Media shown in classrooms

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My son is almost 16 and felt very disturbed about a film that his class had to watch in Health Education about abusive relationships. Well, the abused female in the film is murdered at the end and they show the knife in her back and the blood. I complained about this to the school and would you believe that his counselor recommended for him to attend a program that is installed for kids from mental-disordered homes. How in the world is my home deemed mentally disordered because both he and I felt that the graphic content in that film was unacceptable and psychologically damaging to my son?! !! C'mon people!! "Upset" over this kind of film IS the acceptable reaction if a person has a conscience. Yea, you need to enter a program because human carnage upsets you. The prerequisite to sophomore year is to be desensitized to the human condition!! Vent about this! How do you feel about what your kids are watching in class?! Well, they did offer him an alternative to watching the film but I'm still mad. I feel as if they gave us the alternative but slapped us at the same time because they were annoyed that they had to do so. Right now, I know I'll eventually calm down and come to my senses but I'd like to meet both that teacher and his frickin' counselor in the boxing ring. Somebody's going down and it ain't gonna me!! ! LIVID.

I agree with you. No need to show someone being gruesomely murdered in order to educate about domestic violence. I would ask the school if they understand the word "perseverate" and explain that that's what your son does when he experiences something that disturbs him. Request that they loan you, in advance, a copy of any videos to be shown in class so you can prepare your son or come up with an alternative if necessary.

I think because desensitized is the norm, the knee-jerk reaction is to think that if someone finds this that disturbing, they must have undergone a trauma.

That is my guess. Also a lot of aspies are super sensitive and I do not think they understand that variation because they assume aspies have low empathy because that is often what people are told about aspies.

It also just may be because it is always easier to boomerang things back and blame the family.

My son 13yr old aspie, came home last week extreamly upset and in tears about watching a short video about the holocaust. (Which I did approve before hand) He was teary eyed at school about it, and by the time he got home was moping around crying. He wants to go back in time and kill hitler himself. He kept saying there should never be war. It's so hard to teach them that while horrible things have happened in the past, and that do presently happen, theres not much we can do about it but to make good healthy choices in our own lives. There's no easy light hearted way to sugar coat the holocaust, or in your situation domestic violence. They still have to be educated about these things, it's so hard. People who judge the reactions of people upset/disturbed by this stuff are unfortunately very ignorant. : /

Was it actual footage of real life?...I imagine if it was a dramatization, they figured most teenagers could handle it, when I was 15 I wrote a paper on the holocaust and got to see plenty of disturbing real pictures doing my research...So I can see why they wouldn't have automatically thought it too disturbing for 16 year olds in general, even in drivers ed classes they show films of car wreckage and accidents. I don't think it means the school should deem your home to be the problem though.....Though if the film had the potential to be disturbing they could have at least warned the students so the ones who didn't care to see it could have left the room. That is what they did at all the schools I went to if something disturbing was going to be discussed/viewed. I mean if that really bothers him no class for kids in mental disordered homes is going to help...he shouldn't be made to watch such things if it makes him uncomfortable in my opinion, though I could honestly care less how much blood and guts I see in movies/shows/ect but that does really disturb some people.

I guess the school could be concerned maybe it bothered him so much because he's dealt with abuse....since sometimes people with trauma cannot really handle reminders of the event thrown at them. So that might explain their concern with the mental health....but abuse certainly is not nessisary to be disturbed by that, some people just cant handle watching that kind of stuff.

Well its not necessary to show a gruesome murder to educate about abusive relationships like another poster pointed out. As for the holocaust a little hard to educate one without any kind of visual images or film clips of what went on...then again might not want to bombard a 13 year old with too much of that. I mean I guess I see nothing wrong with being teary eyed and upset over learning about something like that, seems the human response to such cruelty.

That said while it is important to make healthy choices in ones own life and live that life as best as they can....I think saying 'you can't do anything about the bad in the world' may not be the best advice...Do you really want him to believe there's nothing he can do to improve the world?

Do you have a local television news broadcast? Maybe a local reporter would be interested in doing a story about this? I suspect that the administration would get their stuff together very quickly and come up with something more constructive if they thought it was exposed to public attention.

The school has been unprofessional and irresponsible.

People kill other people. Death is apart of the world and you should stop coddling him. For example, I watch videos of the wars going on in the middle east to see the true suffering of people so I understand the consequences of wars. If I was teaching a social studies class I would show it to my students as they should realize the truth in their society's action rather than stick their heads in the sand.

