Good point, JJJ. I think the issue comes down to reason and balance as well as ensuring the child has choices available in the future.
As I said before, we hid some things from difficult child 3 until we felt he was able to handle it. This is a parent's prerogative although society can intrude and take that from you. For example, we realised at about the time difficult child 3 was diagnosed, that we needed to be truthful with him at all times about everything, which meant we needed to shield him from the usual childhood mythologies of Santa and the Easter Bunny (not sure if he would ever cope - didn't want to have a 40 year old still believing in Santa). But well-meaning adults in our life would not shut up, and really made a mess of things for us. "What do you want from Santa this CHristmas?"
But this was for an exceptional child under exceptional circumstances. We could not shield him; the amount of protection, the layers of cotton wool we'd have had to apply, in order to succeed, would have also locked difficult child 3 way from almost all social interaction and would have caused us even bigger problems.
In Australia in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, there was an ad on TV known as the "Grim Reaper" ad. I had a bit more understanding than average of HIV and was appalled and disgusted by the ad. The point of the ad was to convince people that AIDS potentially affects everyone; it was not just a gay disease as some of our right-wiing politicians were saying (they were calling for all homosexuals to be compulsorily tested and if found positive, to be incarcerated in sanatoriums). The ad showed a close-up of a robed skeleton with a scythe (and it was a very yucky, drippy depiction of Death) at a bowling alley. Only the pins were people. We had a close-up of the people (including crying children and mothers holding babies) as the bowling ball approached, then knocked them down. Then they showed the pile of "pins" as pile of dead bodies, including the same children. It was awful, it was meant to shock and upset, and there was no way I was going to let easy child, at age 5, to see it. We had quite a job, to get hr out of the room before the ad got too far into it. Other parents who were less successful made a huge stink about it but the ad ran its course for several months before being taken off for the next round of more acceptable ads.
Yes, parents censor input for their kids. We hear a man swearing on TV, we turn off that TV show. But it is still an interface between our child and the world, with us on the edge guarding, controlling, educating. To completely remove that interface, to shut out the world entirely because it is easier for the parent to not have to stand guard at all, is to set your child up for some nasty shocks when they are old enough to choose (assuming they are informed enough to choose) and to leave and discover what the world is really like.
Farmwife, about the war poetry - there is a website but it's student log on only. But I've just grabbed his notes (hard copy) and I will try and put here what I can. Bear in mind it is from a UK-Aussie point of view because Australia's history in war is tightly linked to Britain. In WWI, Aussie troops (together with NZ troops all known as ANZACS - Australian & NZ Army Corps) were the only volunteers in the war. They also tended to get used as shock troops by the British commanders, so copped a lot of losses. The landing at Gallipoli in WWI was a huge tactical blunder, but they dug in and held without being repelled, until called on to leave some months later. The departure was enhanced by some unique touches by ANZACS to keep the enemy thinking the beach was still covered. The enemy at that time, the Turks, are now close allies of ours and Anzac Day is celebrated every April 25 by Turks as well as NZ & Australia. A bit of background.
So - the first unit gives information on WWI and what it was like for the soldiers.
So after it's certain that the student understands the terminology of WWI, they get into the first poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by WIldred Owen.
Wilfred Owen was a soldier who told it like it was. He also was killed later in the war. His poetry is bleak, depressing but it is deliberately so, he is trying to counter the enthusiastic recruiting of a lost generation of British youth.
Next lesson - the poems are British, and very patriotic and romantic. Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier".
There was another poem, I can't recall it. There are many, I'm sure yo will find one that is similar.
Next lesson - the answer to romanticism - "Does it Matter?" by Siegfried Sassoon.
Then Wilfred Owen again, "Dulci et Decorum Est". An absolutely brilliant anti-war poem.
Next lesson - more modern poets, very Australian point of view. These are both songs - "I Was Only Nineteen" by Redgum (John Schumann)
There is a YouTube video clip of the song, well worth downloading.
Also in this set of work is another Aussie song although written and performed by a Scot - it's about WWI, but from a modern non-romanticised viewpoint - "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle. "Waltzing Matilda" is an iconic Aussie song, pretty much our national song.
Here is the YouTube link to the performance.
A warning - here you will find cultural differences in what we Aussies consider swearing. A certain word referring to purgatory is used in Australia and not considered to be swearing, and is freely used in these two songs. Appropriately. But if you have a concern, make sure you check this material out before you share it with your children.
What I am suggesting here is some material you could use to develop your own war poetry program. I would also suggest you include Walt Whitman's "A Sight in Camp" purely as an American poet's perspective on the casualties of war.
However, the Whitman poem moves a bit further away from war itself and comments on humanity in general. It also comes closer to the romanticised view of war.
There is a TV program that difficult child 3 watches, called "Arrows of Desire". It comes out of Britain, you my be able to get your hands on it. I highly recommend it for all students, especially those who are home-schooled. That is where aI encountered this Whitman poem and there are other US poets there too, although most are English.
Oh, one more - a lighter, more ironic touch on war poetry - John Betjeman's "In Westminster Abbey".
It's a marvellous poem, even humorous considering the wartime setting, when Britain really copped a lot of bombing. The character speaking is very upper class and condescending; but so very human and fallible.
Anyway, I hope this all helps. Together, it would give you some good material for a couple of weeks' solid work, hopefully also very enjoyable.
Any more ideas wanted, let me know.
Marg