To think this is wrong for an 8yr old to be asked to say in assembly?

[gingerbiscuitandacuppatea]

DD (age 8 in yr 3) is doing a UNICEF assembly soon about child labour. They are reading out some examples of children's experiences, like carrying rocks up a hill, looking after cows etc.

my DD's lines include

"She used to slap me and shout at me. One day she poured petrol over me and set it alight. I rushed to the sink and splashed water over myself so luckily I wasn't too badly burned. They gave me cream for my burns and locked me in my room."

Would you be happy about your 8 year old being given those lines? I'm not happy that she now knows about people doing something so horrible, surely children this age do not need exposing to this at school?

I could have handled it as a child but my granddaughter is different and while aware of a lot having seen poverty in East Africa in its cruelest form, this level of involvement would have scared the wits out of her and she'd not be able to go for a wee alone. She's still trying to get over the Mummies in the Louvre

So, all these people keen to protect their little darlings from the realities of the world, what would you do if a child came into the school who was in care due to abuse? And talked about it in the playground? Because sometimes children do talk about what goes on in their world you know. And imagine that abuse meant the child had been physically hurt/burned etc. It’s easy to protect your children from something which happens on the other side of the world, we can switch off the news and pretend that it doesn’t happen, out of sight out of mind and all that.

But child abuse is real, and it doesn’t just happen in Africa and the developing world. Or perhaps people would go into the school and complain that their child was told something by another child which wasn’t appropriate even though they had lived it...

There are far more eight year olds playing grand theft auto where they get to perpetrate the violence, and eve if they’re not allowed to play it they will be aware of its existence because their friends will be playing it. And people want to protect them from reality?

Wannabe, there is a big difference between a total lack of exposure to things and over exposure at a young age.

Its all about getting the balance right for the child.

And you know what - you perhaps need to be careful because you dont know where people live and what children around them do actually have first hand experience of. My granddaughter knows her aunty was shot dead in front of her children in a war zone, she knows her little pal at school has just lost her dad and brother in Syria when they thought it would be ok to go back and see how things are, she knows other members of her extended family died in Burj al Brajne refugee camp, she knows someone in the next street to where her grandad grew up in Kenya died when he tried to retrieve his mobile from and open cess pit, she knows another couple of her wee pals are political refugees and what it means.

Grand Theft Auto - hmmmpphhhhhh

granny, but what if your gdg went into school here in the UK and started telling her friends who have been sheltered from all this about her knowledge and experiences? Parents might well go into the school and complain that their poor little innocent darlings had been told about things which were not age appropriate for them to know about at this stage.

I grew up in SA, necklacings were common knowledge - nobody got to witness them in the protected white community but everyone knew what they were and what they represented...

My mother had a termination when I was seven. I was aware she was pregnant and I was aware she was having a termination. I wouldn't consider that appropriate for a seven year old and the idea of a seven year old knowing that makes me wince now, but I went to school at the time and told my friends that my mummy was expecting a baby but that she didn't want it so she was going to the hospital and they were going to take it away. So several seven year olds in my school were exposed to the realities of termination, and other friends as I got older and my awareness of what it actually involved increased. There would have been no controls over that.

My lovely dp is VI because of things in his childhood which make me want to cry (and do harm to people) even as an adult. yet I think there are children who would have been aware of this at the time, so exposed to the realities whether their parents would have wanted that or not.

Fact is, children are exposed to the realities of the world all the time, even the innocent children whose parents switch off the news and pretend the world isn't happening yet. Protecting them from the news and what happens across the other side of the world doesn't men that the child next door won't have seen it first hand and be telling them about it anyway. Children generally have a lot more knowledge about things than we as parents are even aware of.

wanting to protect your little children from some of the horrible realities of life does not equal lack of empathy.

Just because sometimes it will inevitably happen does not mean that we should deliberately make it happen. If the situation you describe happened to my child I would deal with it, I hope, sensitively and appropriately.

It is not about protecting 'our little darlings' (and how sneery is that?) but about age appropriate exposure to such terrible things.

I agree even thougn I said it wouldnt bother me this is a sensitive subject and if parents feel their children are not ready to be exposed to it then fair enough

I would take another tack - although of course it's terrible that this was another child's experience, it is absolutely the wrong thing to do in a petrol fire and I would actually be very worried that it would stick in an impressionable mind and put a child in further danger should a fire like that happen at home.

In no way is that me trying to minimise the experience of the original child - I just think giving 'wrong' information in a school context is a bit off.

Its not about protecting them from the outside world, but wanting to explain things in a manner that you feel is appropriate for your own child.

I know that when my daughter who is the same age as the op's daughter, has a concern or something is bothering her she will come and speak to me and ask me questions. I try and explain things as best as I can but without graphic details. I.e from watching adverts on tv, she has seen the nspc ones and so we have discussed that some childrens parents and families are not nice to them and that they might hurt the child intentionally. She was upset enough over the advert, so for her o have to read about being set alight whilst dowsed in petrol, I know that this would upset her and she would probably cry whilst reading it. How is that good for her to be exposed to? She's an 8 yr old child, its our duty to protect them and to look out for them and to do what we think is best for our children.

