lot of problems. My daughter has been asking to read my "adult" Pratchett books lately and I've let her do so, even though there's a bit of rough language and so forth. They only watch movies at school or with us and the school has us sign off on anything above a G rating. My kids are 10 and 8 and we took them to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is rated PG-13, and they were fine with it. They'd both read the book, though.

We listen to the radio news, sometimes, and I've occasionally turned off something that was particularly horrific.

Generally they regulate themselves in regard to what they are ready for and we don't have too many books around with strong violence or sexual content that would really interest them yet.

I read freely when I was a kid and went through a phase of eagerly gobbling up gory horror and really trashy stuff. I just eventually grew out of it and lost interest.

[dangermom]

My kids are 7 and 4.

I don't let them watch much TV at all. A lot of that is that there are plenty of things I'd rather have them doing. The 4-yo would be a screen addict if I let her, and she also gets grumpy if she watches more than about half an hour at a time. So for the moment, they aren't watching much TV, and when they do, it's from TiVo or a video. We get movies from the library or I tape things they'll like. They watched March of the penguins a few days ago and loved it; I was much more affected by the loss of baby penguins than they were. But everything they watch is pretty dang clean.

We don't watch a lot of violent or sexual TV ourselves; Firefly is about the edgiest thing we've ever watched, and we skip the more graphic sex, and I would definitely restrict that to 14+. Something like Stargate I would allow younger. LOTR movies are scary. I haven't even let the 7yo watch the Narnia movie yet, because the war scenes are so scary! It really depends on the kid, but so far mine don't like really scary stuff. And something like South Park or Family Guy is right out; I'm not sure I'm old enough for those shows.

I'm a lot more liberal with books. I would let them read most things that they can read, but I'm going to be screening for age-appropriate content for several years yet. No V. C. Andrews for 12-yos around here, please.

Part of my thing about movies is that I really want my kids to read and love the books first. And I'm kind of ambivalent about movies from books; once you see the film, your personal images of what Frodo or Lucy look like are bulldozed by the movie images, and you never really get them back. So while I like the Narnia movie, I also don't want to screw up my kids' own images too soon, and I prefer to put it off for a while. I do the same thing with fairy tales; I don't want my kids seeing Sleeping Beauty before they read and love the real story on its own.

I'm perfectly happy for my kids to see most accurate portrayals of religion. I like to take the older one to visit churches, and we talk about different belief systems.

We also talk about "real things like house fires" but I wouldn't let them watch, say, The towering inferno until they're 11 or so. That movie scared me to death when I was a kid, and I wasn't even little.

I know that they'll see and read things I don't like. But I'm not sure I want to help them to do it.

I also don't allow Barbies or Bratz, or the slutwear that passes for clothing in many stores. I'm not wild about commercialized sexuality pretending to be girl empowerment.

[WhyNot]

Well, the first step in the process is to take the apostrophe and "s" off the first word, and transplant it onto the second word. . . :p
:smack: I guess that makes sense, it's the answer, not the question. D'oh!
My kids are 8 and 5. I try to shield them from news reports about bad things that happen to children.
Ooh, yeah, I'm with you there. My best friend let her little girls watch the footage from the World Trade Center thing when it was on the news those first few days. Footage of planes crashing and even people jumping out of burning buildings. Not cool, I thought.

Since our main source of news is The Daily Show, it's not really an issue with us. Once in a while, the boy would come home from school traumatized by the news of a school shooting or the similar, and we'd use the sad opportunity for a lesson in statistics and mass media exposure.

[gonzomax]

I never stopped my son from anything . What he encountered at home would be available for discussion unless we suppressed it. Then it would be out of our hands.Of course I did not sit around watching porno.
With all the talk shows bitching about video games, mt wife kept bitching about me talking to him about them. Finally I broached the subject. He looked at me kind of disappointed and said"they are just pixels on a TV screen".

[norinew]

What he encountered at home would be available for discussion unless we suppressed it.
Excellent point. I think it's practically impossible to overemphasize to kids that they can ask you about anything. Whatever you may shield them from at home, they're going to encounter stuff sooner or later that they don't know how to interpret. I remember my oldest daughter, probably 11 YO or thereabouts, coming to me after school one day. "Mom, can I ask you a question?" "Sure, honey, you can ask me anything at all" "well, I heard that Marilyn Manson had two of his ribs removed so he'd be able. . .so he'd be able. . to. . .bend over far enough to. . .ummm, reach his own penis with his mouth; is that true?" :eek: I said "Well, he's a pretty strange character all right, which is probably why these rumors tend to start about him instead of someone people think of as more 'normal', but no, I don't think that's true. And even if he did have two ribs removed, I don't think it would allow him enough flexibility for that".

