I'm tired to be an adult and worrying about our kids! ;)

Cafe Society
1

No, don’t misunderstand.

What I mean is.

Everytime that someone in the T.V. or cinema invents something new, dumb or not, violent or not, degrading or not, another comes out yelling: “that’s noxious for kids” (believe it or not!). Everytime something may be noxious for kids, we suffer a little subtraction for the right to have all kind of themes to enjoy, that’s our free will as adults. Or the right to watching that themes without being guilty because “if our kids see this, they will be harmed”…

Ok, I’m educating my 9 y-old son to be a free-thinker, to make him capable of seeing fantasy, violence (at a little lower level to his permitted degree), and sexual innuendo (not open sex or softcore, just innuendo), and not being influented by such things. In the way he is growing, I understand he is capable to comprehend the reality versus fantasy concept. He has been a fan of anime and comics for a while.

Recently, we watched together The Matrix Reloaded. I felt a little uncomfortable in the dance/sex scene. He did not seem to be affected. For any reason, he suspects that’s how people do love (including mom and dad); the fights, the chases, all “violent” stuff, he was enjoying that and I have not observed any abnormal behaviour. He knows everything is arranged to seem real. I’ve had many conversations with him when I realized that he was trying to tell me: “dad, I’m tired to hear the same, I know that’s all fake and it’s wrong, I’m not a fool!”.

Now, I’m positively sure that he’s smart, but I also know he’s not a genious. I only suspect that my level of communication with him has developed a protective shell against bad influences and as he will be growing old, he will be growing capable of seeing depictions of any kind, harder and harder, without altering his conduct for bad. May be a matter of genetics, too, who knows.

Ok, all this stuff is not to be praised by being a great father, it’s just to know your opinions, because I firmly think that hard critics and “moral defenders” must accept the problem is not mainly the media, but the parents’ way to educate their children.

2

Paraphrased: The problem is not the media but the way parents educate their children.

I agree!!! Especially the way parents don’t make the effort to talk to their children about what they (the children AND the parents) are doing and seeing and thinking.

My only suggestion: Draw him out. Ask him what he thinks instead of telling him how you saw it. Most kids don’t express themselves well, but if you let them talk and then paraphrase (to be sure you got it right) without correcting them, they’ll learn. When he asks what you think, THEN say “people don’t really act like that…”

You’re doing great. Watching movies WITH your kid and then talking about it afterwards is exactly what you should be doing (and what most people don’t do).

Disclaimer: I have 6 kids (1 bio kid, 3 step-kids, 2 adopted kids) and mom does most of the work. I just try to make enough to feed them and keep them in clothes.

3

Anyway, the important fact is that we must be raising children to learn how to confront the real world which they will live in, instead of making them hypocrite moralists, forbidders-of-everything and auto-proclaimed guardians of the decency.

At last, that way they will be more decent than the “decents”.

4

A lot of what I let my kids watch, and at what age, has to do with the individual kid. My oldest is quite capable of letting things roll right off of her, whereas my middle girl takes everything to heart. I need to consider this when I make these decisions (my youngest is only 3, so the decisions are easy). But, anytime I let them see something that I think might be tough for them to handle, I watch it with them, pause the video for a little chat when necessary, and we talk. So far, so good. I don’t think violence in film and TV are near as harmful as some people say. My WAG is that it has more to do with the fact that the young kids who watch this stuff often have parnets who can’t be bothered either monitoring their kids or answering questions.

5

Too true. Too many censorship proponents are looking for everyone else but themselves to parent their children. The government isn’t in the business of raising anyone else’s kids.