4 ms·

the idea that you could somehow prevent your child (edit: teenagers, middle/high school aged) from seeing sex, profanity, violence by restricting their movie wa

the idea that you could somehow prevent your child (edit: teenagers, middle/high school aged) from seeing sex, profanity, violence by restricting their movie watching choices is just completely laughable to me. i can understand why people try, i just think it seems rather futile. since the advent of the internet, the world is now completely uncensored to everyone, and imposing these arbitrary and anachronistic restrictions on your child will only undermine your own credibility for the things that actually matter.

DanBC 12y ago
You don't say whether you have children or not. Reducing the graphic sexual content or violent content that children see is normal, rational, position that is widely held by individuals and society. People who think it's okay to expose their children to graphic violent or sexual content are weird.
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  Anecdotally it's been my observation that the most sheltered kids often grow up to have the most problems - they "run wild" as soon as they move off to college or otherwise get that first taste of freedom. You certainly don't want to give your children free reign to watch all the sex and violence they want (Will I sit down and watch a porn with my kids? Heck no!) but I think that discussing sex and violence with them is probably a lot more valuable than simply shielding them from it. I watched Aliens when I was 12 or 13, along with a bunch of other dumb 1980s action movies. I didn't grow up to be violent, because my parents gave me a strong moral grounding and I understood the line between fantasy and reality - blowing things up and doing martial arts on people was okay in a movie, but not okay in real life. I understood that, so no movie was ever going to be able to change me.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Indeed. I also watched Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers somewhen around 13 and those movies deeply touched me. Yes, I was pretty much crying and trying not to vomit on the D-Day scene, but it left me with deep impression about horrors of war, something that school never gives you. I didn't become more violent because of that - on the contrary, it reinforced my wish for peace and compassion for people living in places trapped in war.
    - pluma 12y ago
      Funny. All the fake violence I saw as a child on TV desensitized me to the real violence I now see in the news. I'm not even disturbed by beheading videos or actual raw footage of violent murders (i.e. whatever's new on LiveLeak this month). I don't seek them out directly or find them entertaining. I just don't have any more visceral reactions than to a video of a guy getting kicked in the groin. I think some part of what my parents taught me about TV got lodged in the wrong part of my brain: "What you see on TV isn't real, it's just make believe." I do have very strong (and natural) reactions when seeing violence or cruelty in person. I just barely react to seeing these things on tape (beyond the ick factor). Except for (real) violence against animals, that is. It's actually pretty gruelling what's considered acceptable to show on the 8 o'clock news these days. But I'm not sure whether this is a cultural thing again -- I hear American news channels have a policy of never showing dead US soldiers.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        For me it's exactly the opposite - while I'm pretty desensitized to the TV violence (but not completely, I still feel bad about unnecessary killing, like poor guards getting executed because they were just in the way), I'm still extremely sensitive if I know what I'm seeing is real. The cry/try-not-to-vomit/get-angry-afterwards kind of sensitive.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    We agree.
  - marincounty 12y ago
    Yea, I went to two public high schools and a private catholic high school in four years in the same county. Parents thought their kids were sheltered from drugs and whatnot at the catholic private school, but it was the exact opposite? It was almost like the kids at the private school thought they were missing out on something, and went buck wild?
    - pluma 12y ago
      Well, obviously it's about moderation. Too much exposure to sex, drugs and violence is bad, but no exposure is bad as well. Think of it as inoculation: if a child is sheltered completely, it doesn't know how to deal with these things when it is eventually exposed to them in the real world.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > Anecdotally it's been my observation that the most sheltered kids often grow up to have the most problems - they "run wild" as soon as they move off to college or otherwise get that first taste of freedom. So, I agree that over-protecting your children is probably a bad thing. That doesn't mean that reducing the amount of graphic violent or sexual content your children are exposed to is over-protective. I might be happy for a teen child to watch Aliens with me at home, and less happy for them to watch it with their friends with no adults around. I might be okay with full nudity but less happy with sex. But, as soon as someone says they want to restrict the content available to their children people just leap to the assumption that that person wants some fucking weird over-protective most restrictive cocoon where the child doesn't get to experience anything but Wholesome Christian Content of good people singing their praise for The Lord.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  i guess i wasn't clear in my post, but i'm talking about teenagers. they're still "children".
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Ah, cool. That does make a difference.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Reducing the graphic sexual content or violent content that children see is normal, rational, position that is widely held by individuals and society. ... without a single shred of reproducible evidence behind it.
72deluxe 12y ago
Isn't the problem that children have unrestricted access to the Internet and various parts of it that are pretty much cesspools? If you jump in muck, you're going to get dirty. I was surprised to see how little monitoring / filtering there was available on modern smartphones/tablets! Is there any filtering available on an iPad / iPhone? If so, I couldn't find it. I certainly wouldn't want to give an iPad to my child and send them away for private browsing. The problem would lie with me in that I wasn't monitoring them; in the older days when you needed a PC, at least the PC could be in a public area of the house and everyone could see what was going on but it isn't so easy now.
- pluma 12y ago
  I still find it disturbing at how early an age children these days have Internet-enabled smartphones. I'm a techy myself and well-aware of the "back in my days" factor, but knowing what this can expose a child to, I still find it pretty shocking. Not just that, but more often than not I see children with expensive high-end devices. I don't think a child needs the most recent iPhone, peer pressure or not. I realise it's a fashion accessory in addition to its utilitarian purposes, but I don't think a child needs a Giorgio Armani suit or Louis Vuitton handbag either. If they buy it from their own money, sure, but I wouldn't buy a child a new $500 smartphone every two years.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
TBH it's not about preventing, it's about teaching them morals and normality. It's fine if they watch, idk, videos of randomly slapping people in the streets, just as long as they realise that's not normal or desired behaviour.

