Rrgh.
– – – – –
This may seem like a weird question, but I am curious about something. I was thinking while finishing this strip up that earlier in the comic I would hear comments from readers about reading Selkie with or to their kids. It occured to me that, unless I am being forgetful, I haven’t really heard statements like that during this current… emotionally intensive arc.
I’m curious, do any of you out there with kids read Selkie with your kids or let your kids read Selkie? Just wondering.
This scene needs more popped collars and sideways caps.
That was one precision guilt trip.
My daughter doesn’t seem that interested but my son refers to Selkie as “Baby” any time he sees her 😉
I do read Selkie with my 8 year old son. He adores the story, especially this bully arc. He understands how upsetting it is to have kids pretend to be nice, then laugh at you. He’s had a few instances where we (parents) had to get involved to protect him from other kids. A couple times were at school. Once it was at our apartment complex with neighbor kids. None of them were anywhere near the level of some of the events in the comic but they were scary enough for him to be able to relate a bit.
My boy likes Todd because he’s a “good daddy” who sticks up for Selkie, listens to her, and talks to her when she’s upset. He thinks its unfair that all the orphans aren’t adopted yet. We volunteer with a local charity that helps kids whose home lives aren’t happy or safe, so he knows the orphan situation does reflect an unfortunate reality for many children.
One of his frequent comments is how terrible it would be to go to Selkie’s school. HIS teachers care, listen to parents, get involved, and escalate things to the principal as needed. We’ve had our little guy in group counseling sessions two separate years with his school mates. That was his teacher’s idea when she noticed him getting upset enough to cry during class last year. He’s the youngest age kid in his class and has a very high level of empathy. He gets upset when others are upset and tries to “fix” things, however he can. He used to get VERY angry when kids didn’t do what they “should” do, especially if one kid made another kid (or him) upset. He thinks Amanda should go to small group like he did “so she can get less angry”.
All in all, this is one of the very few web comics I let him read with me. Bully’s Bully is another one. Both comics provide opportunities to talk about situations kids encounter, whether we want our kids to go through them or not. Kids have to deal with emotional stuff and it’s harder for them than it is for us, as adults. Most of us get a little less easy to disturb as we gain more life experience (barring traumatic triggers, of course) so it’s sometimes easy to forget how new and startling everything is to kids. Being truly scared is, itself, scary. Anything that gives kids “permission” to talk about scary stuff, like what Selkie and the other orphans are dealing with, is a good thing.
Also, both my boys REALLY loved the eel-catching bit at the river. My oldest doesn’t normally read the strip but he heard his little brother shrieking with laughter and had to come see what was going on. They now think that they should catch some eels to scare people with. *sigh* I know that strip was a long time ago…but my little guy will sit at my computer and click back through all the strips until he finds it. There are some really great giggle opportunities mixed in with the serious stuff. 😉
This might have been more of an answer than you were looking for, sorry, we just really enjoy the comic and I think it’s great for reading with kids!
I sometimes go back to that one too. 😀
Strip #251 – in case anyone feels like looking for it.
I read Selkie with my 10 year old niece, but since she’s just learning English we’re pretty slow, and haven’t reached this arc yet.
Heh, I notice someone’s finally popped up with same name as me. (I’ve been reading Selkie, just not commenting a lot.) How should we deal with the confusion of the same name?
Make that “not commenting a lot recently”.
I propose Chess at sunrise! Best of five. ;D
Sledgehammers in five feet of water.
That was a real duel, hundred years or so back. Professional duelist, five foot two, challenged a blacksmith, six foot eight. The blacksmith, as the challenged party, had choice of weapons. He chose sledgehammers, while standing in the river, which was about five feet deep.
The duelist looked shocked, then laughed and withdrew the challenge. They supposedly became friends.
I also remember one about throwing cow pies at each other from hot air balloons. That one might have been Mark Twain.
I wonder if he was one of my line’s ancestors. That sounds something that either me or my brother would definitely suggest.
Yes I will read this to my kids when I have some. This comic actually got me off of the fence about whether or not I wanted to have kids and made me want to adopt.
I don’t have kids of my own, but I do have an 8 year old niece named Jade. She doesn’t read it all the time as she’s obviously not with me all the time but when I’m reading it and she sees, she likes it when I archive binge with her.
She doesn’t like Amanda or Truck. She’s talked several times about how she wants to beat them up. Then she takes a swing in mid-air to emphasize it.
She likes Selkie, sees her as herself and me as Todd. When I told her he doesn’t eat meat, she blew a raspberry at the monitor and said I’m a manly Todd.
My niece is a goof.
Manly Todd made me laugh aloud in the breakroom. XD
I have one daughter, but she doesn’t share the same interest in web comics like I do.
