11 replies to this topic

[Mark]

I was at bunnings the other day, doing my regular shift. i was in the 'team room' on a break talking to another fellow, who i knew was a father of two boys.
when apon the tv came a warning on the tv for an upcoming move. statng that the movie featured 'sexual references' and that 'parental guidance was reccomended'.

discussion question:

Ignorance in children is good because?

Edited by Mark, 31 August 2012 - 10:43 PM.

[J-Roc]

Its not.

But the coverage you 'get' is 'supposed' to be 'balanced', 'right'?

[Mark]

I remember really playing the devils advocate.
I was seriously considering shooting myself in the foot: "a picture is worth a thousand words, and a demonstration is worth a thousand pictures, dont talk about the birds and the bees - SHOW EM!"


lol!

[Selena]

I never had "the talk" -- I learned about it from watching porn on late night HBO while everyone else was asleep. So, yeah, it's not that "scarey" or traumatizing if you're old enough to process what's going on.

Now, should we have total exposure to everything? No. It depends on age, the child's mental state (some more mature than others), and the content you may or may not want them to see. For example, showing violent rape scenes to toddlers is generally a bad idea. Kids can be traumatized by certain things they see, especially if they're too young to really process what they're seeing.

You can show violent programming to some kids and they do not care. Certain other children will, after seeing violence, start mimicking it. Which you either have to correct straightaway, or it's something you need to avoid showing them until they learn the responsibility not to beat the snot out of someone else just because they watched a really cool fight scene on TV. A coworker's husband, for example, will let his son watch all sorts of R-rated violent movies when she's not around, and the kid will then proceed to act like a violent terror.

Sex isn't really a big deal. It's technically everywhere on regular TV, you just don't see the ugly bits mashing together. By the time they're old enough to reasonably view actual porn, they're already used to the concept of skin-on-skin intimacy.

TV ratings are generally pretty strict because of whiny soccer moms. But, generally, the more you sensibly expose young people to concepts -- whether it's sex, violence, or dark storyline themes -- the more they get to think about it and analyze it. Batman the Animated Series had a lot of dark (but technically PG) scenes that probably wouldn't be too welcome in a new show on TV, but it made for good storylines. Because, unlike a lot of modern shows, it (and all the other dramas of the time) didn't treat kids like they were dumber than dirt.


Ultimately, it's up to the parent to determine whether or not their kid is ready to view something.

[Mark]

I remember a dr phill episode.
they had two families of parents concerned about their their respective children playing under the bedsheets naked. (children < 10yrs)
They were concerned that it was sex, and sex too early for their own good.

Dr Phills responce whas that these kids 'were discovering their own bodies' and that it wasnt cause for concern unless they continued to do it into their teen years.
thoughts?

admittedly showing violent rape scenes to toddlers is probably a little overwhelming for the little fellas.
but I would say that there is probably more effective ways to introduce them (if you wanted) to normal sexual practice.

[Nevermind]

I was under the impression the board ratings were designed as such to coincide with the "average" development of a child's maturity in that geographical region. It's not so much about ignorance in a child as it is their brain's development and their mental capacity to understand such things. "Parental Guidance" refers simply to "you may have to answer questions about subjects understood more aptly by mature adolescents or adults that these underage children are exposed to and typically do not understand".

It's all well and good to say "don't keep them in the dark, teach them early" but such people forget that there is an actual, tangible limit to the child's understanding of such things. Their brains simply haven't developed enough to properly understand concepts like sexual intercourse, nor do they have the innate hormonal understanding due to development OF their hormones. They also lack the maturity to ACCEPT such concepts and let's face it... girls are gross. Yuck.

[Egann]

Sex education is sort of an artificially inflated issue. Through the bulk of human history it's been fine for children to have sex and children as young as they could. If anything, children were a good thing because most ordinary people had, at most, a fifth grade education.

Arguably the early medieval institution of marriage started to change this, but it wasn't until the industrial revolution that economics got involved.

Since the industrial revolution average education has roughly doubled from eighth grade to a college bachelors. Teen years are no longer viable "have children and/ or work" years; they're taken up by education, which is needed for finding a job. Raising a child takes so long the net cost is several years' wages. Sex education and abortion have been minor issues at least as far back as ancient Greece, but economic forces are driving them to the modern foreground.

Put bluntly, the purpose of restraining sexual content from children is to avoid sexual stimuli before they've had sex education. The purpose of sex education is not to teach them about sex, but to teach children about condoms, pills, abortions, and the evil STD or blue pregnancy tester. They can't afford to have children for another ten years and will probably have sex, anyway. The discussions about actual sex are the sugar-coating to make the sex-ed lesson appealing. They're not the reason they exist.

Edited by Egann, 01 September 2012 - 01:04 PM.

