11-12-2013, 04:34 AM
In my previous life as a mental health professional, I would never counsel parents to isolate children from the larger reality of the world around them. Rather, as age-appropriately as possible, expose them (think vaccinations) to the wider world and constantly, not occasionally, keep giving them context and distinctions, plus whatever history you may know, relative to whatever topic comes up. If you don't know something, look it up! Be a good model! The prime example here is lack of sex education via the family and schools. When reality strikes the kids, as it inevitably will, whether they are 10 years old or 18, without a background of understanding and being able to make effective distinctions between the different behaviors in the world around them, they are easily prey to whatever behavior/concept/ideology that happens to cross their path. They don't know any different! In the example of sex, if the only education they have is running across sex magazines or web sites in their late teens, they would never know there is a world of respect and dignity that should run through our sexual relationships. In the 21st century exposure to the big world around us is more ubiquitous than ever before. Bringing children up to understand these complexities that they will always have to face is one of the biggest jobs of parenting, now more than ever.