to think Coram Boy is not a suitable book for year 7s

[vegetaria]

My 11 year old had night mares last night and is afraid to go to sleep tonight.

For anyone who doesn't know it is about a man who buys unwanted children in the UK in the 1700s, and sells them into slavery if they are above 5, or kills them by burying them alive if they are younger, and it describes several scenes of babies being buried alive and other harrowing events

Its the class book at the moment

What preparation (if any) was given to your daughter's class before they started reading the book? If unsure, I would ask the teacher. The book has been selected for them - not chosen, so I'd expect a teacher to provide kids with preparation work first and to discuss with parents. That may have happened. I would definitely talk to the teacher as not only may it help your daughter but it may help other children. No-one should blame a child for what they take from reading a story or the fact that they are sensitive. Given what has already happened, i think it is better to continue to talk to your child about what we have learnt from terrible things that happened not just in history but in society today and what we can
do to try to reduce the risk of things like that from happening in future.

In a world without contraception, few women's rights and almost no social care, many desperate mothers paid others to arrange adoption of their children.
'Coram Men' had no connection with Thomas Coram or his excellent charity which carries on great work today.
Others like Amelia Dyer scammed the desperate for profit - her story is even more disgusting.
From a personal perspective, learning about the conditions of life (and death) in historical Britain helps children to apply more critical thinking to many of the half-baked theories and suggestions that are widely shared.
As an example https://www.bristolandslavery.com/why-were-slaves-needed explains that the city of Bristol only looked farther afield when they'd run out of indigenous, English and Irish unfortunates to work plantations in the West Indies - something that many remain entirely unaware of.
I'm sorry that the OP's child was distressed, but the book has won awards and to my mind is appropriate for the age it has been given to.

But it is not up to teachers to decide 11 year olds need to explore feelings about babies being tortured and murdered. That is just utterly crass, and very ignorant. Teachers have no idea what they are doing, messing around in children's heads like this

And as for GCSE texts, I have made a formal complaint to the exam board and had it upheld- exam boards can be total morons - I would not hold them up as an example of something that cannot be questioned

YABU

And if his class mates find out that his mum rang the teacher over a scary book, he’ll think YABU too.

Are you always hyperbolic like this?

Of course discussing things and exploring the context will help. It would probably help you if you could be open minded enough to think through and discuss the context and themes.

But you just want to be outraged. That isn’t helping anyone - least of all your child.

Things don't change much, I had nightmares from my set books when I was 11. Day of the Triffids and Lord of the Flies.

This was in the very early 70s and may be considered tame now but I have always had a very vivid imagination.

I do not understand who thinks these books are suitable for young (ish) children!

I'm a teacher. Every book we read receives a complaint from at least one parent who thinks that their child shouldn't have to read the same age appropriate book that all of the other pupils are reading. Or they think we should change the entire curriculum for 250 pupils because their child is upset by it.

If your child is upset by something that the vast majority of pupils, teaching staff etc think is appropriate then I would suggest that it is he who needs to make some adjustments. Of course it's upsetting but even more so when mum agrees and starts ranting about the school rather than discussing and contextualising it for him.

Upsetting things happened throughout history, and still happen now, and he will learn about some of those shortly as fact rather than through a work of fiction.

Seeings as you are so sensitive to what your son is exposed to, hopefully you don't use that ableist language around him

Teachers are qualified professionals who are tasked with educating children. That's 'what the fuck' gives them the right to decide on resources pertinent to the knowledge and skills in their curriculum to support pupils' attainment. Of course they are are able to model strategies for making sense of tricky topics and looking at different perspectives, just as well as they break down new language.and analyse meanings.

Not everything will be to your liking, but studying literature is about context, wider ideas about the world, people and their motivations. It would be doing children no favours to shield them from reality or to censor texts written to be appropriate at age 11/12, when they will be expected to deal with complex ideas for GCSE from 14/15.

Inform the school that your little one is too delicate (generally, or currently) to be exposed to a particular storyline if you must, but I'd avoid calling into question their 'right' to teach.

Not that I think you’re going to listen to any advice that isn’t ’burn the teacher at the stake’, but I really do think it would be helpful if you asked yourself:

to what extent has my extremely emotional reaction here contributed to (and increased) my child’s distress?

For all your shouting about trauma and psychiatry on here, you don’t seem to have in any way considered the role that you as a parent play in being a co-regulator of your child’s emotions. Your child looks to you to see how to respond - and the model here is not calm or reassuring or contextualising.

Reading the comments on this thread makes me despair. No wonder teachers are struggling. It is not your place, as parents, to micromanage the curriculum. English Depts choose texts with care and thought. Secondary school is a transition and more complex texts are taught. Googling the book doesn’t give you a sense of the prose style or the way things are presented. As a previous poster said - English teachers do know what they are doing. You’ve also established that it’s suitable for that age given the suggested reading age and the fact that it’s a prize winner suggests literary merit. If you contacted me or my Dept about this you’d be firmly put in your place. If we start allowing parents to dictate out text choices we are doomed.