[Hero of Slime]

I remember a few times from growing up where my being ignorant of somthing became a point of ridicule from other kids. I wonder if I were exposed to more, would I have been more popular as kid and would that have made be better in social situations growing up? For me ignorance did not feel good.

Edited by The Zol, 02 September 2012 - 12:47 AM.

[Mark]

@ Laz:

I have no doubt that kiddies do not have sex drive - and hormones - till about their early teens.
however, Is there a real cognitive limitation in children to understand information about sex. (surely not yet having sex drive, may make it difficult to relate to the information) but I seriously doubt that there is any mental/cognitive information inability.
yes, kids think sex is gross, and may not be very accepting of the information. and?
(I do this to make discussion, not proposing that toddlers should be played porno movies)

@ Egann:

so sexual ignorance in kiddies is good because because it makes room for them to learn about the use of a condom first?

[Nevermind]

@ Laz:

I have no doubt that kiddies do not have sex drive - and hormones - till about their early teens.
however, Is there a real cognitive limitation in children to understand information about sex. (surely not yet having sex drive, may make it difficult to relate to the information) but I seriously doubt that there is any mental/cognitive information inability.
yes, kids think sex is gross, and may not be very accepting of the information. and?
(I do this to make discussion, not proposing that toddlers should be played porno movies)

Y
I am neither a child psychologist nor a scientist and I have no sources for you. I am sure though, from past readings and perusings across articles and the net in general, or perhaps something on television, that there may be a limitation in a child's comprehension in that they cannot "understand" mature content, despite their astounding learning abilities and their brains working twice as fast as ours. The learning process is still happening, the brain is still developing and their bodies are still changing, which can have an effect on their understanding and perspective of such content. I'll see if I can dig something up for you but there was definitely something indicating as much.

Also, let the record show that the definition of “child“ as referred to by the poster Lazurukeel in these instances, is that of the human offspring up to but not limited to the approximate ages of seven and/or eight.

Edited by Lazurukeel, 02 September 2012 - 09:41 AM.

[arunma]

Yeah...so sex and children. Really I'm not sure why this topic should be suppressed any more than anything else. I'll default to my usual rant about parental involvement. If you leave your kids to their own devices but yell at them for watching porn, all they'll ever learn about sex is what they see in televised advertisements. And that's really bad, to say the least. On the other hand, if you tell them from an early age what sex is and how reproduction works, it seems like it would demystify sex. But I don't think that a single talk (i.e. "the talk") is enough. When you're talking to your kids about how to read or do multiplication you don't have a single talk. In this regard why should sex be any different?

Regarding this talk of traumatizing kids, the exposure to rape scenes is an important example. I'm no child psychologist either, but I'm pretty sure that here the mental trauma comes from the violence and not the sex. I've got a couple friends with a three year old, and on those rare occasions when he sees violence on TV he's pretty visibly disturbed. Kids seem to know that something is wrong with violence, and I can see how it can mess you up if you see it too much. Heck, adults aren't that different, a lot of Iraq vets seem to have the same problem. But again, I don't think this is the same thing as being exposed to sex. Here's an interesting fact: in Canada you can show naked men/women on TV. Once when I was at my cousin's house up there I asked him why they let broadcasters do this. He said "well we think it's pretty stupid that you ban sex on TV but let people watch all the violence they want." If anything we should have these taboos about violence, not sex.

I never had "the talk" -- I learned about it from watching porn on late night HBO while everyone else was asleep. So, yeah, it's not that "scarey" or traumatizing if you're old enough to process what's going on.

My parents and I never had the talk either, they just let the school deal with it. And as you can all see, I turned out perfectly normal. Or not, since I like female breasts about ten times more than the average healthy male. Maybe they should have brought topless women into sex ed and let me feel their breasts for an hour a day, then I'd have gotten it out of my system early on.

Oh and yeah, I remember that late night squiggly line HBO porn too. Funny thing is that now as an adult, I have HBO and I never watch their porn shows. My DVR's too full with Game of Thrones.

[Mark]

So, to sum so far:

Sexual ignorance in children is good because:

Selena:

Kids can be traumatized by certain things they see, especially if they're too young to really process what they're seeing.

Laz:

that there is an actual, tangible limit to the child's understanding of such things. Their brains simply haven't developed enough to properly understand concepts like sexual intercourse

Egann:

Put bluntly, the purpose of restraining sexual content from children is to avoid sexual stimuli before they've had sex education. The purpose of sex education is not to teach them about sex, but to teach children about condoms, pills, abortions, and the evil STD...

Sexual ignorance in children is bad because:

Arunma:

if you tell them from an early age what sex is and how reproduction works, it seems like it would demystify sex

The Zol:

if I were exposed to more, would I have been more popular as kid and would that have made be better in social situations growing up? For me ignorance did not feel good.

(implicitly: sexual knowledge can probably make a child more socially competent)

Edited by Mark, 03 September 2012 - 08:07 AM.