As for bullying, only once did it really impact my daughter and that was last year in April before spring break. A younger sister, of one of her friends threw a wet snowball at the back of my daughters head and it actually had a rather large ice chunk in it. My daughter got angry and yelled at the younger sister to ‘Not do that” and a verbal fight ensued, and my daughter came home in tears. This of course was surprising, because the youngest sister, of my daughters friend is the most empathetic and sweetest kid I’ve ever had to babysit. So I did what any sane parent (At least I think) would do. I called the school, and made the report on what happened, and the kids had a ‘group talk”.
It was actually rather surprising to the school staff as well, given they had an assembly that very morning, about bullying and how to prevent it, and deal with the emotions that may trigger acts of random bullying. The kids are all still friends mind you, and my daughter isn’t the type to shy away from people for one isolated incident, though I do wonder what triggered the little sister to throw the wet snowball with the ice chunk, in the first place. The younger sibling, did get suspended for a week though for the incident, and the two older girls were given a detention, and my kid was happy with that result. The only thing my kid did was get upset, and request they not throw snow balls at her, and came home and reported it to me. They saw no reason to suspend her too. Guess my kids lucky her elementary school isn’t like the one depicted in the comic. Anyway, lol, great story arc so far. I may have my kid read it when it has come to a full conclusion.
My grandson’s have the attention span of a spastic Chiwawa. They don’t have time for stories. Me, i’m lazy. 🙂
well, I don’t have kids, so no.
I don’t read Selkie with my daughter mainly because she’s too young to get the issues that you’re touching on that makes the comic worth reading. She’s 2 1/2 right now so she obviously doesn’t read but she understands a great deal more than the average child so certain things I am not keen on teaching her such as the insults the kids use towards each other. I’m not delusional, I know that when she goes to school she’ll hear and use words like these, but I don’t want to be the one to teach them to her, particularly at an age where she would be apt to repeat them with no real sense that it is not an appropriate word to use in certain situations.
That being said, as she starts the early years of elementary school I could see myself bringing this to her attention as it would be valuable at that time and we could start to discuss what she was reading.
So, if your underlying question is: “Is Selkie a family-friendly comic?” than my answer would be, yes. It definitely has value for the kids and isn’t too intense for most… unfortunately, most kids are going through at least one of the heavier problems you’ve been exploring and opening up communication is the best way to manage those problems.
Wonder if Tony will ever figure out that “messing with” people is just hurting them in a way you think is funny.
Wow, people really treat kids like fragile little eggs nowadays don’t they. In my day kids were treated like superballs.. indestructible, but you have to keep your eye on where they go or they’ll get lost.
Right? My mom BROKE A KID’S ARM because he touched her butt (she was tiny and he was a football player). She just got sent to the principal’s office to explain why, they reasoned it was a valid excuse, and she went back to class. Then again, she grew up in a poor neighborhood in a tiny town so the streets were rough, but she would definitely have been going to jail today.
Though to be fair the system is way too hard on innocent butt-touching too.
im a kid and i read this comic series all the time.
My oldest son is 5 and we don’t let him near computers because the only ones we have belong to us and we like them not broken.
I imagine when he’s older he’ll read it, as he wants to be just like me.
My kiddo isn’t really into webcomics but then, he’s 6 and wants to pay video games or attack invisible bad guys. Luckily, there isn’t many bullies at his school. However, he stood up to his BEST friend when he was picking on one of their classmates. Told him to stop and when he didn’t, he told the teacher. He’s always made me proud but that was just awesome.
I just wanted to say; that thing about standing up to his best friend? Kudos to him. Not many children would have the guts to do that, especially to their own best friend. I hope it didn’t affect their friendship too much.
My 11 year-old son has been an avid Selkie fan since I started reading it a year ago. He’s even cried during some of the sadder parts! A lot of the more subtle bullying gets lost on him (he’s ADHD and a bit on the naive side at times, plus he’s homeschooled so he’s really not bullied very much–unless you count his little sister, LOL!) but he’s keenly aware of much of the social interplay between the adults. As a former bullied kid, I totally understand the trials of the orphans and Selkie herself, and frankly I’m very thankful that Zane hasn’t had to deal with the same pain and shame I did when I was his age!
Both my Kids are pushing 30; but, I’ll bring it up next time I see them. lol
I have been following Selkie’s story since nearly the beginning of it’s debut
(not sure how many pages were up when that happened, but I was there before the transition to color)
I do not currently have any kids (nor am I planning to anytime soon)
but when I do, I plan to adopt and I intend on reading this comic with them.
Hopefully by then, there will be plenty of Selkie comics in print! ^_^
I appreciate that this is one of the few webcomics I’ve run across where it is family-friendly – that is, you creatively censor your own content so I don’t have to fear the language, at least, when recommending it to the various children who are part of my extended family.
None of them right now are interested in this comic specifically, but I do encourage webcomic reading now and then, and it’s nice to have a selection of ones I can recommend whole-heartedly.
I’m a teen and I read selkie
Since you asked … my kids are in their 30s. I don’t read anything to them any more.