Teaching concepts of violence to kids

[Joog]

I'm wondering how parents on the forum dealt with your children's exposure to violence, at a young age.

Did you censor your kids TV viewing? Did you censor your language in front of your small children?
Was there a conscious decision to introduce your kids to violence at a certain age.

My oldest boy is 5 and I'm wondering if I should be desensitizing him to the "real world" and the violence around him. We pretty much keep him away from TV news...although his grandparents slipped the other day and now he is asking why "the man killed his wife, kids and himself" and "why did the little boy hold the severed head" FFS!!!! We also choose age appropriate kids movies etc for him to be exposed to (ie: he watches G rated stuff)
We haven't explained the concepts of war, murder, random bashings, road rage etc etc. It's just not the sort of stuff we think a kids head should be full of.

Next year he will start prep and be exposed full time to the big kids. Of course, I expect he will come face to face with bullies.
For the record, he isn't exposed to adult violence IRL. Violence just doesn't play a big part in our family life.
He plays with his friends at kindy (they have a "tackling game" apparently) so he can handle the rough and tumble with the other 4-5 year olds but I'm worried the shock of another kid threatening to "punch him in the head" may take him completely unaware.

My wife works with families with issues.....and there are plenty of parents that give the subject of censorship no thought at all. Our boy may be at a bit of disadvantage through his decent upbringing.

[latebloomingmom]

I'm wondering how parents on the forum dealt with your children's exposure to violence, at a young age.

Did you censor your kids TV viewing? Did you censor your language in front of your small children?
Was there a conscious decision to introduce your kids to violence at a certain age.

My oldest boy is 5 and I'm wondering if I should be desensitizing him to the "real world" and the violence around him. We pretty much keep him away from TV news...although his grandparents slipped the other day and now he is asking why "the man killed his wife, kids and himself" and "why did the little boy hold the severed head" FFS!!!! We also choose age appropriate kids movies etc for him to be exposed to (ie: he watches G rated stuff)
We haven't explained the concepts of war, murder, random bashings, road rage etc etc. It's just not the sort of stuff we think a kids head should be full of.

Next year he will start prep and be exposed full time to the big kids. Of course, I expect he will come face to face with bullies.
For the record, he isn't exposed to adult violence IRL. Violence just doesn't play a big part in our family life.
He plays with his friends at kindy (they have a "tackling game" apparently) so he can handle the rough and tumble with the other 4-5 year olds but I'm worried the shock of another kid threatening to "punch him in the head" may take him completely unaware.

My wife works with families with issues.....and there are plenty of parents that give the subject of censorship no thought at all. Our boy may be at a bit of disadvantage through his decent upbringing.

alright I am gonna chime in here on this one and show ya a side of me most dont know but a few suspect
I censored it all baby
especially when they were young..keep them innocent as long as ya can in my book
the world is harsh and must be introduced a little at a time
and age appropriately
I decided what books to read to them at bedtime
what songs were playing in their little music players
the tv shows they watched and the words they were allowed to use
I censored my own language and when I slipped up and they caught me I apologized and tried again the next day

from birth to kindergarten is the time that you as parents get to do this of course
how much is your choice

I censored Barney but not because it was violent just because I hated that purple dinosaur
and oh let's see...Power rangers because this just made them run around trying to karate chop everyone
but then on the other hand...I could care less about buying them toy machine guns to run around with

each parent must make their choices on this

[MrBungle11]

I have a son the same age as you and is also starting Prep next year. I try my best to make sure he doesn't see too much in terms of the news as it can be graphic at times that he doesn't need to see, but if he asks a question about something, he gets the truth as best I can put it. I don't really swear at all (aside from when im driving) but he knows what to say/not to say. Its a tough call deciding what you should/shouldn't do, so just do your best because no matter how much you try to censor, they're bound to see something somewhere.

[JediRN]

Censored R rated stuff just because I didn't want them to be scared. Mostly I tried to model the behavior that I wanted to see in them.

[so-tex]

I took mine into town and told them to run around on Main st. Dodging all the cars made them fast and elusive. The big plus was they learned all the cuss words and street lingo before they got to play day.

Srs, I didn't shelter my daughter at all. We taught her to be independent the best we could. No curse words or racial overtones were permitted.

[Joog]

Thanks LBM.....LOL poor Barney.

I guess I worry about him going in to "big school" naively thinking everyone is going to be as cool as he is.

I do wonder about the other kids he goes to kindergarten with....they seem to know all about the adult movies...ninja turtles, batman, spiderman etc. The entertainment companies release a movie, obviously aimed at adults, get a M or MA rating put on it and then fast food companies market the concepts to young kids....just weird IMHO.

