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How much should parent's censor? 

This is a tough question and has many variations of opinion for sure.  Parents can censor everything from the cartoons their kids watch to the video games they play to the music they listen to.  Somewhere there is a happy medium and each of us strives to find it I'm sure.

For me, I probably censor more than most parents.  I'm not fanatic about it, maybe I should be.  But mostly I look at what my kids are watching or listening to and I think to myself, is this how I want my kids to behave?  If not, then it's outta there.  

I've chilled out some with each kid I have.  I remember I was adamant that my oldest not watch Rugrats because I just couldn't stand the idea of her acting like Angelica.  We would talk about how mommy didn't like how that little girl acted and so I didn't want to watch her.  She was ok with that.  I now let my kids watch Rugrats and you know what, I often find them acting like Angelica.  My middle child is 3 now and when she gets mad at her sisters she goes right into Angelica mode.  "Stupid Ariana!" and "Dumb Sarah!" are more common in our house than I'd like to admit.  We've now started to work on changing that behavior.  Boy, I wish we could have avoided it all together like we did with my oldest.  Luckily, she seems to be responding well to our behavior modification program (time outs) :-)

My oldest is going to be in first grade now and I'm finding it harder to censor stuff.  We don't listen to Brittany Spears or Christina Agulera at our house but of course I can't say as much for Ariana's classmates.  She and my 3 year old now sing parts of songs that I don't really care to explain the meaning of just yet.  This parenting thing is hard when you don't live in a vacuum.

At this point, the best we can do is limit what we think is inappropriate.  I try to limit shows that have attitude.  We absolutely avoid shows that are violent or have sexual content.  The same goes for video games.  As far as music, we still mostly listen to Raffe.  

~ Noelle (Mother of 3 girls, ages 6, 3 & 1½.)

What is your opinion?  Let us know!

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