Exposing kids through reading

amother

Tue, Jul 29 2014, 2:21 pm

At what age should a child be exposed to people and life different than his own? And I don't mean major things.
I choose my kids books at the library and I always put back the ones talking about for example:
Kids being adopted
Kids dealing with diseases.
Kids being picked on by siblings or friends

Before you jump on me, I should explain that as a child I read a lot and I was very affected by the things I read. If I read a book about the main character thinking she was adopted I began to question if I was adopted.
If I read about how mean the main characters sister is I started to think my big sister was being mean. Etc.

So here is my question, keeping in mind how easy it is for young kids to be influenced, at what age can I safely hand my child a book about something different without him feeling like maybe that could happen or is happening to him too?

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Jul 29 2014, 2:29 pm

amother wrote:

I think at a young age is fine. I actually read a berenstain bears book to my daughter all about picking on other children. She had already seen such teasing in her gan, so the book was good for her. She was 5.
The other topics I think are also just fine for small children, if talked about on their level.

I think books are soooooooo important for children. They can learn so much.

amother

Tue, Jul 29 2014, 2:32 pm

I did that with my first child. When she started kindergarten the teacher talked about haman being hanged from a tree or lot's daughter being covers with honey on top of the roof and was stung to death by bees and my daughter was horrified and couldn't sleep at night. You have to expose them to some stuff. Even the Parsha is full of scary stories. But I do agree that the books for kids are getting worse and worse.

morah

Tue, Jul 29 2014, 3:08 pm

While I do understand wanting to avoid heavy topics, at a certain point, you're missing the whole point of literature for kids. 99% of kids stories involve dead, absent, or criminally incompetent parents because that's the best way to make an entirely "kiddy" universe- by removing the adults. Themes like teasing are commonly part of the child's real world, so reading a book where that goes on can be tremendously helpful to working out thoughts and feelings. I still think you need to feel things out and think about what each individual kid is ready for, but try not to fear every difficult thing. Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for, and again, reading about difficult things usually makes it easier for them to handle real life parallels.