It's fine that it is not disturbing for you. I don't think you need to fill a kid's head with graphic images in order to ensure that their heads are not stuck in the sand. When I was younger, things like WWE (it was called WWF when I was a kid) made me physically sick to the point of actually vomiting long after I learned that it was fake. I still can't tolerate watching boxing or MMA. And sometimes particularly raw news coverage is the fodder for intrusive thoughts for days. I do not find this to be a weakness on my part, nor do I find it to be evidence that I do not understand the truth of society's actions. It is because I understand--maybe even too deeply--the level of inhumanity that man is capable of. And this level of understanding burdens me more than I think it burdens your "average" person. I am burdened without the graphic images. I do not need to see the true suffering of others to know that suffering exists. I am not saying it is wrong that this helps you to understand. I am only asking that you consider the fact that for other people, it might be too much...and unnecessary.

I think one thing that educators sometimes forget is that our kids are often developmentally behind their peers. So perhaps he is not developmentally "almost 16" but rather "almost 14." It is a big difference. My son is very sensitive. Stuff like that "sticks with him" for a very long time. I am lucky that so far his school has been good with offering alternatives up front. I do think that some kids are so desensitized that they need a bit of "shock factor" to reach them. I find that sad. But if that is what they need to "get it," then that is what they need, regardless of what my son needs.

Their suggestion/implication that his strong response was evidence of something being up in your home is ludicrous, though. I wouldn't have been mad that the movie was shown, but I would have been very ticked off if they tried to blame my son's sensitivity on something I am doing "wrong." I actually prize my son's sensitivity. I think it makes him a better person.

Yeah screw reality lets pretend it does not exist.

I am curious...how exactly am I saying to screw reality? That is not what I mean to communicate, so if that is what I am saying, then I would like you to explain where so I can correct myself. I have been known to be unclear in my communication.

I think we have to be careful in what we show kids--but we also must expose kids to what's real.

We have to be smart about it, though.

When I was 12 years old, I went to a Jewish camp. They showed graphic scenes of the Holocaust (I mean, they even showed the crematoriums).

I got sick from watching the films, and I had nightmares. I am fortunate that I was, eventually, able to " see the forest for the trees." I was able to realize that one HAD to be shown these images.

Other people aren't so fortunate. I don't believe one should see these sorts of graphic images until one becomes an adult (or has attained the maturity of an adult).

It is not about pretending it doesn't exist. Some people are more affected by visual imagery than others, just as some people have issues with certain noises, textures etc. This is different in that the sensory input links to an emotional component, but I don't understand what is less OK about this kind of sensitivity than one to shirt tags or high-pitched noises.

Well, teenagers are very sensitive. At this stage, their mind is in an impressionable phase. Even though many of them won't take these kind of graphical media on a serious note but somewhere it might make an impact in the future.

This thread brings back memories of two things--I first learned about the holocaust from the BBC world war two documentary series "The World at War" --That series showed many horrors, but the unflinching look at the camps, including footage of mass dumping of corpses into a pit, was really shocking to me. I don't think it was wrong to let me see it, but it's one of those unique horrors, like nuclear weapons, that sears the mind. I needed help to regain my emotional balance after seeing that.

The other thing was later in high school. They showed us a film about abortion and it made feel sick. I had to leave the room because I thought I would puke.
Everyone gave me a hard time about it. The pro choice people thought I was betraying my support of women's rights. The pro life people thought I should take it as a reason to switch sides. One of the teachers suggested I was just trying to get out of class. Lots of people said I just had to be tougher.

But the reality is that I had a profound physical response that had nothing to do with any of that. It was upsetting and made me physically ill. I also would have benefited from some emotional care then, but I was far from home and everyone seemed concerned with my need not to see it but no one seemed to care about the emotional effect it had on me. A little bit of coddling would have been better for me at that moment.

I used to think like you, Orangez, and try to face stuff that upset me to test how hard and tough I could be, then I realized that all that macho posturing is worthless. Who needs to see Daniel Pearl getting butchered? No one. There is no value in being exposed to dreadful stuff like that and it does leave mental scars. \

Death is part of this world but so is PTSD. Love is every bit as much a part of this world as death and so is tenderness and compassion. It's better to focus on the positive than immerse yourself needlessly in pain--there is enough of that in the world to drown anyone and there is no virtue in becoming hard (or traumatized) by wallowing in it.

At my school they had cops teach us about DUIs... and they showed us real and extremely graphic pictures and videos. I passed out when they showed a man cut in half by his motorcycle. I don't think that was acceptable.