[hmmmm16417]

I censored myself around my son when he was little. usually would watch movies prior to letting him unless it was G rated, try to keep him from foul language and sexual stuff. as for violence, unless it was major blood/gore or strongly recommended for adults i wasn't as concerned. However, I bought him his first gun (bb gun) at age 4 and taught him respect for guns and how/what they are to be used for BEFORE he watched it on tv. he was shooting my hand guns by age 10. started him hunting @ age 12 and made him gut & skin his own game (even though he didn't like it). he learned quickly "don't shoot it unless you plan on eating it" lol
with that said, you can only do so much as a parent and instill values into your children until a certain age. After that , it's up to them to make their own decisions.
In today's society it is common for kids to be "desensitized" to violence because it is everywhere. it's our job as parents to teach them right & wrong and how to make decisions based on that. THEY WILL MAKE BAD DECISIONS at times but we can only hope they can recover from them an dlearn from them.

I feel I've done my job. My son is 20 yrs old now. he made it through highschool, has no kids yet (lol), never did drugs, was never arrested. he is in the army now becoming an airborne ranger and is over seas at the moment.

he has developed a habit of F bombing ALL THE TIME, and he does drink on occasion but .....he's 20 and in the army LOL he has also developed an attitude that he feels violence is cool....but i think that is mostly the doing of the training he has been going through?

now, I am working on the same with my daughter who is almost 3 yrs old. totally different ball game with a girl

[Joog]

Srs, I didn't shelter my daughter at all.

Did she ever ask about murder/suicides, or rapes etc?

My boy seems to have an extremely good memory and will ask persistently about, for example the two cases I described earlier (the 7 year old holding the severed head and a recent family murder suicide)
He only saw a few minutes of each on news bulletins.

I've steered him away from the subjects...he has no business thinking about these things.
I mean how do you describe issues so complex. When I was a kid, this sort of stuff wasn't so easily seen; we're dealing with the information generation here!

[pvsampson]

My girls have experienced violence before I got full custody,so they are aware of what happens.I won't let them watch programs with Underworld or Kill Bill type violence in them,but I don't censor the news from them.The eldest actually stated that "Maybe someone stole him dad",regarding the missing three year old boy at Kendall.

Living where we do they understand what death is,they see road kill,we get the odd beast that dies in the paddock and they have watched me win some battles with snakes.On Friday afternoon there was a car crash literally close to home and the highway was closed.A man dead,a three year old child injured and flown to Brisbane.Ambulances passing us on the way home from school,helicopter flying overhead,they knew what was happening and were a bit quieter that night.

Sure,don't let them watch R rating shows,but don't hide the facts of the world from them.When Daniel Morecombes killer was sentenced,everyone was talking about it,and the girls were asking.Also asking why the man in the mask cut the other man's head off.Kids miss very little.They understand that there is "bad" out there,but the details of what sort of bad they don't need to know. Yet.

And Joog,the young bloke will be right when he hits big school mate.If he can handle pre school he can handle Kindy.

[Joog]

G'day Pete. What are your girls now....7 or 8 years old?
I know he will be exposed to all this stuff sometime, I'm just interested to see opinions on the timing...
We practice "protective behaviors" (used to be called stranger danger) with the kids, so they get the concept that there are bad people and danger out there, without being scared of everything. (their gran is a real worrier)

Our boy seems to understand the concept of death alright, although he was fretting about it a while back...."does that mean your gonna die before me?"
Both our kids see plenty of wildlife (I mean animals...the furry ones) action. The odd roo carcass on the road etc. I take them fishing in the creek and they help me gut and cook their catches, so they're not adverse to a bit of "natures" gore. Our turn off the highway is a real bad one too, so the kids have seen some pretty messed up accidents (but no gore) close to home.

I've actually considering sitting down with our eldest boy, sometime when his little brother isn't around and putting on a UFC DVD or something like that. Put the violence in to a sporting context and see how he reacts.
We take the boys to the football (NRL) every now and then but there were no real full-on punch ups at those games.

[mcbourque]

I censored fiction violence (TV, movies, books, video games) mostly following ratings like PG before 7 and so on. I still won't let my boys watch R rated although I'm sure my oldest does at time and if I'm aware we discuss what he saw.

We don't have the news so that wasn't an issue when they were small but we had the newspaper and I was careful with violent crime images before Kindergarten but I did show them stuff about war and disaster refugees when they were small because it made me upset when they fussed and wasted food, broke their toys or acted entitled. They knew all about hurricane Katrina and all that.

I've always wanted them aware of how lucky they are to live in a country at peace, safe with a roof and plenty of food.

They started asking questions about violent crime when they started school and I basically answered as it came.

Now it's the opposite. They are teens in Seattle and I'm the proverbial worried mom who brings up all the city's crimes all the time because I'm so worried when they are out and about. They've both had school lockdowns at least half a dozen time. And we live in a pretty tame part if town.


