DH says I’m censoring him when he talks about disturbing things in front of our teen (13)

I'm going against the grain but honestly, I think correcting your son in a straightforward, truthful way was appropriate.

As the programme very clearly depicts, 13 year olds are far more clued up now than their parents usually realise.

Being able to discuss anything/ask questions of your parents knowing you’ll receive honest answers is healthy, I think.

Because OP is the one making sensible decisions. The father clearly doesn’t understand (or care?) about what’s appropriate and what’s harmful. Both have responsibility for their child, but only one is behaving responsibly.

Crass stupidity invites censorship. Ain’t nobody censoring sensitive intelligence.

I agree this is a safeguarding issue. Letting a 3 year old see video games with scenes of gore and torture? Wtf is wrong with him?

I'm not too clear what point you're making. You referred to disembowelling and rape in your previous post so yes definitely far worse than Romeo and Juliet, unless there is some graphic detail in R&J I've forgotten about!

I remember reading The Swan at primary age too; it was disturbing but what stayed with me was the incredible courage of the boy being victimised, and it was really about that most of all - that it's possible to find the capacity to be 'unconquerable' in the face of evil and suffering. Quite a message for children who may feel powerless or victimised.

It shows the difference between literature that explores these issues and helps children develop insight, strength and empathy, as opposed to being exposed to just senseless violence IMO.

lol because his views are so controversial, interesting and important that they require censorship, what a bellend

You can limit your kid’s phone use all you like, restrict internet access, ban social media etc etc
All it takes is for them to have ONE friend whose parents are more lax than this to text them a horrific video of something and you’re too late.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do hate the smart phone childhoods

Ironic as one of the issues raised in the trial was one of the murderers being exposed to inappropriate horror content such as "Child's Play" videos at a young age that contributed to him bring desensitised to violence (as well as a catalogue of domestic issues and abuse).

Understanding the headlines of what happened is one thing, but graphic details are unnecessary.

Exposing children (including 13 year olds) to inappropriate, unnecessary, distressing content can be emotional abuse.

His access to the internet and social media apps needs managing too. 13 year olds do not need Tik Tok and their algorithms are particularly poor at honing in on specific content after being exposed to it.

Policing teens is hard I agree. My eldest is 12 and just like yours as all sorts of consoles but he has a time limit and all of it has his own personal profile which means because he’s a minor they can’t have access to adult websites. He’s not allowed on our phones unless he’s next to us and no social media.
Edited to say: I agree with you - you shouldn’t lie to them but giving them specific details at 13 is not a good idea.

I'd be concerned about your DH. He's normalising extremely unpleasant behaviour by the sound of it. It's one thing to know that such things happen; its quite another to discuss the acts in gory detail. Especially when he knows you dislike it; this is disrespectful to you.

It's the level of detail. There is usually minimal detail in fairy tales and bible stories. Its possible to know enough about the James Bulger case without going into all the details.

We tell kids that Herod killed all the baby boys but don't discuss the exact methods. We tell the story of Noah's ark without dwelling on baby elephants drowning in their hundreds. Etc.

@Insanityisnotastrategy My remark about suing my parents was a joke. It’s a bit of a laugh in our family about how “traumatised” my brother and I were by it, and how it seemed far worse than lots of stuff officially considered inappropriate for children. See also Romeo and Juliet: very bloody, yet teenagers are made to read it. Should it be banned, in case they kill themselves over lots love? Incidentally, on my parents’ shelves was a book “every mother’s nightmare - the killing of James Bulger”. I never read it, so I don’t know if it went into all the details, but I read those in the paper some years later: “Here is a reminder of what they did to James”.

When I was eight (before James Bulger was killed), I read Roald Dahl’s short story “The Swan”, which has a lot of parallels to that event: two thuggish boys terrorise a younger boy with a gun, and tie him to a railway line (which he survives), and do other nasty things. Lots of parents tried to get that book banned at the time. I read it at primary school, of all places!

I’m sorry, what?!!!!

Its quite normal and common for people to get a kick out of all the gory details and true crime stories.

Well, you wouldn't get very far suing them, but what a shit thing for them to do.

Ban tiktok for a start or he can only access it downstairs. Honestly the way you've got things set up it's anyone's guess what he will have come across. He's thirteen - you need to be a parent, not just do what he wants. Privacy in his bedroom - yes, but that doesn't extend to unrestricted tech. Look up some information on online safety for teens (NSPCC or similar) because it sounds like you're being very laissez faire.

When I show part of a documentary on the Moors murders to Sixth Form
students of 17, I always explain that there will be distressing details and that they can leave if they feel uncomfortable. They are much older and nearly adults. A 13 year old at home also can’t leave if they feel uneasy.

Perhaps I should sue my parents for exposing me to the comic opera Candide when I was eight, in 1988. The aftermath of war was vividly described, in a comically silly voice, and one of the milder things was "young girls with their bellies torn out, having satisfied the needs of several war heroes..." They didn't explain what that meant, though.

You've given your 13yo son unfettered access to the internet, and you're here complaining about your DH thinking you're censoring him?

I think you need to go back to the drawing board. And hope and pray that you have the full picture about what your son is doing and has been exposed to. Your sound EXTREMELY naive (and fragile).

You lost me at it’s difficult to control what a 13 year old reads online.

@ouipamplemousse "I can’t imagine why anybody other than the jury would need to know these disturbing details. And still less why they would want to discuss them as point of fact with their teenage son."

I agree. I grew up in the 60's when very few things were censored from children. There wasn't even a watershed on TV and in many ways children were treated as small adults. My parents in particular were very open and pro discussion. But whilst my dad discussed the Myra Hindley/Ian Brady case with me, he would not have reeled off every minute detail of horrific torture. I don't think the majority of parents would, no matter how enlightened or keen on transparency they were.

You did ‘censor’ him but only because he isn’t prepared to responsibly censor himself. Surely as a grown adult he can understand that we all have to censor our opinions or what comes out of our mouth from time to time, depending on the situation or the audience!

That is what he “said” he was doing but not what he was doing—there is a bug difference between joining with your child in an age appropriate way as they learn the horrors of the world and desensitizing them and treating tragedies like the Holocaust or the Nakba or torture/murders as a place to show off fake realism or dicker over details. Its just part of the “well ackshually” school of male indifference to the underlying moral meaning —the horrors of the world and a child’s exposure to them are not like a pub quiz places for dh to show off his skill at memorizing shit.

Wow! That’s a very extreme reaction from you.

The man was correcting his teenage son on factual points relating to a case that child had already been reading about. Children of this age will be learning about the holocaust, and watching the news about Gaza, and discovering that humans are able and can do the most horrific things to other humans. It’s important to know this. It doesn’t glorify it. Quite the opposite, discussions about these awful acts teaches children right from wrong.

Did you actually speak to your kid about why you thought it was inappropriate to discuss things in that level of detail, or did you just freak out and shut his dad down in front of him?

Your DS can find out exactly what happened in that case by looking at Wikipedia or with a 5 second Google search. Better to have it discussed with adults out in the open.

He's 13 and his dad is right, you don't get to police what he says to his son.