Lawliet comments on On Juvenile Fiction - Less Wrong

24 Post author: MBlume 17 March 2009 08:53AM

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Comment author: Lawliet 17 March 2009 11:21:13AM 4 points [-]

If you want to stop someone from reading a book, there's generally better ways than telling them not to do it.

That aside, kids can be surprisingly dumb, I wouldn't rely on them reaching the right conclusions even with assistance.

Comment author: Johnicholas 17 March 2009 01:27:22PM 4 points [-]

What are the "better ways" that you allude to?

Unless you plan to be around to correct them forever, I think there's a point when you do have to trust the next generation.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 13 May 2012 02:59:08AM 5 points [-]

For the majority of kids, the best way to stop them from reading a book is simply to leave it on a bookshelf and not mention it.

Comment author: Vulture 08 January 2014 05:12:26PM 1 point [-]

Or better yet, just don't keep it anywhere visibly in the house. If you need it for something, keep it on the shelf in your locked study, amongst a whole bunch of other books.

In general, just remove it from their attention as much as possible, bot physically and psychologically.

Comment author: Desrtopa 08 January 2014 05:58:56PM 0 points [-]

I suspect this is rather less likely to be effective when you're raising a kid who you actively encourage to be intellectually curious.

Comment author: blacktrance 08 January 2014 06:00:52PM 0 points [-]

To provide some anecdotal evidence, my parents encouraged me to be intellectually curious, and they left plenty of their books in open sight, but I had plenty of books of my own that looked much more interesting than theirs.

Comment author: Desrtopa 08 January 2014 06:13:13PM 2 points [-]

My parents also encouraged me to be intellectually curious, and left all of our large number of books in open sight, and I suspect that some of the things I read when I was young probably would have distressed them. If not the books about child development and adolescent behavior and so on, then probably things like this book which I read when I was fourteen, which, had it had to clear any sort of ratings system, would probably have been rated X even if all the content of a sexual nature had been excised.