AIBU to let my son skip this at school?

[Redcliff]

My DS is 10 and has been doing WW2 at school. Tomorrow the class are watching "boy in the striped pyjamas". We had to sign a consent slip last week and were happy to do so. Tonight he has been in tears saying he doesn't want to see it.

My DP has made some good points about how important a film it is but I hate to think of him so upset. AIBU to tell his teacher that he can sit it out?

I watched that as an adult FairyAnn and sobbed my heart out, it's one of those movies I will only ever watch once.

Too young. I'm a History teacher and have watched extracts from year 8 onwards but not younger and I avoid the whole film to be honest. As an adult I can't watch it without crying and I'm shocked that it's considered primary age appropriate. As others say there are plenty of other ways of teaching this- seems a bit lazy teachery to just stick the whole film on... I showed goodnight mister tom to year 5 once and that was upsetting enough!

Regardless of the subject matter or it's educational benefit, I don't think there's anything to be gained by forcing him to watch a film that he's worried about and doesn't want to see, especially when the age rating shows it's not considered appropriate for that age group.

*Yesterday 23:50 corythatwas

The boy in the striped pyjamas is a shit story, completely implausible and very patronising in its attitudes towards the victims: don't see why it would be an essential part of understanding about the Holocaust at all. Even if your ds were of an age where learning about the Holocaust was appropriate.*

So glad it's not just me who feels this way!

Took DD and friends to see Suffragette which is a 12. They were 11- some of her friends had seen it and were fine. DD was very distressed at some of the scenes. I learned a big lesson from that- movies are age rated for a reason. I actually think that film could have been a fifteen (there is a rape scene and DD recognised she was the age of the girl it was happening to). It occurred to me it may have been rated 12 because people found it a worthy subject and felt it should have as wife a circulation as possible.

That could be the case here too OP and I would be very cautious about letting him watch it at 10. I do agree very much with teaching the Holocaust at primary but in an age appropriate way. Anne Frank's diary is a much better place to start.

Don't make him watch it, it is not a good film, there are a number of very misleading 'facts' and I certainly wouldn't be showing it to a group of ten year olds.
As someone who has had years of being responsible for the Holocaust in the curriculum in secondary school (I have also received a lot of training in this area and now train other teachers) I would not recommend that any child below Year 9 is taught the holocaust. Before then they are not emotionally resilient enough to deal with it. He won't miss out on this as it is a statutory requirement to teach the holocaust in KS3 (usually year 9) but this should be handled in a cross curricular and more sensitive and accurate manner.

Nice idea that watching it will help make sure it never happens again.
That worked , then.

Thanks everyone. I've asked him and his dad (who does school drop off) to have a chat with the teacher this morning and if after that he still doesn't want to watch it then he doesn't have to, I really like his teacher so I'm sure it will fine.

He is in y6 and they did Anne Frank last year which we had lots of chats about. We are planning a trip to the imperial war museum soon so I think that will give me an opportunity to talk about the subject more at his level.

I teach WWII. We never teach about he holocaust

Then you're teaching it very very badly.

Why aren't they reading the book instead of seeing the film?

Caseyatthebat- ITS NOT ON THE PRIMARY CURRICULUM!!!!!!!!!!!!
Several teachers have been on to say it's NOT ON THE CURRICULUM until year 9. This child is in year 6.
Once again for you, as you don't seem to understand- ITS NOT ON THE CURRICULUM AT KS2!!!!!!

I feel that film is not appropriate for 10 year olds either.

I have seen it and it is harrowing.

I would discuss with the school, and query whether it was appropriate. If they were still adamant on showing it I would ask for my dc to do an alternative activity during the film.

You can keep your bloody !!!! fit, not everyone is in the UK, you know. Who even fucking knows what KS2 is supposed to mean?

And that doesn't affect my point anyway. Whether its on your precious curriculum or not, they seem to be studying it, so why not the book instead of the the film, as it makes more sense, particularly for younger children.
My DS did the book in school at 12.

It would not have been appropriate for wither of my children aged 10. They simply would not have had the emotional maturity to handle the subject matter.

Fortunately he'll survive whether he sees it or not.

I don't think anyone is saying the holocaust shouldn't be taught (of course it should), but it should be taught to an age group that is emotionally mature enough to understand the full picture.

I was taught WW2 in year 3 (1992/3) and it was all fashions, evacuation, Anne Frank, Winston Churchill, the blitz, dig for victory stuff. It was around the time of the 50th anniversary of D-Day and a lot of us had grandparents who had lived through it, so weren't so detached as children today might be.

I'm fairly certain that we didn't touch upon the holocaust until secondary school, and it was part of a much wider spectrum of learning about Germany and Britain 1900-1945, so we were taught to understand the whole context, rather than just focusing on this one horror, which I think is distressing even to children at secondary school, let alone ten year olds. It certainly needs very sensitive teaching.

