It was just a matter of time.
We pride ourselves on not letting our kids have too much tv time. In fact our tv is smaller than a cereal box and they only watch videos on it. They don't even spend that much time on the computer, maybe 15 - 60 minutes a day.
But it doesn't take a lot of time to stumble upon inappropriate material.
Today my daughter was on You Tube looking up the Pokemon theme song so she could write down the words. She was almost done when my son said he wanted to look at the scary Pokemon video. I didn't think much about it, even when my daughter said it was too scary and she didn't want to see it again. I thought she was being dramatic, but that is not unusual for an 8 year old girl. I asked her how to find it and she told me the name. The Lost Episode. I saw that she had been searching on Ash and May kissing - they are two characters with a lot romantic tension, just like most shows. I scanned the videos after typing in "The Lost Episode", saw one that was animated and clicked.
With my son beside me I tried to click the pause button as soon as I saw the word "rape" in the opening words. I never saw what was next, but simply told my son that this video wasn't appropriate.
I then asked my daughter about the scary video and asked her to tell me what was scary. She said that Ash and May were kissing, and then May was screaming and then she was dead.
8 years old. I feel awful.
Thank goodness it was animated.
We've decide that You Tube is off limits, and we're looking into whether or not they have filters. But what do I say to my daughter? Do I stop with this or do I have a serious discussion about what she saw? What is age appropriate for an 8 year old.
Around this age my mom told me about sex and I remember my first nightmare about it. I used to fly alot in my dreams, up until my 20's, and I was flying in my dream when a man grabbed me and with his 5 foot penis (my mom forgot to put parameters on the items in our discussion) he had sex with me. It was awful and I can still visualize that dream 30 years later.
I don't want to do that to my daughter, but I also don't want to bury my head in the sand.
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3 comments:
Wow, that is a tough one. I would definitely watch the video she saw (alone or with your hubby) to know what she saw. Then approach her about any questions she may have about it and let her know that what happened there wasn't good or normal. She may not have understood about the sexual part of it, and may not need a full explanation. But she is old enough that she should know how to protect herself against predators. This could be a good chance to discuss it to a point.
We all have scars about "the talk". Sorry yours are so vivid and robbed you of part of your childhood dreams. You know your baby and your heart will tell you how far to go with this. Best of luck to you.
This sounds rough. It does seem like a fine line to figure out how much she knows and how much she needs/wants to know. I would imagine myself trying to ask her about it and see if I could sense where she was at, and to start more general and get to specifics as needed. Best of luck with this.
Well, no sense hiding it, just make sure you do explain all the little details, at 8 most kids will appriciate you coming down to earth with them.
Tell her about sex, Tell her its normal, a part of life....feel free to include the emotional aspects of sex as well...love etc etc
project it as a good, healthy part off life
when it comes to the rape bit, give it a name, call it what it is, point out it's bad and give her methods of protecting herself, don't make ti sound like rape is around the corner.
yeh but focus on the good bits.
I don't think learning about these natural things will damage you or take away your childhood....unless we continue to view them as wrong and taboo.
Just what i think of course:)
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