to be cross with teacher giving my 8 yr old a book on domestic violence?

[Jix]

The teacher gave my daughter a book to "challenge" her, and we settled down to read chapter 3 tonight. She'd done the first chapter at school and second last night on her own. I found it very very upsetting, and my daughter was certainly having difficulty following it and needed lots of things explaining.

I read the book tonight ("Indigo Blue" by Cathy Cassidy in case anyone is interested). The story is basically about a girl's mother being beaten up by the step dad. The mum leaves him, goes to live in a damp basement flat, has a nervous breakdown, can't look after the girl or her baby step-sister. Step dad is lurking and following the girl out of school and is scary. Eventually mother goes out for meal with step-dad. Girl left on her own in dark with the toddler. Police come in middle of night to break news that her mother's in hospital, having been severly beaten up the step dad.

Fantastic reading for an 8 year old don't you think?

Or AIBU??

Whatever happened to Famous Five or the Secret Garden??

Tbh I'm fuming and a little confused. Am I just being over-protective and out of touch?

Thanks for your opinions.

I remember my P7 teacher letting me take home 'The Omen' and I was too terrified to sleep with it in the same room! :o

YANBU and glad the teacher was repentant. I'm a teacher myself but at secondary so in fairness to primary teachers it's less of an issue for us!

I think you are being precious, but then one of my most vivid eight year old memories is sitting up with my mother at 2am trying to stop the bleeding from her broken nose after my stepdad had beaten the shit out of her for the umpteenth time, so I get a bit pissed off when parents moan about their poor little darlings being traumatised by just reading about childhood's like mine.

Somewherewest: To a kid in a non-violent household, reading about domestic violence (or seeing it on TV) is traumatizing. Do you really think that they should all have their noses rubbed in other people's misery from the minute they can string a sentence together?