I never felt like I could talk to my mom about anything. I've worked hard to change that with my kids.

[Maastricht]

... about the only thing I shield them from is graphic sex and gore, but I'd have to add drug use too (shooting up, snorting, etc.). And I guess we adhere pretty strictly to the ratings on video games we let them play. Mrs. SS and I make it a point to try not to use foul language around them either, though the occassional slip does happen. I guess I'm of the school of thought that if the parents don't make a big deal out of something, the kids probably won't even notice. I understand the shielding from foul language, as kids are known to easily adopt such language.
But could you or any other parent explain why you wouldn't want to see your kid a scene where someone is using drugs? Most of those scenes make drug use look distinctly unattractive and unglamorous, and anyway it is veryunlikely that a middle class kid who is not living in a dangerous neighborhood will run into some "pusher" on the schoolyard asking them if they'd like to shoot or snort up. Pot, or glue, of course, are a different matter.

[Maastricht]

On both sex and disrespectful relationships I have to say, well, it's Dutch TV, I would have to turn it off entirely, lol. You can't fight the dominant culture. But they are very good about having it off the air in kiddie prime time, I have to give them that.Yes, that is a major cultural difference, isn't it? USA and Dutch culture can be regarded in many ways as social experiments where just a few variables are different, with at first sight very different outcomes.
It won't come as a surprise to you, that being Dutch I don't see much harm in showing kids nudity, or sex if it is just sex.
I wonder though, if the Dutch habit of showing people (especially in soap opera's) interact, impacts our kids in anyway. Having seen a lot of American shows, I feel that Dutch soap opera social manners are not just disrespectful, as you rightly mention, but incredible rude, crude and just blunt. Not mean, just ...crude. It is an exaggarated form (exaggeration is the Dutch crude way of adding "drama") of the everyday Dutch bluntness, but many soap-opera's take it to unpleasant levels.

[WhyNot]

...and anyway it is veryunlikely that a middle class kid who is not living in a dangerous neighborhood will run into some "pusher" on the schoolyard asking them if they'd like to shoot or snort up. Pot, or glue, of course, are a different matter.
I think this is a very dangerous assumption. My mother teaches sixth grade in a middle class school in the suburbs, as idyllic and whitebread as you can imagine. Over 10 years ago, after the mandated lecture on "Drugs Are Bad, Mmmmm'kay?" a worried 12 year old came up to her and whispered, "Mrs. Jones, all those things you just told us about...I could buy any of those in the hallway during the next class break..."

My son started school in another suburban middle-class school, and there was a kid expelled for trading marijuana for a Snickers bar in the lunch room. It was later discovered that he stole the marijuana from his parents at the request of the Snicker's bar owner. Both kids were in second grade.

Of my current crop of friends, one started smoking marijuana at 11, one at 13 and one at 14. (In a wonderful case of parental what-goes-around-comes-around, the smoked-at-11 dad just had his weed stolen by his 13 and 15 year old children.)

I don't tell you these things to scare you, but to emphasize that you can't rely on the presumed unavailability of these things; your kids' safety lies in convincing them they don't want to do them, not that they can't do them.


But I agree that, except for alcohol, mainstream Hollywood portrayals of drug use are generally a deterrent, not an endorsement.

[Maastricht]

I think this is a very dangerous assumption. My mother teaches sixth grade in a middle class school in the suburbs, as idyllic and whitebread as you can imagine. ... A worried 12 year old came up to her and whispered, "Mrs. Jones, all those things you just told us about...I could buy any of those in the hallway during the next class break..."
I don't tell you these things to scare you, but to emphasize that you can't rely on the presumed unavailability of these things; your kids' safety lies in convincing them they don't want to do them, not that they can't do them.Wow. If that is the situation, I agree that the depiction of doing drugs in the media is something parents might worry about.
It will be some years before I have to worry about that, thankfully, but I have never heard of drugs being a problem in Dutch schools, not in non-problematic neighborhoodsanyway. The system of "coffeeshops" stores (located away form schools, but yes, in city centers) where teenagers have to go to if they want to buy pot, seems to work well to keep sellers of pot out of the schoolyards.

