Comment by Sam713

Just curious, why would you want to shield them from reality? At 13 they’re only a few years from becoming a full fledged adult. Unsheltered life is coming at them fast. I don’t have children yet, so maybe my perspective would change if I did, but (while I would not intentionally expose them to harsher realities) I would never shield my kids. Instead, I would want them to be curious and ask questions while I still had a large influence in their lives, so that I could help guide them and give them tools and strategies to navigate a complex world. I experienced a fairly sheltered (religious/conservative) upbringing socially, but we had a subscription to US News & World report during the height of the GWOT which I read cover to cover. I understood geopolitics before I understood how to make friends. My transition to adult life was tough socially, but I at least had a decent understanding of how the world worked on a macro scale. If children are not sheltered socially, then they’re already encountering pretty much everything through their social circles. And with the internet, 10x+ that.