AIBU to not let DD6 finish Harry Potter series?

[WhattodoSue]

My DD has been immersed in the Harry Potter books for 3 weeks. She is a very good reader, and when she finds a series she loves, she will read for hours. I initially planned to limit her to books 1-3. But she begged to read 4, and then following more strong assertions that they weren't scary I have let her read 5. I am a bit regretting it bcause Umbridge is so evil. She evidently doesn't get the same level of understanding a 12 year old does, but at the same time she is utterly enthralled and is getting a lot of pleasure from reading them.

I am not sure if I should stop her reading 6 & 7 if she is desperate to, or let her go with what she feels interested in. She re-reads her favourite books, so I'm sure these will get re-read over the years. BUT, i don't want her traumatised. Anyone else have young Harry potter readers? Thoughts? Thanks!!

Mine read them at 6 and again at 7 and again at 8. They get more each time
She is a pretty normal type but never sees anything not age appropriate...for instance I won't let her watch the movies beyond 1&2---anyway she loved the books and wasn't frightened
I think it was a good guy v bad guy thing in the beginning and that developed as her understanding developed with age

HP is a funny old thing. The younger they are the more it actually goes over their heads rather than it scaring them. My rising 8yo ds2 has found them much less disturbing than my rising 10yo, though they are fundamentally different personalities too. We've finished all the books with ds1 and book 5 with ds2. We're going to watch the final two films with ds1 for Christmas. The only thing I would suggest about letting a 6/7yo read them is that they'll need a dictionary alongside unless you're prepared to answer "what does this mean?" every thirty seconds. There is some very advanced vocabulary and word play in the later books that they need to understand in order to get the best from the books.

We've staggered them a lot for DD, now nearly 9. She loves them but she is happy to reread and reread. In fact we agreed with her teacher to ban her from them for a few months in Y3 because she wasn't reading anything else. She has got so much pleasure from the first 5 and she has the last 2 still ahead of her to enjoy. There is no need for her to read the last 2 yet. I'd rather she wait until she gets every nuance of the remaining ones. Reading them all at 6 is a bit like opening all your christmas presents early.

I don't censor reading material; our two finished the HP series (for the first time) when they were seven - and like others on this thread have revisited it since, several times, understanding more each time.

I do censor other media, where there is less reliance on the invidual's own experience and imagination to complete the experience. They weren't allowed to watch the films until they had read the books.

[insert 'di' as required]

I've staggered them for dd, 9 last week. She has read and reread 1-4 and just received 5&6 for her birthday. Fwiw, it's such a great series for kids that I think it's worth going slow. Lots of books in the same vein ( yes, I appreciate they are easy reads) The Worst Witch, Goth Girl etc. yes, I think the later Hp books are more scary/adult, but also because what's next after HP? There is not many series to compare!

I'm a bit at the thought of a 6 year-old disciplining himself to stop if the content gets a bit much. More like scared fascination will keep him going.

You don't need to be an unrestricted reader to still love reading. I was advanced for my age, but was kept to age-appropriate stuff till I was about 12 (when my book club sent me a Dennis Wheatley by mistake!) and I still read voraciously now and I'm in my 60s.

Stop him for a while (couple of years) and find something else. There's loads out there.

I'm quite envious of you having a DD who is an enthusiastic reader! I have always been a voracious reader, but my DD isn't, and wouldn't even read the Harry Potters.

I think I would let her read them, to be honest. Forbidden fruit becomes much more attractive. It's not as if she's reading 50 shades of grey.

I would let her. I was a good reader from a young age and my parents never censored what I read. As the years have gone on and I've reread things, I realise that I didn't get a lot of stuff first time round but that was it- I just didn't quite get it. It didn't traumatise me. I remember reading Michael Caines autobiography aged 7 because I found it on my parents bookshelves and it looked interesting. A lot of it went over my head but I liked what I understood.

A great example of this is Adrian Mole. I loved those books and have read them over and over throughout my life. However when I first read them aged about 7-9 I didn't have a clue that he was measuring his penis with a ruler or that his mum and the next door neighbour were having an affair... Because of the way he refers to both things, I just thought the ruler was part of an ongoing maths project and that his mum and the next door neighbour were genuinely fixing the washing machine etc together! it didn't scar me for life, I laugh now that I took it all at face value.

It's not an expectation that they will stop, on my part, NO (although they certainly did when they got a bit confused about James Patterson on a recent shopping spree - Middle School didn't quite prepare 'em for 'Along Came a Spider'... ) - more that most of the age inappropriate stuff simply goes over their head.

Anecdote - and spoiler - alert: when Dumbledore dies in the film, our kids were utterly distraught, even though they knew it was going to happen from reading the books.

Dd1 read the first one by mistake and I thought too young (she found it on a shelf at my parents' house and was half way through before I noticed) but has since gone back to it again and again, and gets more each time. I didn't let her read the third and fourth ones until she was 6, nearly 7, though.

She's currently re-reading the series (1-4) yet again and still is gripped and getting more out of them. I think I will hold off on letting her read the later ones for as long as I can, but her friend at school has read them all and so I suspect she might just borrow them from her if I try and ban them from home.

I'd maybe encourage her to read the first ones again. (in my experience they read and reread them endlessly over the years anyway!)

But if she wants to read them all then let her. I honestly think with books they only see things from their age experience anyway. Unlike the films, being visually graphic, meaning it gets into their heads differently.