I'm not explaining myself very well, so think I will just toodle off now.

Help me I think you explained it well..Emotionally they are developing at different speeds.

My DS (7) can't cope with things his peers do...I expose him to things gradually ...My DS doesn't play games that are above the cert level and to be fair struggles with some PG films.

It isn't about pretending the world is a happy clappy place but they don't need such details..

If I child who came into school who had been set alight by their parent I would expect that it was dealt with sensitively by the school.. Young children receive alsorts of abuse..My DS does not need to know the details, can we not let them be kids at all?

star, thanks I'm glad someone understood my ramble and where I was coming from.
fwiw- dd isn't interested in computer games, she's happy making loombands and playing with monster high, my little pony etc and I hope that that continues for a long time yet.

When I was the same age as OP'S DD, one of my teachers thought it would be a good idea to get the class to look at lots of newspaper reports about the James Bulger case as some sort of comparative language study.

I really don't remember much about school at that age at all apart from that incident. Even now, any time anything about the case is on the news, as it periodically is, I feel really sick and upset, way beyond how I feel about any other similar news.

I guess my point is that being exposed to something too young has had an impact on me. I was a sensitive and compassionate kid and did not need that level of detail to teach me some sort of lesson about how crappy the world is and how lucky I was.

So YANBU if you feel it is too much detail and I would raise it with the teacher.

I think at times its the way something is said rather than what is actually being said.

Im interested in wannabes point of view, there is food for thought, but my hackles did rise at the way it came across

I would not be happy with this level of detail for my DD2 who is 9. It is too graphic. To be honest I think that level of detail is inappropriate before y6.

Yes many children may be able to cope, due to their natures or things they have already been exposed to at home. But for a substantial minority it is too much.

Have scanned the thread as I am in a rush but as a child who was raised Catholic we saw images of Jesus nailed to the cross both in school and at church, learnt about hell and confessed our sins to a priest at aged 7.

We also ate the body and drank the blood of Christ from age 7 after our first holy communion.

I am aware that this is extreme but surely with children going to a state C of E primary as my own children do they are taught about Jesus dying on the cross, no?

My sons are 11 and 8, we have the radio on in the morning and we happen to live in Leeds. We had lots of conversations about Jimmy Saville and any other things that come up.

In my own childhood my best friend's Mum fostered children. She specialised in short term care and looked after both physically and sexually abused children.

Because playing with her daughter also exposed us to these poor children my Mum and the foster carer had a talk with us about it, that we couldn't ask the children about it etc but they may talk to us about it. We watched videos that taught children about being in charge of their bodies, about the right to say no.

It hasn't scarred me for life, it made me incredibly grateful that I grew up in a loving home without fear.

We get desensitivised to violence, we see it too much. Ds is 9 and is empathetic enough to tell his little brother there are children starving in the world, and homeless people, if he wastes food. I'm fine with that level. And I do like it's innocence, why not, there'll be enough violence out there to creep in as it does when he's older.

I don't see the need to go into violent imagery, via video games, or reality, any sooner. But obviously others can if they want. Also I don't like that it makes children feel helpless to change it.

I don't really get the argument that as others have to suffer we should try to re-experience it ourselves. I talk with my children about things like child labour (the Victorians is a common topic at primary), they see the starving children ads on the TV, they catch a glimpse of a disturbing news story and we discuss it in an age-appropriate way.

Children who see torture, violence, are abused, go on to have terrible consequences from this, PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares or just a feeling of emptiness or not being safe- so do adults, grown-men who have trained in the army and know exactly what they will be likely to see.

I don't think empathy requires you to act out the role of someone abused or tortured myself, nor do I think that is appropriate for a child.

There is a big difference between hearing about and acting out and seeing violent images and indeed witnessing it in real life. It is conflated on this thread as if it is all the same thing, and as if those who don't want their children to be frightened/insecure/upset/distressed/witness to violence are somehow over-precious.

Contented my children go to church and so know about the crucifixion.

But to use the analogy with this thread- I wouldn't let my 8 year old play the role of Jesus and read out something about his torture in a church play.

It is already disturbing enough and they need to learn to think through what the crucifixion means (so asking questions like my dd did such as why do Christians use the symbol of Jesus's death, the cross, to remember him?) They don't need to watch Mel Gibson's the Passion of Christ to see exactly how he was tortured- my husband is still traumatized by it ten years later.

Yes, and that viewpoint seems to assume that those of us who want to protect our children from such terrible realities are selfishly living in a bubble of safety. It may not have occurred to those saying that we are being precious that people who have actually suffered themselves may be more anxious to protect their children from the knowledge that such cruelty exists.

