Killing Monsters: Our Children's Need for Fantasy, Heroism, and Make-Believe Violence [Paperback]

 

 

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I am one of those people who are obsessed with reading parenting books. This is probably one of my favorites. Most parenting books leave me feeling inadequate, guilty, and depressed. No matter how wonderful we are with our children, we can't fight the evils of society. No matter how hard we work to be good parents, we're still not doing enough.

This is the first parenting book I've read that left me feeling actually HOPEFUL.

As a child, I had a VERY active imagination. I also watched a lot of television...including a lot of horror movies. The boob tube didn't ruin my imagination and the horror movies didn't turn me into a violent criminal. I always thought I was just an anomaly since the media and medical community keeps warning us about how horrible television is.

My husband also is a TV addict. And now our son loves to watch TV too. I kept worrying about it...that we were ruining our child's imagination by not throwing the TV into the trash. But after reading this book, I feel I can relax. Now I notice that yes my child watches a lot of TV. But he doesn't sit there in a trance. He watches a little, gets up and plays, watches a little more, than gets up and plays. He borrows ideas from TV and expands on it.

I also want to say that I used to be a preschool teacher. Every school I worked at had a no-gun-play rule at school. Even before reading the book, I thought it was ridiculous. Children just naturally want to play guns! As soon as you turn your head, they're turning legos and tinker toys into guns. Then catch them in the act of shooting. You ask them what they've made and they lie "A water sprayer!" I've also seen schools that forbid all super hero play. Come on, don't you think there is a reason that almost all children for the last thirty or so years have had a Batman and/or Superman obsession?

Anyway, this book should be required reading for all preschool and daycare workers.

In the movie X-men II, a frustrated Pyro announces "Y'know all the mutants you hear about on tv? Well I'm the worst one!" and lashes out by attacking the police cars with fireballs. This sentiment is easily understood by teenagers, who often feel accused of horrible things, so much so that they may behave horribly, because behaving well doesn't seem to change the way people view them.
There has been an association with media violence and fantasy agression leading to actual violence which has been reinforced time and time again, and I remember being a kid who listened to heavy metal and goth music, played roleplaying games, watched forbidden movies, and read comic books. As an adult I still do all of these things, and now I am a mother myself and have begun to reflect on what to allow and disallow for my child.
My parents were terrified of my behavior, they sent me to alot of different shrinks, who all assured my parents my behavior was perfectly normal, that I was well adjusted and mentally healthy. But my parents, who listened to right-wing radio which associated playing Dungeons & Dragons with participating in Satanic rituals, were not even convinced when proffessionals said to lay off me.
I have never been able to put into words why it is important to "kill all the orcs" but I vivdly remember doing so with my little brother in our backyard. We did so with karate chops and jumpkicks and the invisible orcs would fall before our ninja prowess. It was a lot of fun.
The basic thesis of this book is that imaginary aggression releases real angers and fears which are difficult for both adults and children to deal with. Our world is a scary place, and kids know it, and imaginary violence is a safe way of releasing these emotions.
This book does NOT condone actual violence at all. It makes wonderful points which I wish I had been able to articulate so well when I was a teenager. It is about time that we realized the differences between being afraid for our children and being afraid OF our children. The author has put together a solid, logical argument which I think can really benefit teachers and parents who are worrying themselves sick. How do children feel when they are punished for finding a nonharmful outlet for their anger? What are we teaching children when we push our own fears and anixities on them? Is a kid who is playing with a squirtgun a cold blooded murderer, or just having fun on a summer day?
We are becoming more and more scared because of what we hear every day on the news. Media violence. Media violence causes all of our socities problems.
Okay, let's think about this logically for a second. What video games were the Romans playing when they threw the first Christians to the lions? What rap music were the inhabitants of Salem listening too when the burned innocent women at the stake? We are afraid of the wrong things, and we are not making ourselves any safer by being more afraid. Talking to kids about how they feel and why is a much more effective deterrant to violence then forbidding them to play with toy swords. We really need to validate the way children feel to help them deal with their emotions in the exact same way we validate adults feelings in order to communicate, "I know that you are very angry because of...."
If you know someone who has adopted a Zero tolerance policy for children, please by them a copy of this book, even if they disreguard it, it would be good to give add touch of sanity to our insane world.