DanBC 12y ago

You don't say whether you have children or not. Reducing the graphic sexual content or violent content that children see is normal, rational, position that is widely held by individuals and society. People who think it's okay to expose their children to graphic violent or sexual content are weird.

JohnBooty 12y ago
Anecdotally it's been my observation that the most sheltered kids often grow up to have the most problems - they "run wild" as soon as they move off to college or otherwise get that first taste of freedom. You certainly don't want to give your children free reign to watch all the sex and violence they want (Will I sit down and watch a porn with my kids? Heck no!) but I think that discussing sex and violence with them is probably a lot more valuable than simply shielding them from it. I watched Aliens when I was 12 or 13, along with a bunch of other dumb 1980s action movies. I didn't grow up to be violent, because my parents gave me a strong moral grounding and I understood the line between fantasy and reality - blowing things up and doing martial arts on people was okay in a movie, but not okay in real life. I understood that, so no movie was ever going to be able to change me.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Indeed. I also watched Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers somewhen around 13 and those movies deeply touched me. Yes, I was pretty much crying and trying not to vomit on the D-Day scene, but it left me with deep impression about horrors of war, something that school never gives you. I didn't become more violent because of that - on the contrary, it reinforced my wish for peace and compassion for people living in places trapped in war.
  - pluma 12y ago
    Funny. All the fake violence I saw as a child on TV desensitized me to the real violence I now see in the news. I'm not even disturbed by beheading videos or actual raw footage of violent murders (i.e. whatever's new on LiveLeak this month). I don't seek them out directly or find them entertaining. I just don't have any more visceral reactions than to a video of a guy getting kicked in the groin. I think some part of what my parents taught me about TV got lodged in the wrong part of my brain: "What you see on TV isn't real, it's just make believe." I do have very strong (and natural) reactions when seeing violence or cruelty in person. I just barely react to seeing these things on tape (beyond the ick factor). Except for (real) violence against animals, that is. It's actually pretty gruelling what's considered acceptable to show on the 8 o'clock news these days. But I'm not sure whether this is a cultural thing again -- I hear American news channels have a policy of never showing dead US soldiers.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      For me it's exactly the opposite - while I'm pretty desensitized to the TV violence (but not completely, I still feel bad about unnecessary killing, like poor guards getting executed because they were just in the way), I'm still extremely sensitive if I know what I'm seeing is real. The cry/try-not-to-vomit/get-angry-afterwards kind of sensitive.
- DanBC 12y ago
  We agree.
- marincounty 12y ago
  Yea, I went to two public high schools and a private catholic high school in four years in the same county. Parents thought their kids were sheltered from drugs and whatnot at the catholic private school, but it was the exact opposite? It was almost like the kids at the private school thought they were missing out on something, and went buck wild?
  - pluma 12y ago
    Well, obviously it's about moderation. Too much exposure to sex, drugs and violence is bad, but no exposure is bad as well. Think of it as inoculation: if a child is sheltered completely, it doesn't know how to deal with these things when it is eventually exposed to them in the real world.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Anecdotally it's been my observation that the most sheltered kids often grow up to have the most problems - they "run wild" as soon as they move off to college or otherwise get that first taste of freedom. So, I agree that over-protecting your children is probably a bad thing. That doesn't mean that reducing the amount of graphic violent or sexual content your children are exposed to is over-protective. I might be happy for a teen child to watch Aliens with me at home, and less happy for them to watch it with their friends with no adults around. I might be okay with full nudity but less happy with sex. But, as soon as someone says they want to restrict the content available to their children people just leap to the assumption that that person wants some fucking weird over-protective most restrictive cocoon where the child doesn't get to experience anything but Wholesome Christian Content of good people singing their praise for The Lord.
beachstartup 12y ago
i guess i wasn't clear in my post, but i'm talking about teenagers. they're still "children".
- DanBC 12y ago
  Ah, cool. That does make a difference.
CamperBob2 12y ago
Reducing the graphic sexual content or violent content that children see is normal, rational, position that is widely held by individuals and society. ... without a single shred of reproducible evidence behind it.

72deluxe 12y ago

Isn't the problem that children have unrestricted access to the Internet and various parts of it that are pretty much cesspools? If you jump in muck, you're going to get dirty. I was surprised to see how little monitoring / filtering there was available on modern smartphones/tablets! Is there any filtering available on an iPad / iPhone? If so, I couldn't find it. I certainly wouldn't want to give an iPad to my child and send them away for private browsing. The problem would lie with me in that I wasn't monitoring them; in the older days when you needed a PC, at least the PC could be in a public area of the house and everyone could see what was going on but it isn't so easy now.

pluma 12y ago
I still find it disturbing at how early an age children these days have Internet-enabled smartphones. I'm a techy myself and well-aware of the "back in my days" factor, but knowing what this can expose a child to, I still find it pretty shocking. Not just that, but more often than not I see children with expensive high-end devices. I don't think a child needs the most recent iPhone, peer pressure or not. I realise it's a fashion accessory in addition to its utilitarian purposes, but I don't think a child needs a Giorgio Armani suit or Louis Vuitton handbag either. If they buy it from their own money, sure, but I wouldn't buy a child a new $500 smartphone every two years.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

TBH it's not about preventing, it's about teaching them morals and normality. It's fine if they watch, idk, videos of randomly slapping people in the streets, just as long as they realise that's not normal or desired behaviour.