Basic Trope: Someone stops a kid from witnessing violence, nudity, profanity, sexual displays, scary events, etc, by covering the kid's eyes or ears.
- Straight:
- Alice and Bob kiss. Betty covers Cute Kid Charlie's eyes.
- Alice is stripped naked. Betty covers Cute Kid Charlie's eyes.
- Bob drops a Cluster F-Bomb. Betty covers Cute Kid Charlie's ears.
- Alice the werewolf is undergoing a Painful Transformation complete with Wardrobe Malfunction. Betty turns Charlie away (so Charlie can't see the Wardrobe Malfunction or disturbing transformation) and covers Charlie's ears (so Charlie can't hear the yelps and Sickening "Crunch!").
- Exaggerated:
- Betty, Carol, Edward and Daniel all converge on Cute Kid Charlie, multiple hands cover each eye and ear.
- Betty doesn't just cover Charlie's ears and eyes, but carries him away from the situation.
- Betty blinds Charlie so he can’t see Alice naked.
- Downplayed:
- Betty distracts Cute Kid Charlie by pointing out a cute puppy in the opposite direction.
- Betty steps in front of Charlie so he can’t see anything.
- Justified:
- Cute Kid Charlie is just a bit too young to understand the concept of profanity, but he's still old enough to talk. To prevent Innocent Swearing and a Bewildering Punishment, Betty covers Charlie's ears so he won't hear the profanity in the first place.
- Betty doesn't want Charlie to be frightened by what he's witnessing.
- Inverted:
- The would-be witness is a not-so-innocent adult. For instance, Alice and Bob are watching TV. Bob is a Recovered Addict (or has PTSD), so when the TV shows a Binge Montage or other Trigger, Alice covers Bob's eyes.
- Betty wants Charlie to witness the event, so when he instinctively shields his eyes and/or ears, she makes him watch.
- Subverted: Cute Kid Charlie peeks around the shielding hand.
- Double Subverted: Betty moves her shielding hand back into position.
- Parodied:
- Betty covers Charlie's eyes when she meant to cover Charlie's ears and vice versa.
- Charlie is the one who covers Betty's eyes and/or ears.
- After Betty covers Charlie's eyes, Charlie covers his little sister's eyes as well.
- Charlie's eyes get covered even though he's well old enough to handle witnessing the adult situation.
- Someone covers Charlie's eyes and/or ears when something completely innocent is going on. (Bonus points if they don't care when something legitimately adult is going on around Charlie.)
- Zig Zagged: Charlie keeps trying to evade the censoring hands and gets glimpses of what's going on.
- Averted:
- Nobody covers the kids' eyes.
- There are no kids among the witnesses.
- Enforced: Something Harmful to Minors is going on while kids are around, and they want there to be a reason why the kids aren't traumatized afterwards, so they decide that some adults are there to cover the kids' eyes and/or ears.
- