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Out of my depth - how do I deal with the worrying anime and manga content my teen looks at online?? (TW: self harm and sexual violence)

dazedandconfused

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum (and my eldest has only recently been diagnosed) but felt like this would be a good place to turn for some support.

I'm really shaken after seeing what my 14 year old transgender son has been looking at online. To say I feel out of my depth would be an understatement. My initial reaction was utter revulsion, but I know that any form of confrontation needs to be avoided and  'forbidding' him to look at certain sites will have a very negative impact on our somewhat fragile relationship.

I won't go into too much detail - I have never had to post anything online before that includes a trigger warning, but thought it might be wise to include one here. Just in case.

He's completely obsessed by anime and manga. I've been concerned about the 'dark' themes of the anime series he watches for a while now, lots of psychopaths and death themes etc, but he seems completely oblivious to it all. Often he'll want to show me clips or montages from his current series and sometimes I have to refuse and explain that I find the whole premise of the story deeply upsetting. Most recently he's been reading a manga comic online about an abusive and violent male relationship, so I've spoken to him about it to ask him if he knows that's not what a healthy, loving relationship looks like etc. However, I didn't realise how bad it was until this afternoon. I feel physically sick to look at it. 

Ultimately, I spend every day walking on egg shells with this kid. Self-harm is still an ongoing worry so I'm really stuck on how to navigate this as a parent when the usual 'teenager' approaches are a no-go. There has to be a hard line though, doesn't there? - I mean, it would be irresponsible of me not to prevent him accessing stuff like this, but I know that as soon as I take away access to it, things are going to blow up in a big way. I guess I'm scared of his reaction and the meltdown that will result.

Our situation is probably fairly 'niche', but I'd love to hear from anyone who's had to take a firm line and say NO to something and how they went about it. Obviously our children are all different, but I feel totally overwhelmed and have no clue how to best approach it. 

Thanks for reading x

Parents

  • A lot of young people who are dealing with dark and traumatic feelings will be drawn to material that addresses dark and traumatic themes. That's arguably a natural and necessary part of processing these emotions and issues. It's like goths. People used to say goth culture was morbid and promoted depression and self harm but all the studies suggest that engaging with the goth community actually helped people, reduced sducidal ideation, improved depression. I dare say engaging with the anime fan community might help your son. It's only natural he'd be drawn to work with dark themes if he's dealing with those sorts of feelings and issues. And if it wasn't anime it would just be something else, heavy metal, video nasty's etc.

    I wouldn't worry too much about anime with dark themes but more about how those themes are addressed and about what kind of support structures you son has outside of the family to talk about those sorts of issues.

Reply

  • A lot of young people who are dealing with dark and traumatic feelings will be drawn to material that addresses dark and traumatic themes. That's arguably a natural and necessary part of processing these emotions and issues. It's like goths. People used to say goth culture was morbid and promoted depression and self harm but all the studies suggest that engaging with the goth community actually helped people, reduced sducidal ideation, improved depression. I dare say engaging with the anime fan community might help your son. It's only natural he'd be drawn to work with dark themes if he's dealing with those sorts of feelings and issues. And if it wasn't anime it would just be something else, heavy metal, video nasty's etc.

    I wouldn't worry too much about anime with dark themes but more about how those themes are addressed and about what kind of support structures you son has outside of the family to talk about those sorts of issues.

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