I was a very sensitive child and have lots of memories of being really upset and scared by things we had to read or watch at school (right back from Charlotte's Web aged 5 through to Lord of the Flies and Talking in Whispers at secondary). It is really tough because I got laughed at for being upset - but it caused repeated nightmares as well as daytime upset so I really feel for your son.

As an adult I know and can hold my limits - of course I watch the news and don't ignore the real atrocities going on in our world, but I have no desire whatsoever to read or watch horror or fiction I would find disturbing or distressing. Ideally I'd prefer not to have been forced to breach my limits as a child/teenager as some of that stuff still pops up when I'm feeling vulnerable. I wonder if other people who aren't affected in this way maybe don't "get it" as they can dismiss it more easily and assume everyone can - but I can definitely understand your concerns.

(edited to correct spelling)

Hmm I can see why you'd be unhappy that your child is upset. However I remember reading that book as well as Her Benny, Goodnight Mr Tom and Diary of Anne Frank at about that Age. Yes sometimes I balled my eyes out! That is the point of literature though isn't it, to make you feel something.

My 12 year old is reading Her Benny now and we have talked about the themes etc, it's totally normal to have feelings when you read these things. Also it is the point of education to broaden horizons.

If you turn on the news now there is talk of babies dying and you also have some sadness in your own family. I would think discussing a book like that would be a way to talk about those other things with your DD as well.

I know we want to protect our kids and keep them young but sometimes it does them no favours unfortunately.

I love the idea that education has nothing to do with psychology. Like you're not attempting to grow people's minds.

It is upsetting when your kids are upset but the fact is your kid is growing up in a country whose leaders think homelessness is a lifestyle choice and whose asylum policies make children washing up on the beach quite commonplace.

I think it's very important that our children read about where this kind of thinking can get us and talk about it in a safe and appropriate environment.

You've commented more than once that English teachers know about 'English and education", but in your opinion, not trauma.

I think you'll find that 'education' encompasses wide ranging pastoral issues alongside academic, including child protection and safeguarding (in the true sense, not in the MN way) children's wellbeing, development, SEND, mental health, self harm, disclosure of harm, adverse childhood experiences, identifying abuse and neglect, child on child abuse...the list goes on.

If and when anything approaching this level of training is compulsory for parents who produce offspring, society might get better.

There's actually a whole body of research that shows reading and discussing difficult subjects with kids really helps with their emotional intelligence and resilience.

There’s no way the curriculum can or should be altered for one child, but I don’t think anyone should be forced to read or watch anything they genuinely are finding disturbing.

It’s interesting as I know for a fact at dds school most children are playing completely non age appropriate online/console games. Or indeed using the Internet in what I would consider a non age appropriate way. And I would imagine kids at her school are at the more sheltered end of the spectrum. I do despair.

I think you are incorrect in your assumptions that talking about it will make things worse. Not talking about it just means your child is dealing with it all alone. Just because YOU aren't talking about it and working through their worries with them doesn't mean THEY aren't thinking about it, trying to make sense of it but being unable to, because, well, they aren't mature enough. It will just go round and round in their mind getting bigger and bigger with no way to process it.

As a parent, it's your responsibility to get your child to open up, discuss what is bothering them about the text and WHY it is bothering them. As with any problem, sometimes, just getting it out there in the open, having someone discuss their feelings over the themes can actually dissipate any fear and trauma to a manageable, pragmatic level. You can agree it's an awful, tragic subject and that it's quite normal to feel disturbed but that bad things do happen and whilst it's perfectly reasonable to be upset about it, they need to be able to work through those feelings and to not dwell on them too much. Help them develop coping strategies, they are going to come across atrocities, fictional and factual and they do need to deal with the knowledge they will learn over the coming years. Help them NOW, avoidance will be far more damaging in the long run.

I reckon year 7 is the youngest I'd go for this book. It is really good, well written and gripping-but it is tough. There are some very difficult scenes- but also some powerful "good" characters as well. Maybe remind him of that - try to focus his thinking towards them.

Day of the triffids and lord of the flies were fiction.
I wouldn’t choose to read any book about being buried alive,let alone a baby !!! And when based on fact - horrible.
that would haunt me.
I had lord of the flies at that age - pretty horrible but FICTION and because I’d had a bit of experience of bullying at school (not me thankfully) I could imagine this extreme version but the thing is it was fiction.

Why would anyone be interested in this sort of thing, when frothing at the mouth and berating every level of decision-making at the school is an option? 🤦🏻‍♀️

I speculatively ran the idea of me calling the school to complain about the inappropriateness of his English curriculum past DS. Let’s say he feels that would be far more ‘traumatising’ than anything he’s going to be asked to read in English lessons. 😆

@Hereinthismoment "We recently did one with Year 9 which contained a graphic description of sexual assault. I was quite reading it but luckily my group found it funny rather than disturbing."

To be honest, I find this much more worrying than a child being upset by an upsetting scene! How did you handle it?

For the fun of it, I imagine.

Finding something funny in things is actually a fairly standard way that people approach difficult material. Focusing on the use of the word penis and finding it funny means the kids don’t have to think any deeper or really attend to the disturbing material.

I think it is ok for a teacher to recognise that this response may be somewhat helpful and to redirect the kids to analysing or thinking through the aspects of the material they have the maturity to engage effectively with.