What age should children start reading national newspapers and magazines such as The Sunday Times?

[Cleek]

My 8 yr old dd recently start to want to read The Sunday Times magazines. As my dd has a reading age of 11 yr old according to her school so she is able to understand most of the words. Nevertheless I am not sure if she is really ready to read such magazines or papers as some of the articles and columns do refer to sex or relationship issues and other world wide problems and violent etc. Should I stop her?

DS (now 10) has been reading the sport sections of broadsheet newspapers since he was 5 and has gradually progressed onto the news sections. He has listened to half an hour of the Today programme every morning (7 - 7.30 am) as part of our morning routine since he was very tiny indeed and though we thought it was all washing over his head he has in fact absorbed an awful lot of world politics [DH was made redundant a couple of years ago, and DS's first question was 'Is it because of the credit crunch?'!]! We have had many interesting discussions about why wars happen etc over the years at an age-appropriate level.

I would possibly be more worried about the magazine as it does have more 'relationship' type articles, but as long as you are prepared to read it first, answer any and all questions that come out of it and are prepared to occasionally 'lose' a copy with particularly graphic material in it then in general it should be OK. The Guardian had an article on war photographes recently and I 'lost' that magazine as the pictures were the stuff of nightmares even though the text accopmanying them was something that I would have been happy for DS to read.

I know my 10 and 13 yearolds read the BBC news on the web and I always read my Mums DM from probably 11.
We always had the tv or radio news on so saw those from very young.
I think the only problem is that papers talk more openly about sex, relationships, prostitution and LG issues than 30+ years ago. But so does society in general. I don't think we can shield are chidren and probably shouldn't try, but be ready to explain things if necessary.

Have you ever seen this?

First News is a weekly newspaper for kids 7-11

Hi CurrySpice - no I never heard about the First News. Do you buy that from Newsagency? What day of the week that comes out?

First News is BRILLIANT.

It is often available in good newsagents but you can also subscribe online and have it delivered.

I think it's out on a Friday. YOu can get it at my local Siansburys

I might subscribe to it for DD1 - I didn't know you could do that

Sainsburys

I'd go with First News, or vetted sections from the weekend papers. There are often articles I'd rather the DCs didn't read, eg last week's piece in the Guardian magazine about designer vaginas. Or war/disaster photography.

I've seen it in WHSmith as well. Am thinking about getting it for DS who's nearly 8.

Our school gets First News for our year 5 and 6 pupils. It's actually very good.