[Mister Rik]

I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old. Both girls. I'm with Sarahfeena; about the only thing I shield them from is graphic sex and gore, but I'd have to add drug use too (shooting up, snorting, etc.). And I guess we adhere pretty strictly to the ratings on video games we let them play. Mrs. SS and I make it a point to try not to use foul language around them either, though the occassional slip does happen.

I guess I'm of the school of thought that if the parents don't make a big deal out of something, the kids probably won't even notice.
Wow, you sound almost exactly like my sister, who also has 6- and 9-year-old daughters. My sister might be a bit more permissive, but she shares your belief about making a big deal out of things. She actually has to limit what my older niece watches more than the younger, simply because the 9YO is more imitative. Britney Spears (and similar artists) videos are off-limits, because she will start aping Britney's sexually suggestive gyrations.

The 6YO is the more imaginative/creative of the two, and seems to prefer hard rock to pop. She'd rather grab a microphone or toy guitar and rock out (in fact, she knows all the words to an amazing number of songs, including Bohemian Rhapsody — Queen is her favorite so far — and sings them in tune).

[Sarahfeena]

Nature stuff, as mentioned by Sarahfeena doesn't bother me, either (of course, my kids aren't as young as hers). The youngest is the proud owner of both a kitty who likes to hunt, and a tarantula that we regularly feed baby crickets to. She's well-familiar with the circle of life. Yeah, in a few years, it won't bother me, but right now it's just too hard to explain. I was watching that movie March of the Penguins recently, and pointing out the baby penguins to my daughter..."look how cute they are!" The next thing you know some bird comes along and rips one of them apart. Like I did with the humping puppets, I just distracted her when I realized what was about to happen, because I wasn't sure what to say about it..."well, honey, sometimes babies get eaten." :eek:

Also, right now I am trying to shield her from bad language, only because she tends to repeat everything she hears, and I really don't want her dropping the f-bomb at preschool. This is my weak point, though, as I am the worst offender in my household, and almost as bad as South Park.

Ooh, yeah, I'm with you there. My best friend let her little girls watch the footage from the World Trade Center thing when it was on the news those first few days. Footage of planes crashing and even people jumping out of burning buildings. Not cool, I thought. My best friend, who normally is a pretty sensible person, happened to be away from home and in a hotel with her kids on 9/11. She couldn't stop watching it, of course, and since they were in a hotel room her 5 year old saw it all, too. She said in retrospect, it probably wasn't such a good idea to let him see it. Ya THINK?

[norinew]

Also, right now I am trying to shield her from bad language, only because she tends to repeat everything she hears
Heh. All that came as a surprise to my husband when we were new parents. He didn't grow up around younger kids, and wasn't expecting it. On a long car trip with our then-barely-two-year-old first daughter, the car overheated, he slammed his hand on the steering wheel and said "Fuck!" We spent the next several minutes with little girl in the back seat saying "Pop said 'fuck'; pop said 'fuck'; pop said. . ." :D

Lesson learned.

[MsRobyn]

Well, the first step in the process is to take the apostrophe and "s" off the first word, and transplant it onto the second word. . . :p

Seriously, though, our youngest is entranced by those shows, too. I think it's all that automation.

My son likes it, too. I think he's particularly fascinated by food: where it comes from, how it's produced, and so forth. He also likes straight-up science programs, especially those that show dramatic phenomena like volcanoes. I have no problem with letting him watch shows like that.

For the most part, he's bored with stuff we wouldn't let him watch anyway. He'll wander off and go do something else if it's on.

Robin

[Oregon sunshine]

Advertising. I shield my kid from advertisements.

[SkeptiJess]

My kids are now 20 and 21. I barred them from any R-rated movies until they were 14 or so. This seemed esiest to me, as it would take care of both graphic sex, or gore. After age 14 we went on a case-by-case basis for a few years.

Back in those days, TV wasn't such a problem -- there was nothing too terrible on regular TV. For the movie channels (when we had them), I just fell back on the PG-13 or below rule. I's a little dicier nowadays. I wouldn't let my kids watch South Park if they were elementary school age. After age 14, then yes.

