Well, there's a whole literary genre - murder mysteries - that encompass everything from the morbidly gruesome to fantastically tame...think Agatha Christie. Kids are exposed to 'whodunnit' type conundrums at school too (the ones like there was a man found dead in the room with a goldfish, how did he die?) - so hmmm, while it's not my choice of topic it could be really engaging to some kids. My DD tells me that last year one of the teachers with 9 & 10 yr olds had them write spooky stories, and the murder theme came up in a lot of those stories.
Yeah, I agree that there are lots more fantastic (literally! why get weighed down with the negative stuff of reality so early?) things to write about at this age. I don't think I'd be upset enough to complain, just disappointed I suppose.
In what context are kids being taught about anal sex in the UK, Lady Zaidie?!?
In that primary school children MUST be taught that homosexuality is great and this is how it's done, boys.
I don't mind my son knowing that some boys like boys, or that some girls like girls. They marry them and can be two daddies or two mummies. But I don't want mechanics of the love lives taught! I'd rather it focus on emotions rather than mechanics at that age.
I have a strange 9yo kid. She'd love it. Her teachers have her pegged as a horror writer.
I have books upon books of her stories and drawings of people being killed, maimed and tortured in progressively more creative ways. She thinks they are hilarious. She's been fixated with death for a very, very long time and can rattle off literally hundreds of different ways to die, which is always fun to have coming from the back seat during long car trips. We actually have a house rule of not discussing death at the dinner table, right up there with not talking with your mouth full, which doesn't always work if she finds a vein in a steak and asks what it is and next thing we're on a discussion about veins vs arteries and then it is onto exactly how you die if an artery is cut ...
I personally think her stories are really disturbing and they freak me out a lot, but that's just how she is and I don't think she's ever going to change.
And no, she doesn't play gruesome computer games and we didn't have a TV until recently.
One of the shining moments I remember was last year when she started talking to me (loudly, from across the vegetable section) about death and then caught herself and at the top of her lungs announces "oh that's right, I'm not allowed to talk about DEATH". The entire supermarket full of little old ladies turned around and looked at us
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