Censorship and DD3's teacher... AIBU?

[NoNoNora]

Yesterday evening DD3's teacher called to voice her concerns about how appropriate the programmes we let her watch are. DD3 is ten and for all four DDs we haven't paid any attention to ratings, they'll watch what we watch and we won't question what they want to watch during their TV time (unless a fight breaks out between them), none of them are at all traumatised or have nightmares and they always voice their fears and/or leave the room if something is too much for them.
The latest craze at DD3's school is top trump cards and she took DD2's Buffy ones in last week (DD2 is at uni so DD3 has the run of her bedroom and belongings). As a family we all watch Buffy together and have done since it first started, we own the DVDs and the girls have grown up watching it. Of course there are things that the younger ones don't pick up on (i.e. much of the sixth season) but DP and I feel that it is a very positive programme for our girls to watch.
DD3's teacher did not agree with our view. She confiscated the cards for the day on Friday and then called me that evening. Apparently she was concerned that our older girls had been showing 'innapropriate' programmes to the younger ones. I explained that we watched Buffy as a family and I had given her permission to take the cards into school. She then proceeded to explain the importance to ratings and the problems with 'desensitising' children to violence and sex. I was flabbergasted and promised not to let DD3 take the cards into school again but maintained that I was doing nothing wrong in my parenting.

I can't be the only mum who thinks like this? DP is incredibly anti-censorship and wants to send her in with DD2's much more graphic 'Angel' cards on Monday, with a note to the (and I quote) "fascists".

See my kids have seen criminal minds and loved it. I'm talking post age 10. I've only paused and then turned over a few episodes.

I love Criminal minds but dd1 is very sensitive (clearly I haven't shown her enough horror movies!!) and dd2 is only 5

I find being anti-censorship is about trying to be liberal and all encompassing and so utterly selfish as an adult that you cannot live a life that is appropriate. Freedom of speech/expression is possible without graphic sexual/violent images, swearing, etc. As usual a lovely principle is hijacked by selfish wanky types.

zeeboo

"but I'd assume the top trumps cards were completely sanitised and I think the teacher made a bit too much of it."

There is a poster up thread that has said she wouldn't want her children to see a picture of the master and there are other pictures that parents may not want their children to see.

Why did you post this this thread, if you don't think you're in any way unreasonable.

Did you expect everyone to agree with you, and think the teacher was over-reacting? If you're so sure of your stance - why question it via an AIBU thread?

Do you even know what fascist means? I mean, actually means? Who the Fascist party was?

I don't let the kids watch certain things, i think children need protecting !

But there ur kids, so its up to.
I don't agree with u but as i said, there ur kids

Oh and I think the teacher was not being unreasonable.
Who knows what your kids have going on in their heads and also what inappropriate things they're saying to other kids?

anything harder than Buffy is watched as a family.

You are avoiding the issue that everyone is presenting you with, OP. Your children should not be watching anything 'hard', with or without you in the room. In fact, I'd say that you being in the room would suggest to a child that what is being watched is deemed 'safe' for them to watch, and would actually be more confusing for them to process.

When I was about the same age as your daughter, I went to babysit with my biog sister. The father of the couple she babysat for was an utter tosser who would point out to her the 18 rated films in his collection ( he later went on to sexually assault her when taking her home from babysitting...read into that what you will). She encouraged me to watch one of them and the images I saw have remained with me for ever. You cannot know what is going through your children's minds as they watch this stuff.

Quite, pourquoi - I remember being absolutely petrified after a classmate watched 'Nightmare on Elm Street' when we were about 10, and described it to me in graphic detail. Ditto watching 'IT' at a mates aged about 11, and not sleeping for days afterwards.

OP - how do you know your DD's won't talk about what they watch to classmates? Or haven't? You're vicariously exposing other kids too through your uncritical perspective - an exposing them less vicariously through allowing non-age appropriate material to be taken in to school.

I'm confident that my year 4 ds is in regular contact with dc who've experienced more graphic content than a Buffy box set tbh, Pourquoimoi!

It's more the complacency here that would concern me.

weeonion- DD doesn't know about the phonecall, I wouldn't want her to think she was in trouble. But we have discussed why the cards were confiscated and why she will only be taking in her Harry Potter ones on Monday so as not to scare the other children.

Of course I can understand why I shouldn't show children pornography or torture porn but that really isn't the issue here. We don't own any porn/torture porn (I find both genres repugnant) and the children don't watch TV post-watershed alone so they'll have no access to it- I'm not going to watch something I hate just to please the children.

We aren't talking about full blown porn FGS!!! Any sexual content in 18 films is likely to unsuitable to a child. Are you so deluded you can't even read posts??

I thought the whole point was that people shouldn't be desensitised to shocking things? That we don't want those things to be considered 'normal'.
You are doing your children no favours at all.

so the only way you censor is according to your tastes?

I do some work with young people on media and media literacy (more specifically around sexualised images/ tropes). It strikes how often they talk about not being able to unsee what they have seen and despite their developing critical faculties, they all remember how confused and conflicted certain things from their younger years made them feel. I know many of them also grew up in nurturing supportive environments. What approach do you have to your DDs accessing material online? Should that be "censored"?

ravenAK - I wasn't just thinking of Buffy, the OP seems to have little censorship so it could apply to any inappropriate viewing.

You find them repugnant? As an adult?

Interesting...

Wild idea, but maybe your children have their own, individual ideas of what is 'repugnant'. And maybe, just possibly, it differs from yours?

People who groom children do things like this.

People who want to encourage children to perform violent and/or sexual acts on each other do things like this.

They need to desensitive the children.

It's sick.

The fact is, you do apply censorship to your children's viewing if you admit you wouldn't actually let them watch (in your own words, 'repugnant') porn. So technically, you're just as much of a fascist as the teacher...

You do realise that if your dc show distress at school because of seeing something before they can leave the room or turning the telly off then SS will be at your door quicker than you can say 'completely irresponsible'? And your opinions on censorship won't wash with them. Good luck.