feedback for "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid"
-
Agreed! Far, far too much censorship in the name of "protection" of kids today. Good lord, let them be scared! There's a whole lot of REAL scary stuff in the world and no matter how much your shelter and protect and coddle them, they'll run into it. Best to start out with fake scary stuff.
Plus, it's sorta fun to scare the sh-t out of them! ;-)
posted by : Michael Butz on 4/6/2009 at 3:27 PM Flag For Abuse
-
You know what? I agree. I used to sanitize stories for my young son (three in a couple weeks), but then he saw "Sleeping Beauty" on DVD. And let's face it, that is a scary story. And even the Disney cartoon is scary. I worried for a little while that it would be too much for him, and then he told me, in a very patronizing tone of voice, "Mommy. It's just pretend." He gets it. Now I get it. It's not that I'm going to start reading Edgar Allen Poe stories to my preschooler, but I'm not going to be afraid of reading scary children's stories to him and letting him learn to work things out.
posted by : Jennifer Larson on 4/6/2009 at 3:46 PM Flag For Abuse
-
I third the above commenters - I read a lot as a child, and one of the
reasons I loved to do that is that it helped me to make sense of things
I was feeling - or at least feel that it was OK to feel the way I did
(upset, confused, mad at my friends, even lonely!) and that it was part
of life and a normal experience. Sometimes, I would feel bad and not
want to talk to my parents about it - and books helped me to think
about those feelings and work through them - and be reassured that I
wasn't going to feel that way forever. This article touches on those
ideas and I think it does it very well.
posted by : leahsmom on 4/7/2009 at 12:32 PM Flag For Abuse
-
Agreed...there are great movies/books like "old yellar" and "where the red fern grows" that help us as parents teach our children about things like love, devotion, death and sickness. Although some may seem morbid, they encourage questions and conversation regarding life issues they will face throughout their lives. Keeping your kids in a bubble does them a disservice as life will burst that bubble over and over again.
posted by : eevee on 4/7/2009 at 1:03 PM Flag For Abuse
-
I agree - loved Bruno Bettelheim's On the Uses of Enchantment - explains child development and their *need* for good literature to make sense of the world around them...
I read aloud Huckleberry Finn to my children one spring,complete with all the racist terms - i wanted them to *feel* what Jim would have felt (and even then, Twain could have left in more disturbing scenes than he did include)
but my 13 year old wants to read the original Grimm's and i'm a little hesitant - if i say yes, to him reading it, my other children will all hear it over and over as he is a consummate storyteller and loves to regale them with the tales he reads - and there are things like cannibalism and incest in those original tales...
I do feel that children are not ready to bear some burdens early on - seeing some injustices may help to create children who work for justice - others may only discourage them and give them ideas about the world that are unnecessarily bleak...
hard line to draw...
posted by : mamazee73 on 4/7/2009 at 6:19 PM Flag For Abuse
-
This was just on my mind tonight. My 3 yr old chose a book that has first a fox, then a wolf and then a bear stalking after a goose in the woods, planning to eat it for dinner.I wondered if it was scary for my daughter and if it would lead to bad dreams.I hadn't thought about that this argument that it gives her a space to deal with and sort out scary emotions in a safe setting, pretend.Great article.
posted by : DC mommy on 4/8/2009 at 9:17 PM Flag For Abuse