Hope that makes sense

Teaching WWII without mentioning the Holocaust is completely ridiculous. And it not being in the National Curriculum is not an excuse.

Both of mine read the book at that age (different schools). It is implausible and a stupid choice since there are 100s of testimonies written by survivors which are age appropriate (I highly recommend Livia Bitton-Jackson). My youngest also learned about the genocide committed by the British government in India during WWII. Teaching the lives of children on the home front needs context - after all more people died sabotaging V2 rockets in Dora-Mittlebau than died in Nazi attacks using those very rockets. They also need to learn the firebombing of Dresden. Otherwise, all you are teaching is British jingoism erasing Britains responsibility for its own actions.

And, as for being too young, both of my kids have friends in their classes who are refugees fleeing war zones. A lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is from people who have 0 understanding of British history. We should be teaching these issues in upper primary. Just not this book or film.

He's too young imo.

But more importantly, he doesn't want to see it.

If a 14 yo had this reaction? I'd tell you the same and suggest making him read Anne Frank or the book version of la vita è bella (I know, it's a movie. But I remember reading the script in school for our Italian class?)

DD13 has just started studying this in secondary as an English novel and thinks it's very badly written and historically inaccurate. She feels Schindler's is a much better film as it allows much more scope for discussion about the holocaust (even though she feels it's inaccurate). She's insistent in the class that they discuss the historical inaccuracies as well as the theme etc.

DD12 has also watched Schindler's and found it extremely emotional. She decided to watch it after reading The Diary of Anne Frank as she wanted to know more about the holocaust and what happened to the jews. This was just one of the films we watched at that time.

There is absolutely no way a 10 year old should be watching films like Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

It's distressing to everyone. It doesn't matter what age you are, if you're not distressed by it their is something wrong with you.

doesn't matter what age you are, if you're not distressed by it their is something wrong with you

Yes, but I think most adult can compartmentalise (is that the English word?) better than children that age...

Scottish

It also gives a very poor picture of the situation, there were very few children living like that. Most were killed.

I disagree. FIL was in Flossenburg, he was separated from his Father and Uncle and held in a separate children's section.

Am so glad to hear other people saying they think The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is dire. There is some very good writing for older children/teens about the Holocaust - for example Gudrun Pausewang's The Final Journey, which ends with the arrival of a train at a concentration camp & made me cry so hard as a teenager my father thought somebody must have died. Friedrich by Hans Peter Richter is a pretty powerful look at the life of a Jewish boy growing up as Hitler rises to power & during the Nazi period.

Over-teaching of WWII in British schools is something that was considered an issue when I was applying for university "nothing but Nazis & Tudors" was one summary of what the vast majority of people studied. My friends who went to school in Germany say that it was wedged into almost everything, with a heaping of collective guilt - & collective responsibility to prevent any such thing from ever happening again. Mind you, despite learning all about it themselves in Y9 I still got asked by a gaggle of anxious German Exchange Students if my History teacher had shown the video about Hitler just because they were there... (TBF she wasn't exactly welcoming & they couldn't understand a word she said so I was having to act as interpreter & they weren't used to being silent in class. That was a stressful 50-minutes-that-felt-FAR-longer...

But anyway, returning to the sheep at hand, perfectly reasonable to have changed your mind on this one OP. It might make things more awkward at school if they need to arrange supervision/somewhere for him to be/something for him to do at the last minute, but tbh that's vastly better for them than having a massively distressed Master Redcliff on their hands. I hope it all goes ok for him at school today.

sashh
The afterwords, at least, of all the editions of The Diary of Anne Frank that I've seen have included some information about the Holocaust, even if "only" the fates of the occupants of the Secret Annexe. My 1997 Puffin Books copy says on the flyleaf (it's in the stack of books on my bedside table after a re-read on Holocaust Memorial Day... said stack is indeed a bit perilous, yes) that Anne "died while imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen" and "Otto H. Frank was the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust". The afterword gives full details - as far as known - of what happened to the occupants of the Annexe. Not a huge amount of information, but I can see why HumpMeBogart feels The Diary of Anne Frank was - for want of a better phrase - her introduction to the Holocaust.

I don't understand why this book/film was chosen. Wouldn't something like 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' be more appropriate for the age group?

I wouldn't let my DD see it. She was barely able to cope with the threat of the cop at the beginning of Hidden Figures (admittedly she's only 8 at the moment). There is no way she'd manage a 12 that's a 12 for threat.

Btw, if we're talking about movies around WW2 that show somewhat "alternative" viewpoints (I mean in the sense that it shows how it impacted different people).

May I suggest "unter dem Sand" (land of mine)? It's about young (mostly teenagers) and untrained German prisoners forced to remove the mines in the sand and how they were treated by the Danes. Their superior initially really dislikes them but comes to realise that they are also victims.

(Btw, it's also definitely not appropriate for a 10 yo)

dd is also 10 and also doing ww2

they haven't even touched on the holocaust except in passing.