How teens benefit from having the choice to read “disturbing” books. They reported being more empathetic, thoughtful, happier, and better readers. I read a lot of “age-inappropriate” stuff as a preteen & teen (Stephen King, etc.) and it was fine.
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Discussion 4 comments
Our reading rule at home is "if you can read it, you can read it."
We aspired to that rule, and then discovered that graphic novels at the library can get pretty, ahem, graphic.
Our variation on that is they can consume any media that they can talk about with us. Our girls had some graphic novels that they were embarrassed by some of the content, so those were off limits for a while. They picked them back up again recently and we had some good talks about what they read.
It’s been really fun watching them be critical about the things they see and read. We just watched the second season of Fleabag with them. They immediately called out the Priest and the dynamic between the two of them as problematic and listed off all the red flags. They are 11 and 13 and my wife and I have never been more proud of the parenting we’ve done.
Prior to the YA books, there weren't any books targeted older kids. You had to go right to Stephen King, John Grisham or VC Andrews.
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