Books I didn't have any hard-and-fast rule. My daughter doesn't read for pleasure, much, so she was satisfied to stick to things she found on the weekly trip to the school library. My son likes to read, so I might have had to think about it a bit more if he hadn't mostly read non-fiction. I can't think of anything he ever wanted to read that I told him not to. That said, I have to admit that I brought home most of his reading material. When I went to the library or book store, I'd bring him home something. There were books I would have liked to share with him, but felt I couldn't because of content. Gary Jennings' Spangle, for example. It's about a down-on-its-luck circus in the years immediately after the Civl War and I knew he'd love it. But it's got lots or gore, sex, kinky sex & violence. I finally gave it to him a couple of weeks ago and he did love it, just as I thought. But he agreed that he wouldn't have wanted to read it in junior high or high school, and would have been wigged out if I'd given it to him then.

[fessie]

My twins will be 4 in a couple of months, so their media consumption is almost all shows created specifically for preschoolers. Dora, Diego, Spongebob, and various PBS cartoons.

I learned a long time ago that I had to be careful about what I watched while they're around. Supernanny fascinates me, but if mine were in the room they'd immediately start to mimic the terrible "before" behavior displayed on the show.

At this point I can't even watch Roseanne reruns because while the sarcasm is beyond them, the rudeness is obvious and it's something I've tried to teach them about. Doesn't make sense for Mommy to be laughing at forbidden behaviors.

We watched Star Wars (well, parts of it) last spring and they got their first taste of a truly "bad" character. It was a bittersweet moment for me, beginning to teach them that there IS evil in the world.

My son recently figured out that the BoBo Brothers on Diego are "little bad" and not in the same league as Darth Vader.

[Sailboat]

In general, most people shield themselves from slaughterhouses so well that they don't even realize they're shielding their children from the realities of that subject.

Sailboat

[snowblindfrog]

Mrs. Snowblindfrog and I have a 2 year old and a 4 month old. At this point our TV viewing when the tadpoles are around consists of Dora, Diego, Blues Clues or HGTV. HGTV is really the only family friendly channel out there. No matter what time of day, you can rest assured there is nothing bad on there. We're big fans of CSI and other similarly styled crime dramas but don't think the little ones need to see all the gore. There's plenty more time in their future to see blood and guts. I don't freak out over scantily clad people on TV though. My mother-in-law actually gets irritated about the window displays in Victoria's Secret, saying that's it's soft-core porn! She's crazy though, so what does she know?
Now when it comes to music we just try to sheild them from hearing curse words if possible. We have slipped up on this before, but not all that often. I personally listen to a lot of death metal, and since you can't understand the lyrics anyway, it would seem harmless. My 2 year old actually loves the frantic rhythms and hypersonic tempos. She sits in the back of car just bopping side to side.

[WhyNot]

Advertising. I shield my kid from advertisements.
Ooooh, that's a good one, too. I do the same, both by use of the DVR and fast forwarding through commercials, and avoiding shows like Dora the Explorer, Spongebob, Blue's Clues and any other show I know more than two characters from without ever having seen, simply because I've been inundated with merchandising from them. I feel like they are more ads for merchandise than shows worth watching. Sesame Street is our exception, because I reserve the right to be arbitrary and capricious.

I mean, Dora's not the end of the world, and I wouldn't freak out if she saw a show, but with the limited amount of TV time she gets, I see no real need to add it to her repertoire. And yet, as I type this, there's a Diego cup lying on my desk, and I'm pretty sure the dolphin in the bathtub came with Diego and a boat - the merchandise has snunk through even without watching the shows. But at least I don't hear a constant barrage of whining for character related toys (except for ogsdamn Elmo.)

We were just watching Little House on the Prairie on live TV while wrapping gifts, and whenever a commercial came on, she asked me to put the "camping show" back on! (it's the episode where the Ingallses go camping with Nellie's family) I explained that the nice girls and grownups in the show had to be paid, and to pay them, the producers took money from Colgate, and let Colgate show a short show to try and get us to buy Colgate. I'm sure it flew right over her head, but we've made it to almost three without having to have that talk.

