Welcome to Gaia! :: What would you stop your kids from reading ?

I'm convinced I'd be a horrible parent if/when I have kids anyway. I like kids, but man, putting up with them 24/7 is not my idea of fun. I get easily annoyed. Should the day come that I have a middle schooler, or anyone around the age of 12, I will be asking for someone to merclessly shoot me. My god, so obnoxious when they think they're all grown up.... As one friend of mine nicely put, "I cannot stand prepubescent girls. They're godaweful."

That aside, I wouldn't stop them from reading too much besides blatent porn before the age of...let's go with ten. I'm planning on explaining sex and all sorts of fun s**t to any potential kids of mine at a young age. What they say to the other children will be of utmost interest to them all, I'm sure. My parents told me about sex when I was 4... They can handle it. Screw the stork. I also won't stop them from reading porn if they decide that's what they really like, but they have to be either mature or really, really horny already first. I sound like I'd make a horrid mother, but you know what? I think we have a small tendancy to censor too much. As long as I explain the goods the bads and the uglys of everything, I don't see why they shouldn't read it. I probably will let my possible children watch some rated R films when they're like, 10. As long as I watched it first, or with them or something. It depends on the kid too. Some kids are tramatized easily, where others are not.

Whatever they want to read is mostly going to be fine with me. I probably seemed like a morbid child to my parents from some of the books I chose, but it doesn't matter too much. If my kid wanted to read, I wouldn't do anything that'd discourage them. I'd probably tell them to read more interesting things when they'd understand it more, but if they get a confidence boost from the fact that they can read an entire Sweet Valley Kids book in a day, then fine. I wouldn't buy them too much of those, and I'd ask to see what they got when going to the library/bookstore so I can ever so subtly say "hmm, well if you really want it, I guess you can," and encourage more interesting things, but I'd never stop them.

its not really fair to restricted to learning minds of children

Wow. I was reading through this thread because it'd been a few days and for a minute there I was really, really scared it was going to turn into another Eragon debate.

At any rate, I just figure I'll throw my two-cents in on the porn issue. Once my kids hit the age that I have to give them the sex talk, books like "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Rice are on the menu. Until then...I'll keep those locked. And...I'll only give them to my kids to read if they ask for them, or if I see them reading similar things on their own. And I /will/ know.

And I plan on keeping my children agnostic until I feel they are old enough to start researching to choose a faith that calls to them. I will absolutely NOT tolerate my children blindly preaching to random people that one specific way has to be right so everything else is wrong. Tolerance is going to be a staple.

I'll also mention that I don't plan on banning books like Twilight and Eragon when they are young because childrens books are for children and are meant to be enjoyed by them.

I'd let them read most stuff, though maybe not hard-core horror when they are young. I only say that b/c I think some of that stuff (like Ghost stories) really freaked me out as a kid. And also, I would probably not like them to read stuff that encourages bad behavior: drugs, crime, hate, sex etc. etc. Though, instead of limiting what they read, I'd rather teach them to live properly and be able to understand that the stuff mentioned above is bad so they'd be able to monitor themselves and make their own (informed) choices. WOa...That sounds a little touchy-feely there LOL

Oh and in my elementary school they didn't allow me to read C.S. Lewis books (the Narnia series) or Nancy Drew....Pretty much the major things i was into when I was 9, 10 and 11. So the books I started to read at school were all the "classics" like: Wuthering Heights, Black Beauty, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Moby d**k, The Tom Sawyer books etc. Didn't understand them at all tho LOL

Hmmmm... nothing really. There shouldn't be boundries in reading.
I guess I could find some reasons. Anything inappropriate for their age and/or
mental/emotional state.

Erotica and violent crime stories.

I get the feeling I have replied in this topic earlier..

I don't think I need to ban my kids from reading anything. Our beloved government is currently doing the utmost to ban things that are unsuitable for kids on our behalf. No, we haven't started on book banning yet, but.. I'm sure that's right behind video game banning. God I love our government...

Reality is, if my kids choose to read/do something then they will have my blessing.. IF they are aware of the consequences and are willing to accept them.