To those people saying that children should not be shyed away from knowing about reality... where do we draw the line? Some unspeakable things happen in this world, things that you would not even comprehend explaining to a child that has hardly any life experience, or capability to cope with dark, dark issues.
I remember being in the car coming home from school. The radio was on, and it was about Jessica Wells and Holly Chapman, I think. I asked my mum what happened and she told me that there were some bad people in the world who 'like' children. I remember saying to my mum 'Why are children told to trust adults when they do things like that.'

I am not saying that the news should not report on things like that, that would be absurd- my point is that I didn't have the emotional maturity to understand that it was an exceptional case where a sick individial did something wrong, and that 99.9% (figure of speech, don't know exact figures obviously) of adults aren't like that. Kids can't really avoid the news, but they don't need their perceptions of the world being warped into crazy disproportions. Maybe this is a bad example, I don't know.

The assembly, IMO, should have just stuck to the bare minimum facts in order to get the gist across, rather than going into distressing detail. Things like that can play on a childs mind and give them a complex. Maybe I was just a sensitive child, but then there are children out there who are sensitive and are not ready to hear about certain things. Let them be naive a bit longer and enjoy their years before the media starts scaremongering at them.

scotchdoll that's what I was trying to say, some things are difficult for adults to contemplate, how much worse as a child when you perhaps don't know how at risk you are, and have little power say over whether you walk home alone or not.

Some children are not that sensitive though, I have one child aged 10 who would be fine to discuss this topic and the more gory/unpleasant aspects, I have let her watch quite adult programmes including road deaths/dying/burial practices because I know she's pretty emotionally robust and won't have nightmares and finds these things interesting.

My other child, 8, wouldn't sleep for a week over the same material.

As adults, we tend to have a pretty good idea of what we have the stomach to cope with and act accordingly, we can also choose to campaign and work for issues that disturb us morally (I give to charities that work with women and girls over issues like child marriage for this reason). Children have less agency and less opportunities to choose what they view, especially at school as well as less life experience to contextualise information (such as the Holly and Jessica case being quite rare). That's why I don't agree with this being presented by a child in assembly to all the other children, some of whom at 8 might be quite sensitive.

So, at 8 years old she has never seen the news?

DS1 is 7.6 - he has never seen the news. I only watch C4 news which is on after he's gone to bed, or I read the news online. I don't listen the radio. And yes, it is a deliberate thing that I don't "let" them watch the news (DS2 is 3.6). I have discussed events with him such as earthquakes, war, crime, but in a age-appropriate way, without the sensationalism and images that come with the media. I don't think this is an odd thing to do.

OP, YANBU - I am not sure all 8 year olds would have the tools to deal with that kind of imagery.

I was annoyed when my DS1 learnt about Africa and there was a focus on SA but no mention of apartheid.
I think that is completely different, and I would be really annoyed about that too. We have discussed apartheid and how wrong it is/was - but I wouldn't tell him the specifics about the awful things that people did to each other in this period, to bring it back in line with what the OP is talking about.

I would not be happy with DS being exposed to this level of information, I dont think any primary school age child needs to

We are another family that doesn't have the news on when DS is around, we rarely have the news on anyway. He learned about Afghanistan form school which I wasn't too pleased about

We have lots of Forces children at school and it does upset a lot of them to know their parent is in Afghan and they might not come back and I do wonder why the fuck you have exposed your child to this level of information

I would not be happy with this. I also don't let my children, 7 and 11, watch or hear graphic news items, although gradually that is changing with the older one. Children the world over are raped, tortured and murdered, but I will protect my children from the graphic details of those horrors for as long as I can.

I spoke to DD this morning, there has been no discussion about the burning at all in the prep for the assembly. To be fair to DD, she already had a good grip on this being something that doesn't happen very often. But really its bad enough to have given her this material, let alone not even discussed it with her.

I agree too, that it isn't just that they are talking about someone being burned with petrol. It is trivialised by saying it was ok because I splashed water on and didn't burn badly. It isnt' ok for someone to be burned with petrol.

the fire safety aspect is important too, water making petrol fire spread. How could splashing water on the fire have helped at all?

I understand where some of you are coming from, I know bad things happen and that she could hear about similar or worse on the playground from other children. The point is that her school chose to give her this, adults who are able to make a judgement about what is suitable or not. If a child DD knew was going through something and spoke to DD about it that would be entirely different. It would be upsetting but unavoidable and she could have help/support from us. But schools decision was avoidable, and after being asked permission for her to watch a very popular Disney film in class in seems totally out of proportion for her to be given this material to read, and without any supportive/explanatory discussion.

I have no problem with this at all, we have the news on tv at home and I would expect an 8 year old to be fully aware that British soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and other places. (OldRaver's point).

I don't believe in hiding the reality of life from children and a Unicef Assembly sounds a good point of discussion for this sort of topic. I don't think it does children any favours in the long run to 'hide' the unpleasant side of life - after all you have to alert children to 'stranger danger' from a very early age.

OldRaver - I don't understand your point, surely if Forces families have family members in Afghanistan then the children have to be aware of the realities that this means - - unless I have misunderstood you?