Someday, just like her brother, she'll beg me for some garbagey thing she saw in an ad, and I'll get it for her and let her be disappointed. It was the best lesson my son ever gave himself in misleading advertising. (For him, it was instant oatmeal with "hatching dinosaur eggs". He was crushed that the eggs didn't hatch into animated dancing dinosaurs that leaped out of his bowl. Uh-huh.)

[Sarahfeena]

Someday, just like her brother, she'll beg me for some garbagey thing she saw in an ad, and I'll get it for her and let her be disappointed. It was the best lesson my son ever gave himself in misleading advertising. (For him, it was instant oatmeal with "hatching dinosaur eggs". He was crushed that the eggs didn't hatch into animated dancing dinosaurs that leaped out of his bowl. Uh-huh.) Some things don't change. My mom tells a story about my older brother, that when he was really small, he wanted a Pillsbury Doughboy. They happened to have a promotion where you could send away for one with boxtops or some such. He was gravely disappointed to get a stuffed Doughboy, and not one that walked & talked like he saw on TV! That was 40 years ago.

[dangermom]

Oh yeah, I do the advertising thing too. Yay TiVo!

A lot of my philosophy is that there's just a whole lot of better things to be doing. So while I don't have any objection to Dora, we don't watch it. I don't hugely object to my kids hearing pop music (as long as I get to screen it, for now), but I want them to hear a lot of different music, so I try to play folk and classical and kids' songs and oldies and a whole lot of different stuff, which squeezes out the pop music, oh darn. I always think it's kind of sad when a kid only knows pop music and can't sing anything else.

And of course any music that IMO denigrates women or anything like that is right out.

[Jophiel]

My son is 8 and is yet another poor child not allowed to watch Family Guy. Just too much blatent gross-out humor for me to be comfortable letting my kid watch it. He is allowed the Simpsons and Futurama although there's a couple episodes of each I'd censor.

By in large, it's the usual things. Glorified drug use (as opposed to Very Special Episodes), Graphic sexuality and any sexuality paired with violence although he knows where babies come from and thinks its gross so I'm not worried by him seeing passionate kissing or whatever. I'm not completely against action-violence but block off gore for gore's sake. He watched Aliens with me and 'understood' that it was a movie but still seemed worried. So we watched the special features and I showed him how they aliens were just glorifed Muppets. He also saw Gremlins and, amusingly, the only part I cut out was the "Santa" speech where Phoebe Cates talks about her father dying. He still believes in Santa ;)

Video games, I keep to an "E" rating with the occassional "T" if I've vetted it and the violence isn't person on person. For instance he has some racing demolition game rated "T" but it's vehicle 'violence' and not people getting mowed down.

He's a good reader but hasn't tried to read anything questionable yet.

[Napier]

Our kids are in their mid 30's. I avoid suggesting reading material that dwells too darkly on the human condition of mortality and the theme of decline with age, because your 30's are more happily and productively spent with more of a light optimistic feeling that the future will go on and on and on.

[Mister Rik]

Heh. All that came as a surprise to my husband when we were new parents. He didn't grow up around younger kids, and wasn't expecting it. On a long car trip with our then-barely-two-year-old first daughter, the car overheated, he slammed his hand on the steering wheel and said "Fuck!" We spent the next several minutes with little girl in the back seat saying "Pop said 'fuck'; pop said 'fuck'; pop said. . ." :D

Lesson learned.
Bollocks (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0a06gsiF4)!

My nieces are funny in this regard. The 9YO is the type who, if she hears a curse word, will get all giggly and say, conspiratorially, "He/she said !@#$", apparently trying to indicate to us that she knows what the word means. However, she strikes me as the type who still doesn't really understand how and when swearing is "appropriate", and would probably sound silly if she tried.

The 6YO, OTOH ... She can be in the room and somebody on TV will swear and it's as if she didn't hear it. Turns out she's simply not fazed by it, and apparently has a pretty good "vocabulary", if you will, and knows how to use it. I was visiting one day and my sister was showing her something or other, and whatever it was seriously surprised her ... she exclaimed, "What the FUCK?!" Then she immediately clapped both little hands over her little mouth like "Did I say that out loud?" :p

[fessie]

I want them to hear a lot of different music, so I try to play folk and classical and kids' songs and oldies and a whole lot of different stuff, which squeezes out the pop music, oh darn.

ITA about squeezing other things out, rather than forbidding them. There's nothing more fun than grooving along with my kids to music that I love! I hope I'm shaping their taste in a positive way -- and that they'll return the favor in 10 years by culling through the latest releases to find the ones worth listening to and sharing them with ME!

