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Comment by nineplay | Hacker News Reader

I'll point up to the original topic. Do you think it's a good idea to let a young child watch anti-vaccine videos? What about political videos which claim that 'the other' side supports killing babies? Young kids don't yet have the context to understand lying and propaganda, and it's not clear when they'd have the mental maturity to understand it.

More specifically, I was raised in a generation where adults didn't worry particularly about children seeing violent or upsetting content and it brought me nothing but nightmares and a lifetime of insomnia.

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I would explain the content to them. Explain all the different sides and my personal views on it as well as direct him to content with opposing views. Then I would let him form his own opinion.

My job as a parent is to help him understand. Not to build a bubble.

As for violent content I would tell my kid to just watch out for that and that the content is unpleasant. It's his choice whether he wants to see it. Usually at that age adult content or violent content is uninteresting or unpleasant so kids tend to avoid it anyway.

I will happily concede that your three year old is a more advanced thinker than mine is.

As for violent content, with YouTube specifically it is easy to watch it without being forewarned. I don't know if you are aware of Elsagate but the whole goal is to get kids to watch horribly disturbing content without warning.

6 year old.

At 3, he just had a playstation.

When he was 3, were you protecting him from the reality of the real world?

A baby can crawl in random directions. Of course I'll protect him from crawling off a ledge. But when he has the capacity to understand and judge I coddle as little as possible and expose as much possible. 5-6 is around the right time.

At 3 I don't let him run across the street. At 5 I tell him to look both ways and I tell him what happens to someone who doesn't, then I let him play outside.

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