CAROLYN HAX

DEAR CAROLYN: How do I talk to my neighbor about the inappropriate movies her son is watching and their effect on my son?

My children are not allowed to watch television except, on rare occasions, G-rated DVDs. I don’t want to come across to the neighbors as being unreasonable, but I’m not sure I can let my son play with him anymore if this continues.

Is there a diplomatic way to tell the neighbor that I think her son’s movie viewing is harmful to her son and mine? — Neighbor

No, but you can have a warm and sympathetic conversation with her to say you allow only G-rated movies in your house, and that when your son is at her house, you’d appreciate his not watching PGs or above. Aaaaand that’s it. What you can’t do is censor perfectly normal conversations bet ween perfectly normal kids, except for language or R-rated material.

I do sympathize with your frustration when a peer pokes holes in your son’s protective shield.

But even if you managed to banish this source of amicable corruption, there’d be another — at school, on the playground ... or, my personal favorite, the profane drunk fan in row 12.

Age 10 is a fine time to start teaching instead of just blocking. What are your reasons for finding X too mature for your son? Start forming those ideas into explanations for him. You can only protect kids for so long; eventually the education you instilled in them has to take over. Right?