Most of the television my kids watch doesn't involve commercials. I agree that it's important to discuss deception in advertising. I resent that grocery stores stock the Dora-Barbie-Spiderman "fruit treat" boxes right at their eye level.

One time I capitulated and bought a can of Dora soup or something. One taste and they were done. Haven't asked for that one since.

[DianaG]

My daughter is sixteen now, so she watches pretty much whatever she wants.

I don't remember outright forbidding much. When she was little, it was easy enough to keep her unaware of the existence of the shows and movies I didn't want her to see. As she got older, I might occasionally tell her that I was watching something that wasn't for her, and send her elsewhere to play (which she never made a big deal of), but mostly I just kept the TV on Nickelodeon or Disney anyway, the less for me to worry about. Although I do remember not wanting her to watch Ren and Stimpy.

As she got older, it became all about context and quality. It's a little hard to quantify, but I didn't mind letting her watch "questionable" content in a show that I was pretty sure would handle it in at least an interesting manner. Buffy is an excellent example. That show has prompted some truly great discussions about sex and love, ethics and morality, and the importance of behaving honorably.

Now that I think about it, the only show I ever actually forbade her to watch was Nip/Tuck, a couple of years ago. She didn't really care, but of course it did pique her curiousity. Recently, we were flipping channels and it was on, and she left it there, glancing at me. I shrugged, so we watched. At the end of it, she turned to me and said "That was disturbing and icky on many levels. I feel dirty now." I said "Yeah, that's how I felt any time I ever watched this." And we had a pretty interesting talk about the intentions of the show, and the nature of art. So that worked out. I'd still prefer she not watch it, though!

[Marienee]

Yes, that is a major cultural difference, isn't it? USA and Dutch culture can be regarded in many ways as social experiments where just a few variables are different, with at first sight very different outcomes.
It won't come as a surprise to you, that being Dutch I don't see much harm in showing kids nudity, or sex if it is just sex.

Oh, I agree with you. Dearly Beloved is handling (or at least making most of the decisions on) the whole sex issue as he has better boundaries about it in many ways. And I think I am relatively healthy in that area. I confess I had to rethink my thinking when I asked idly where Dutch kids make out, (no cars being available and "parking" being the main locale for making out in my youth) and my Mother in Law, a good catholic middle class Dutch lady, west-brabant born and bred, explained that I would likely at some point be making breakfast for my kids' girlfriends. Though gentlemanly Dutch boys go to the girl's house usually in the beginning, it's not mandatory but is netjes.

Er. Erum. Erahem. When worlds collide, lol.

I wonder though, if the Dutch habit of showing people (especially in soap opera's) interact, impacts our kids in anyway. Having seen a lot of American shows, I feel that Dutch soap opera social manners are not just disrespectful, as you rightly mention, but incredible rude, crude and just blunt. Not mean, just ...crude. It is an exaggarated form (exaggeration is the Dutch crude way of adding "drama") of the everyday Dutch bluntness, but many soap-opera's take it to unpleasant levels.

I don't watch soap operas, so my kids have missed that.

In general I have to say I find Dutch kids sort of pert. My kids' friends are well brought up Dutch kids, and when they do what appears to me to be "talking back", which I find rude, they very clearly have no notion that somebody else might find that rude. So I just roll with it. It isn't really rude exactly, just sort of pert. But an American child saying that would know they were being, er, mischevious. Pushing the boundary. Dutch kids are entirely innocent of that boundary. And in truth, I am not philosophically opposed to it, I just have to watch my own reactions.

The bluntness thing is hard to get used to, as is the fact that things Americans find private are not private in Holland and vice versa. So as an immigrant one feels sort of bruised now and again.

The thing I am philosphically opposed to and struggle with daily is sourced in the emphasis on independence in children. But the part I struggle with is the assumption that certain behaviors simply are inevitable in adolescence and the coupled-thereto assumption that this behavior begins as early as groep 4 (which is second grade for the 'Mericans amoung us, I have no idea elesewhere: eight or nine years old anyway). Dutch moms assume that kids will depart from the family and attach to their peer group and that the process of so doing will result in a rejection of the family and concomitant rudeness and so on. Since this is inevitable -- ideed desirable -- the down side must be accepted, seems to be the going idea, and I just Don't Think So. But I have not worked out exactly how to deal with it and am currently just making it up as I go along. Like everyhtign else, but still.

