to think that Charlotte's Web is inappropriate for a 4 year old ?

[OnEdge]

My DD 4 has just started in reception. Each morning they choose a book to read and bring it home and we read it to her. I am not familiar with this book. So we all settled down and I began reading it to my 1,2 and 4 year old. I had to really quickly sensor it. I think that the threat of death to the pig is a bit much for a 4 year old to understand, there is reference to a man fetching his axe to kill the baby pig. Also, she is trying to grasp English, and this is an American book. Had I read it out word for word, she would not have understood much of it, and the bit she understood would have disturbed her.

Do you think IABU ? Or is it inappropriate for her ?

As for reproduction, my DS worked that out for himself.

So AIBU to not explain the facts of life to a four year old ?

DH just bought a kid's version of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn for DS (3.5)... he insisted it was a great story and he remembers it fondly from childhood.

DS got scared by it and it's now in a cupboard.

Typical bloody meat-eater. "I feed my children pig, but I couldn't possibly tell them that the pig had to die." Disgraceful.

Op you say nothing really prepares you for grief (which is true) but surely it's that much harder if you've been led to believe everyone is immortal and people just go off to sleep for a long time - what a shock the first death will be!
I'm thinking I should get this film to help my 4 year old ds understand why we are a family of vegetarians!

Needsaholiday I just dont see the rush.

With regards to fact sof life such as sex, how babies come, etc - I answer all of DD's questions in an age appropriate way. So at 4y she had asked how babies were born - so I told her. She is 9y now and knows a little about how babies are made, but not 100% just how accurately.

But I see nothing scary about telling a 4y that meat comes from real animals and that animals are bred and killed to provide meat for humans, just like vegetables are grown and harvested to feed us. I would imagine, from my experience anyway, she'd take it all in her stride - these kind of things don't seem to phase little ones at all. Has your DD not come across a vegetarian and wondered why they don't eat meat?

Regardless of the meat aspect, I just don't think a child that young has the necessary empathy or understanding of the themes in the book. If they're not upset by it, they haven't fully understood it imo. Why rush these classic books?

OnEdge, has your daughter ever asked where meat comes from? Or what happens to people when they get old? Or where babies come from? ds's knowledge of reproduction is very limited but I've answered his questions simply, and not given more info until he's asked for it. Ditto the question "where do sausages come from?" (me - "from pigs". ds - "from their bottoms?" me - "no, farmers keep pigs and then kill them so we can have delicious sausages to eat.")

When your DD asked about the Dad in Lion King, that would have been a good time to say he died and then let her follow it up as she wished. Because at some point she may link "going to sleep" with "dying and never coming back" and that's pretty scary, no?

OnEdge, mine knows that Daddy has a seed, Mummy has an egg and when they join together it grows into a baby. They also know where the baby comes out. Thankfully they haven't asked how the seed gets to the egg yet.

I'm probably not the right person to talk as DD appears to know too much about cows mounting too .

And I am trying not to be offensive, it's absolutely your choice. But, fwiw, I think that telling a child that someone's Dad got so tired he had to go away forever/sleep forever could be very worrying for them. I explained death once to DD by talking about animals getting old, since then she has asked a few times about old people we know, and if they will die. Thankfully not in front of them . Had I used your sleeping explanation, would she have been worried every time I said how tired I was? Or that I was going to sleep?

Scary associations there, from my point of view.

I agree with those who say that a chapter book like Charlotte's Web probably is a little old for a 4,2,and 1 year old (you kind of need to please the younger ones too).

Although don't read any Roald Dahl either then for a while, that's quite gruesome, including Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge being flattened by a Giant Peach, the foxes all thinking they will die in the tunnels in Fantastic Mr Fox, the grandparents all thinking they will die in the Great Glass Elevator when Mr Wonka goes bonkers, the attack of the Vermicious Knids, the Grand High Witch's plot to kill all the children in Eeeglaaaand with a mouse potion, do I need to say that I've read one chapter of every darn Roald Dahl to my five year old for over a year...(we have just run out of them).

I don't believe that a 4 year old has never asked where their food comes from.

SO glad that we're vegan and don't have to be so bloody hypocritical to our DC.

Hah, Hardgoing. We've done Dahl to death too, except for the Witches. They scare me

My ds is also well aware that running out in front of a car, for example, could lead to him dying ("being too broken for the doctors to fix") and he needs to have an awareness of this to keep him safe, I think.

My parents have a farm, so DD has fed lambs with a bottle, and then eaten them later in the year. She is three, and understands perfectly. She is not at all upset by it at all. However I didn't read Charlotte's Web until I was about 8 and I really enjoyed it then, so I wouldn't want to spoil it by giving it to my kids until they were old enough to really enjoy it for what it is.

Why ask AIBU if you don't want to take other opinions on board?

Yes, Sue I take that on board, I said the sleep thing because it was the first thing that came into my head, and he was lying there looking sleepy My Mum was a radiographer and used to come home talking about tumours and metastasis etc over the dinner table when I was a child. It freaked me out, and I now suffer terrible health anxiety and fear cancer. I think that I may be over compensating and trying to ensure that she doesn't have to cope with stuff before she is ready like I did.

ChippingIn Well I am, I am having a discussion though, that ok?

Fair enough. Every 4yo is different anyway, DD is quite a ghoul. If Mufasa dropped dead in front of her, she'd want to be in on the autopsy.

So where have you told her that meat comes from? Don't tell me, the animals "give" the meat to us?

How about Bambi ?

DD is 5. We are reading it. Great story.

Did you ever read Ladybird books as a child OP? They used to be really quite macabre back then, and kids everywhere loved them.