Who Should Censor Your Teen’s Books?
Tuesday September 30, 2008
It’s banned books week and I’m writing this to say that I believe your teen’s books should be censored. Now before you go off and rant in my comments section, read the rest of the blog post. I believe your teen’s books should be censored by you. In our home, we give a lot of freedom when it comes to reading, but I have said no to some books and we’ve called a draw on some. In our house a draw means that mom isn’t really sure about a book, so she will let you read it - but she is going to read it right along with you and you’ll have to talk about it. That is what happened with the golden compass and my then preteen. I have to say, I did find the entire His Dark Materials Trilogy a delightful tale and I’m glad we read it.
I do not, however, believe that anyone besides the parents of a child should censor books. We enjoy freedoms in this great country and one of them is that you cannot impose your beliefs on me, and vice versa. You can share your opinion with me, but you cannot keep my children from reading what I deem acceptable either agressively, by burning books, or passively, by taking them out of the library.
Agree? Disagree? Share in the comments area.
Suggested Reading:
Comments
I must say that I agree very strongly on your thoughts of family censorship. It is the love and caring we have for our children which enables us to want the best for them. That’s not to say that I am an ostrich and bury my head in the sand, but that I am aware of what my teen is doing, reading, dating, befriending, and everything else that comes along with raising teenagers.
It is not easy being a parent to children these days. They always feel like they can “take anything” that happens to come their way, but we, the parents, know that this may not always ring true and as a result, I try to be up on all that my teens are doing.
Suzanne M.
How refreshing to hear parents that care enough about their children to take an active interest in their reading materials. Bravo!! The same should be said for what teens watch on television and what movies they see. We should all, as parents, take these opportunities to guide our children and if we don’t know or understand what they are reading or watching how can we be effective leaders. When my children were younger even, we watched television shows together, even ones that some parents would have deemed inapropriate. However, as we watched I used those opportunities to teach my children what was appropriate behavior and what was unacceptable and why. It is hard to avoid most of our popular culture, so I chose to discuss it with my kids instead of hide away from it and pretend it didn’t exist. Having healthy and open discussions with your children is one of the best ways of ensuring they grow up informed and well equipped to handle the situations this unpredictible world will throw at them. Besides, nothing is more precious than the quality time you spend with them, it goes by soooo fast.
I strongly agree that it is a parents responsibility to be watchful and in control of what a child is exposed to! I am a very big reader…my ten year old reads at high school level, yet that doesn’t mean she needs to read high school books! I do not believe in book banning. Yet I do believe in proper parenting!
I read Henry Miller and Anais Nin in high school and my parents had no clue. These great writers/thinkers opened up the world to me. When my daughter was growing up, those books were in our bookcase and I knew that she read them, along with C.S. Lewis, Dostoevsky and Anne Frank (all radical thinkers). Have parents ban their teens’ books?! The horror, the horror (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.)
How nice to see that someone else is reading along with their kids. My kids are in 7th 5th and 3rd grade, and I just finished reading the Harry Potter set with them. It was awesome to hear their takes, and we were able to discuss the characters extensively. I really enjoyed this time with them, and when discussing it with other parenmts, I got the feeling that maybe I was crazy for reading aong with them. I amglad I am not the only one who does it!
As far as banning books r censorship I completely AGREE that it needs to be up to theparents, but that the parents need to play an active part in EVERY part of their children’s lives. Kudos to ou for a great blog!
Its the teens reading the books not the parents.
I need to respectfully disagree on this one. Like Judith, I also read many books as a teen that my parents might have been uncomfortable with (had they known), but which played an important part in my development as a free thinking and open minded person. With younger children, of course parents should take an active interest in their reading choices. Reading “questionable” books along with my daughter not gave me great insight into what she was curious about, and it gave me a terrific opportunity to discuss these issues with her. Now that she is in high school, I cannot imagine censoring her reading. There are valuable things to learn in nearly all books, and it is not up to me to agree or disagree with an author’s right to say something or my daughter’s right to read about it. I only ask that she consider thoughtfully what they have to say and make up her own mind. As long as she continues to come to me with issues, questions and concerns, as long as she seeks me out to discuss the things that matter to her, I feel that we’re doing something right.
I beleive that teens should be allowed to open to ideas in books. However, I also think its important to be aware of what our teens are reading. My daughter at age 14 reads a lot. She is into the new Twilight series, loves various vampire novels. So I recommended Anne Rice. However, I told her only through Queen of the Damned. Tale of the Body theif and Memnoch the Devil are also great books with interesting twists on catholic faith which is fine for her to read. However, there are explicit sex scenes in these books. She is not ready for that and doesn’t want to read it. She can when she is a little older and we discussed why those books are not appropriate now. I love vampire novels and found a few recently that i will read first then if appropriate she can read.
As for the Golden Compass, its on my to read list, my daughter couldn’t get through the first one. Not her thing. I agree that reading it with your preteen is great because you are allowing her mind to open, but at the same time letting her know know what you think.
One person about TV shows, I have done the same. Charmed was one that my duaghter loved, but the clothes and behavior sometimes really left it open for great discussions about what to wear and why that wasn’t appropriate for work, etc.
No one should censor my teens books but me. Not because of the ideas, but I wouldn’t take my 14yo to an x-rated movie and don’t think she should read x-rated books. However, some books talk sex, but its not explicit, no problem there, just don’t think she needs to read erotica, she hasn’t even kissed a boy yet.
FYI, my husband asked me if I knew what she was reading and what was in the books. I pointed out that I had an idea and told her she could read certain things but not others and why. The why helped.
In the end no one should ever censor my teen by removing a book from the library or burning books. People with small minds ban books. Being sure a book is age appropriate, like a movie is different.
It is our job and always has been to make sure our children are being exposed to appropriate content. Sadly, our society is full of too many people who believe that everyone should have the “right” to be exposed to everything. I disagree. Perhaps if our children did not have so much exposure to explicit content, our society would be a little kinder, a little safer, a little cleaner and so forth. I for one, have no problem monitoring what my children are exposed to: that is my job. That is why my children are not going to be in a school – there are far too many negative and inappropriate influences in school today, sadly. And it is much easier to control it from coming into our homes than trying to correct it once it has been seen/heard. Music, movies, books, TV all have inappropriate content in todays day – things that never would have even been considered years ago. It’s sad that we have to watch movies first, or listen to music first in order for it to be considered appropriate. But, the times have changed, my values, however have not. I am hoping my children grow up to be kind, thoughtful, respectful, etc. and by keeping this modern day trash out of their heads is the only way it can be done.
I think parents and school boards have a responsibility to make sure school library books meet a certain standard before making them available to our kids. The public library has it all. The school libraries should answer to parents.
I am 19 years old fresh out of my freshman year of college where I am a world lit major. How wrong you all seem to be. Yes reading with your kids is a great thing… however controlling what they read is not. If my parents had censored the books I read then I wouldn’t be who I am today because then I wouldn’t have been able to develop my own liking and taste in literature. Kids should be allowed to read what ever they wish to read. Not enough kids read the way it is so why discourage them by telling them that they can’t read something because you disprove of it… oh by the way from a “childs” perspective you tell them no they can’t read something then they are going to want to read it all the more and probably do read it with out you ever knowing. We are told no we want to know why. Its how we work. It is a bit silly that you think you are helping your child by controling them and what they read. Sure there are bad things found in books like the n word and sexual content and language! Its not like we haven’t heard it before and as long as the kid reads the book keeping the time that it was written in and its context then there should be no problem it is a parents job to educate their child and broaden their horizons not limit them.