[WhyNot]

Oh, I agree with you. Dearly Beloved is handling (or at least making most of the decisions on) the whole sex issue as he has better boundaries about it in many ways. And I think I am relatively healthy in that area. I confess I had to rethink my thinking when I asked idly where Dutch kids make out, (no cars being available and "parking" being the main locale for making out in my youth) and my Mother in Law, a good catholic middle class Dutch lady, west-brabant born and bred, explained that I would likely at some point be making breakfast for my kids' girlfriends. Though gentlemanly Dutch boys go to the girl's house usually in the beginning, it's not mandatory but is netjes.
Ooh, was it you or another Dutch doper who posted a thread about wondering if s/he should get a double (full) sized bed instead of a twin for the kid, because sooner or later, it will have more than one occupant while under your roof? That was a fascinating thread. I admit, for all my laissez faire about sex and teens, the idea of not only "allowing" and preparing theoretically, but actively facilitating and abetting my teen in having sex as if it was all okay and normal* really pushed those boundaries!




*Which, of course, it is. But it's not in my brain. Thank you, cultural programming!

[lee]

I shield my daughter, to the extent I can, from Disney. We avoid licensed characters of all sorts in the clothing and toys we buy her, and most clothing with writing on it. Also, I do not let her watch any commercial children's programming, and all commercials targeted at children and most other advertisements. I also eschew most violent programs, only allowing in the past year Monk and Psych with us. I do allow her to watch Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and some home improvement shows.

I am pleased by the results so far. I am not bombarded by requests for stuff and she has not developed the princess obsession that many of her friends have. Nor is she a tom boy. She likes wearing pretty dresses sometimes, especially ones with skirts which will fly out when she spins. She also likes arts and crafts, building things, cooking, and playing pretend. For Christmas she asked for three knitted lemons and is still delighted with them. They were not her only gifts, but they were the only ones she asked for specifically.

As far as sexual content, well most we would not be comfortable viewing when she was with us. On the other hand, she doesn't seem bothered when she accidentally sees something more sexually explicit than I really feel is appropriate, and I do try not to react strongly and just answer any questions, which are remarkably few. Both she and I am very bothered when she sees something violent. Most of these unintended exposures occur when commercials are accidentally not skipped. I don't like violent programs myself, and even Monk and Psych push my own limits.

[ShibbOleth]

Father of 2, daughter is twelve and son is nine.

I shield them, to some extent, from sensationalist television news. This is because I don't want them to be nervous about being out in the world around adults. Of course I tend to shield myself from this sort of stuff.

We also avoid stuff that has been shown to freak them out. For example, I let my son watch the opening segment of one of the Blade movies, which I thought he'd find interesting, and he had vampire nightmares for weeks. Frankly, I'd forgotten how intense the scene was. My daughter was disturbed by the Bug's Life 4-D exhibit at Animal Kingdom: she has a severe phobia of certain creepy crawlies (but actually enjoys catching some types of insects, just doesn't deal with slime).

We also somewhat avoid the overtly sexually themed stuff, but don't avoid stuff if it's got sex in some decent context. For example, my daughter has started watching Ugly Betty, but my son isn't really interested. But the O.C. would be off limits.

Family Guy and the Simpsons is mostly taboo, although if the Simpsons were still any good it would probably be okay now that they are older.

To be fair, most of what they watch when left to their own devices are shows that are targeted to their demographic: Hannah Montana, Drake & Josh, iCarly, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, with some more kiddie sort of stuff mixed in like SpongeBob, Kids Next Door (which I love), etc.

[Mister Rik]

We also somewhat avoid the overtly sexually themed stuff, but don't avoid stuff if it's got sex in some decent context.
I was just at my local video store yesterday and found myself sharing an aisle with a pair of 10- or 11-year-old girls who were dressed way too "old", IMO (nothing provocative or revealing, just more like they were trying to look 16). They were browsing the shelves behind me and I overheard one say to the other, "Does you mom let you watch American Pie?" And I'm all, "WTF?" I was tempted to turn and ask this girl if her mom lets her watch it, and if so would she take me to her so that I can go upside her head a couple times.