Because the child is aware of death, and of the fact that one can die suddenly. That's true, no matter what one's religious beliefs, but is not something I would consider child appropriate knowledge. You may have lost me there. I'd have thought that watching Cedric Diggory die at Voldemort's hands would be a lot less appropriate than the abstract knowledge that one may or may not die at some undefined point of time.
Is reading to one's children a common US thing? I have no idea - I'm not American and I don't live there. (Try Barefootpuddles - I'm pretty sure she's American.) In our family there's more of a social divide than a cultural one regarding reading aloud. I'm pretty sure that my mother (teacher) read to us until well into our primary school years. When my mother-in-law OTOH (working class background, no higher education) saw us reading aloud to our children she said somewhat wistfully that the idea of reading to her children never occurred to her. We (my husband and I) do it because we both love reading to the children and it's a fun way to spend time with them. It shows the children that reading is important enough to us that we sacrifice time to do it with them - an attitude that has led to all our children reading extensively right into puberty, when most of their peers drop the habit (if they ever had it). It has the added advantage of ensuring that our children get to know certain classics of children's literature that we consider valuable, regardless of whether they themselves have the stamina to read them or not. We only stop reading to them when they don't want it anymore, regardless of how well they can read themselves. Our youngest child only started reading books because she got impatient with the pace at which my husband was reading the Harry Potter books to her, so she started reading ahead (saying that she needed to do so in order to 'help' him with difficult words). Without that incentive she would never have started reading - the story line with Rachel reading the fourth HP book to her mother's distress was adapted from my experience with my own brat, who still refuses to read anything but Harry Potter ...
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Date: 2012-06-07 10:59 pm (UTC)You may have lost me there. I'd have thought that watching Cedric Diggory die at Voldemort's hands would be a lot less appropriate than the abstract knowledge that one may or may not die at some undefined point of time.
Is reading to one's children a common US thing?
I have no idea - I'm not American and I don't live there. (Try Barefootpuddles - I'm pretty sure she's American.) In our family there's more of a social divide than a cultural one regarding reading aloud. I'm pretty sure that my mother (teacher) read to us until well into our primary school years. When my mother-in-law OTOH (working class background, no higher education) saw us reading aloud to our children she said somewhat wistfully that the idea of reading to her children never occurred to her. We (my husband and I) do it because we both love reading to the children and it's a fun way to spend time with them. It shows the children that reading is important enough to us that we sacrifice time to do it with them - an attitude that has led to all our children reading extensively right into puberty, when most of their peers drop the habit (if they ever had it). It has the added advantage of ensuring that our children get to know certain classics of children's literature that we consider valuable, regardless of whether they themselves have the stamina to read them or not. We only stop reading to them when they don't want it anymore, regardless of how well they can read themselves. Our youngest child only started reading books because she got impatient with the pace at which my husband was reading the Harry Potter books to her, so she started reading ahead (saying that she needed to do so in order to 'help' him with difficult words). Without that incentive she would never have started reading - the story line with Rachel reading the fourth HP book to her mother's distress was adapted from my experience with my own brat, who still refuses to read anything but Harry Potter ...