Joogs, about your kids not seeing the same movies as the others, my boys recently told me how good they are at faking that they saw something when in fact they didn't! LOL I guess they faked their entire elementary school pretending they Batman, superman and a bunch of PG13 movies! They're both quite popular so it's never been a big issue!

[InternetTuffGuy]

I'm with mcbourque, sensor fictional violence but other than that I see no reason to ignore or hide real events. I would rather my child feel free to discuss things he hears and sees then think certain topics are off limits. Kids are smart and are going to see and hear things at school. I want my son, who is 9, to know he can ask me anything.

A few years ago my son asked me why curse words were bad. Keep in mind I know my son has heard me say them or family friends say them from time to time. My response was that those words aren't bad but certain language shouldn't be used by him at his young age. I told him when he is older he will be able to choose the language he is comfortable using. But as a child he isn't allowed to say them. I also went on to explain not all parents feel the same so it's important that he doesn't slip up and say them in front of other kids at school.

Each child is different and can handle certain topics at different maturity levels. It's up to us parents to know what our kids can handle at what age. My biggest concern is that my son is comfortable asking me anything. If they are curious about a topic they will look for answers. I would rather him come to me than get misinformed by his peers.

[Rajon25]

I have 1.5 year old and 3.5 year old sons.

First off - they create enough violence on their own without needing any help. My three year old is an extremely caring and empathetic child (when he is not being a jerk) and when asked to select a toy (boy or girl I think they said, I wasn't there) he chose My Little Pony over Batman. I am not displeased with this in the least. He's three, he deserves to be innocent. he deserves to not know what spiderman and bat man are. He deserves to not know the evils that lurk. It is my duty to protect him from all evil, give him every advantage available and preserve his happiness without spoiling him for the world.

My wife and I fight in front of the kids. It is never vicious and we don't yell much (anymore). I mean you can't shelter everything and if kids are brought up with no dysfunction they will never develop a sense of humor.

So no violence on TV. Computer time is limited to trains and animals. I do however expose them to the joys of lifting weights.

[Clinos]

I do/did age appropriate censoring depending on the maturity of the child. The world is and can be horrible place full of violence, murder, greed, envy and lust. There is unfortunately very little we as parents can really do about that because it permeates all forms of media, especially when you are least expecting it. Sometimes its from other parents who don't censor at all or parents who've given open Internet access on an iPad to a 5 year old who looks up an innocent phrase like pussy cat and gets wholly confused at these odd OB/GYN pictures..and shows the class the picture trying to figure it out.

Some of the things I did were to stop the free radio play and turned on Christian radio stations who don't really discuss horror stories like the occasional light stations will with a news update. I monitor television watching, even the cute shows that have the sassy little kids in them that seem to teach kids what to do to be as self destructive as possible because the parents are never around, to the movies that I'm constantly sucked into, but its worth it.

Most importantly I slowly introduced some of the ways of the world to them as gently as I could because they deserve and need to have full armor on when outside of the house, and it the long run its just another tool to keep them from the strangers ways as the expression goes. That approach also allows some extra parental time and re-enforcement of our values. Kids see everything even when we think we are shielding them from it and its really really important in my viewpoint to get my kids to ask about those confusing things that other people are doing so that I have the change to give them a solid answer towards setting up a firm foundation for the young adults I am raising.

[NorwichGrad]

My wife and I are very similar to you guys and gals...

We have an 11-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy.. They are NEVER allowed to watch violence on TV. .They watch kids show, that's it..

I think it's perfectly okay to shelter kids in the early years.. Because this is prime time to teach them important values and develop solid character.. Once they have foundation, it will be hard to topple that foundation.

I am a gun nut, as some of you know, and my boy DOES NOT even have any toy that is gun related..

As they age, we will start talking to them about the evils of the world, and what they should do so they do not get victimized.. In fact, my wife and I have already talked to our daughter about drugs. And yes, as they get older, they will learn how to defend themselves, using deadly force if necessary..

[GKC45]

alright I am gonna chime in here on this one and show ya a side of me most dont know but a few suspect
I censored it all baby
especially when they were young..keep them innocent as long as ya can in my book
the world is harsh and must be introduced a little at a time
and age appropriately
I decided what books to read to them at bedtime
what songs were playing in their little music players
the tv shows they watched and the words they were allowed to use
I censored my own language and when I slipped up and they caught me I apologized and tried again the next day

from birth to kindergarten is the time that you as parents get to do this of course
how much is your choice

I censored Barney but not because it was violent just because I hated that purple dinosaur
and oh let's see...Power rangers because this just made them run around trying to karate chop everyone
but then on the other hand...I could care less about buying them toy machine guns to run around with

each parent must make their choices on this

That is pretty much exactly how I did/do it.