Après les diatribes publiques contre Eminem, les jeux vidéo, et la sexualité exacerbée des vedettes pop, Killing Monsters arrive comme un baume. En nous disant que nous ne sommes pas fous de penser que l'on crie facilement Haro sur le baudet!, il replace le discours parfois hystérique de l'impact de la violence en faisant le point sur l'état de la question d'une manière fort accessible. Jones est bon vulgarisateur et il s'appuie sur des ateliers qu'il a menés auprès d'enfants d'âge scolaire pour nous livrer son principal message : les enfants jouent; arrêtons de poser nos grilles d'analyse restrictives sur quelque chose d'aussi sain que le jeu.

L'essayiste a donc le mérite de poser de bonnes questions, même si parfois il donne l'impression d'offrir toujours la même réponse. De fait, le livre s'adresse davantage aux parents qu'aux chercheurs et cette visée d'un public non spécialisé peut expliquer la redondance du message et la portion "Quoi faire avec mon jeune?" à la fin de l'essai... Les chapitres ont souvent la même structure : à partir du cas d'un enfant X, à propos duquel les parents s'inquiètent, Jones expose une nouvelle façon d'aborder le problème, analysant judicieusement tour à tour Barbie, le phénomène Pokémon, les jeux vidéo sanglants et les films genre Natural Born Killers.

Les jeux sont violents? C'est peut-être le moyen qu'ont les enfants de gérer leur frustration ou d'essayer de comprendre la violence elle-même. La violence fictionnelle désensibilise les enfants? La désensibilisation n'est peut-être pas toujours néfaste. Veut-on que nos enfants figent devant le danger? Qu'ils ne soient pas préparés à aider une personne en détresse? Être trop sensible à la violence, nous dit Gerard Jones, ne s'avèrerait peut-être pas une meilleure alternative.

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2.0 out of 5 stars only half right
This book makes a valid point that children do need to connect somehow with those angry, violent, hateful feelings that we all have inside of us. Read more

Published on Mar 22 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended
This book is highly recommended, even more so if you have anything to do with kids. This book does a superb job of explaining things that many of have may have thought and felt,... Read more

Published on Sep 15 2003 by Randy Given

5.0 out of 5 stars New perspective on an old problem
If you read mainstream press reports and scholarly articles, you learn that parents, teachers, and politicians are afraid of what violent entertainment might be doing to kids... Read more

Published on Jan 12 2003 by James Daniels

5.0 out of 5 stars Great discovery
I recently stumbled across this book while shopping at a bookstore, and it came at a perfect time. I have a 3-and-a-half year old son that enjoys some shows that some people feel... Read more

Published on Jan 3 2003 by JR Hubbard

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for people interested in defending media violence
Well, I'm a 14 year old girl- not exactly the target object for this book, but it was very interesting, and it provided a great defence for when this comes up in discussions in my... Read more

Published on Dec 31 2002 by Nora Heineman-Fleck

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for people interested in defending media violence
Well, I'm a girl- not exactly the target object for this book, but it was very interesting, and it provided a great defence for when this comes up in discussions in my family and... Read more

Published on Dec 31 2002 by Nora Heineman-Fleck

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Antidote for "Conventional Wisdom"
Given how deeply the "media violence is bad" meme has sunk into our national consciousness at this point, it's great to see a concise and coherent refutation available. Read more

Published on Dec 12 2002 by Daniel Bongard

4.0 out of 5 stars Helping the good parent get better
The author's love for his child, and for all children, is abundant in this book, and clearly he writes for the parent who truly cares and is deeply involved in his or her child's... Read more

Published on Nov 27 2002 by Louise Hurley

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid this book if you think like I do!
The culture of violence has created the dominant narrative for western peoples since the Greeks. As the Greeks stole their legends from the Phoenicians, so too has Gerard Jones... Read more

Published on Nov 21 2002 by Anne Nelly

5.0 out of 5 stars Check those PC reflexes!
Ah, I love a good dust-up on Amazon.com. This is one of those books that makes people think--and many people, obviously, don't want us to think. Read more

Published on Oct 1 2002 by Tom Joyner

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