Why does nobody talk about how banning books can backfire on kids

I used to think pushing back on every single book ban in my school district was the right move, but after a board meeting in Topeka last spring, I saw something different. My own kid started sneaking the banned list titles from the library at night, and it hit me that the ban made them way more appealing than any normal assigned reading. Turns out I was fighting the symptom, not the cause, and the real fix was getting kids to debate the material openly instead of making it forbidden fruit. Now I focus on teaching critical reading skills rather than just yelling at the board, and my 14 year old actually talks to me about the books instead of hiding them. Has anyone else found that bans just create a bigger draw for teens, or am I the only one who flipped on this?

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loganburns16d ago

Man that reminds me of when my cousin hid a romance novel in the hayloft and we got caught reading it during chores, wild times.