Many of you read the post I wrote earlier this week about The Hunger Games and whether we should allow our kids to read or watch it.  If you didn’t check it out here.

Our job as parents is to protect our children. It is time to stop letting our children, their friends, the media, society, the public school system, and our own friends make our decisions for us. None of these should be a barometer for our decision making process above or before we seek His will and wisdom from the Bible.

My husband forwarded me an interesting article warning about the violence in the Hunger Games and how that will be affecting our children.   Check it out here.

Just because your child read the books in no means should provide them with permission to go see the movie.  Reading and seeing are 2 different things….this movie has over 20 deaths which are portrayed on the big screen.

This comes from Common Sense Media:

Parents need to know that although the bestselling Hunger Games books are enormously popular with tweens, there’s a clear distinction between reading about violence and seeing it portrayed on screen. Developmentally, the 10- to 12-year-olds who’ve read the book may find the movie’s visceral, sometimes bloody teen-on-teen violence upsetting — especially the brutal scene that opens the Games, in which several teens are slaughtered by their fellow contestants. Even young teens need to be mature enough to deal with the 20+ deaths in The Hunger Games; characters are viciously dispatched with various weapons — including spears, arrows, and swords — as well as by having their necks broken, their skulls cracked, and their bodies ravaged by carnivorous and poisonous creatures. Despite the violence (which is, overall, less graphic than the novel’s descriptions but is still very intense), the movie explores thought-provoking themes about reality television, totalitarian government, and screen violence as entertainment. And Katniss, the main character, is a strong heroine who’s resourceful, selfless, and a true survivor. Her mentor, Haymitch, is initially depicted as a cynical drunk, but he ultimately proves to be a valuable ally.

This comes from Fox News:

“Psychologists say that parents have a reason to be worried. Reading about the violent death of children is one thing, but seeing it in a visual medium on the big screen is something entirely different, and possibly more damaging. The film, although rated PG-13, includes more than 20 deaths! For the youngest readers, the violence and the concepts in this book may have been largely lost on them,” explained developmental psychologist Shoshana Dayanim, PhD, who focuses on how video affects children and adolescents. “A movie experience is completely different. It becomes tangible, imaginable and the visceral response one most certainly experiences at the movies may be terrifying for these children.”

Yes, I read all 3 of the Hunger Games books.

I enjoyed them—from the standpoint of seeing what happens to a society that has too much governmental control.  Lots of interesting thoughts and conversations around that theme within the books.

No, I didn’t enjoy reading about kids killing kids.  In fact, the 2nd and 3rd books in the series are much more violent in the descriptions of the killings and if I had read those first I wouldn’t have continued to read them.

The crazy thing about this is that we can’t believe how barbaric the gladiator games were in Roman times.  BUT  now we are reading and watching movies about this same situation WITH CHILDREN AS THE MAIN CHARACTERS and allowing our children to participate in this crazy form of entertainment.  

Yep, it is a huge issue with more conversations to have about it….please take a moment and read the articles I linked to above and prayerfully consider what you allow your child to be exposed to.