We need to remember with books that we come to them with an adults emotional understanding of the world. So we read much more into them then the kids do re: the bad stuff.

Or you could offer a different series for a while. Unfortunate Series of Events, Artemis Fowl, Seekers, etc

I love HP but I think 6 is too young. I haven't let DS (8) read them yet, as I think the later ones are much too dark. People who say they don't censor their children's reading - really? I wouldn't let mine read half the stuff on my bookshelf.

Yes, really. They can read anything they find - and aren't remotely interested in most of the stuff on my bookshelf...

my daughter has been a die hard HP fan since she was five, she's 17 now, and has a youtube channel dedicated to all things HP, she was scared of the 3 headed dog when she watched the film, ( she was at a friends), I wouldn't have let her watch the films at such a young age, but she remembers with joy reading the books with me, and when she was a more fluid reader we used to read a chapter each, maybe if you read it together you can discuss it as you go along. Fortunately the books were still being released when my dd was growing up, so they weren't there on the shelf ready to read, which I have to say would have been torture for her knowing they were there but she couldn't access them. I would just supervise the reading, but I have generally let my dd read whatever she likes, as a result she is very articulate, and has great thirst for learning and reading.

Personally I think imagination is one of the most powerful and scary things, so books can have much more of an impact than films and television. They certainly did for me. Perhaps that varies from person to person though.

I read huge amounts as a child and would get whatever I wanted from the adult section of the library with no parental input. I think they were just glad I was reading. But I read some things that I wished I hadn't and that left me feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable.

So I would say it depends hugely on your own child and how sensitive you think they are. If you decide to let her, could you perhaps get a copy to read for yourself and talk through each chapter/section with her as she finishes them? That's my plan for when mine are old enough to have strong ideas about what they want to read but don't want to read together.

DS is eight and got the first book for Christmas last year when he was seven - I was going to wait but he was starting to play the Lego game and I didn't want him to think of Lego characters when he read the book, or get spoilers for the plot!

He was an early reader but not an enthusiastic one, but the HP books really started him out reading harder chapter books and now he is getting other books out of the library like Ruby Redfort and breezing through them. However he has only read 1-4. I didn't say he couldn't read the others but like you OP I felt book 5 was a lot darker with Dolores Umbridge's sadism and that horrible punishment with the lines cut into Harry's hand. So I just had that chat with him - said I thought the later ones were a bit more grown up and also that he might find them a bit boring with more stuff about relationships, and they were a bit more sad also. He has decided himself not to read them yet - partly because it took him so long to get through Book 4 I think. Also he has only seen the first film, he'd probably be OK with the others but his five year old brother wouldn't and I can't show one and not the other.

My kids are big now. They were avid/able readers from an early age like the OPs DD.

It was clear that left to their own devices they wouldn't read stuff that was too old/scary and had a sort of " self censorship" mode.

So whilst I wouldn't let a 6yr old watch all the films ( fast paced, graphic, no way of just stepping away if you don't like it) I would let her read them. Equally I actually wouldn't read along and discuss it with her. My opinion of what may have happened isn't the same as hers!

Te way I see it is like when they do the 1st world war prior to remembrance each year - to me this means remembering teenagers, nearly children, terrified out of their wits, half starved, blown apart, dying along amongst the mud, blood, guts and spilled brains of a stinking mire, whilst men scream and the noise of battle rolls on.That's the stuff of nightmares. To a 6yr old is probably a bloke with a gun, " bang bang you are dead" and a little bullet hole with maybe a trickle of blood over the heart.

Your experience and knowledge influences your imagination, and books only have the " pictures" of your imagination. Don't expose her to the images from the films and she'll be fine.

Again umbridges sadism means very little to a 6yr old because they have no " framework" to hand the infomation on.

My parents "allowed" me to read what I wanted. I had picked up all sorts by her age (I even sat with a dictionary to work out some eye opening words about same sex marriage and biological terms). It'll be fine, the emotional journey of a book still relies on maturity / empathy - it's that side of reading that impacts adults more than the odd description of violence or sex.

My son was 8 in August. He's just about to finish Deathly Hallows. His choice. He started the series eight weeks ago, and has been reading them on and off with Percy Jackson, Skullduggery Pleasant and Horrible Maths books. If she wants to give it a go let her, if she doesn't like it she can stop. If you tell her she can't she's more likely to read it to prove a point and push herself too far.

Also some children's classics are a lot more traumatic than you might remember! Revisit them as an adult, you might be surprised!

Nanny0gg

It's not about discipline, it's about a child having a 'way out' without losing face if they've made a choice which turns out to be wrong. Beyond that it's about knowing your child, had my father tried to restrict me I would have found a way to get my hands on the banned books. He knew that, so he used a none authoritarian approach to guide me.

Books written for my age group bored me senseless, but I wouldn't read something by choice that I found scary/traumatic...then or now!

We had a pause after book 4 until the DSs were 8 at which point we did book 5 (so DS2 is currently half way through this one). Then we waited another two years until they were ten for the final part of the story.

Similarly they (10 and 8) have only seen the first four films. Rule in this house is that you read the book before you watch the movie

Umbridge's obvious sadism more disturbing than much of the Voldemort stuff as he feels like more of an ordinary 'baddie' to me.

Agreed. The sadism and the 'unjustness' really upset me in the unbridgeable book far more than any of the deaths in the later books.

Wild horses couldn't have stopped me from devouring the next book in a series that I was in love with.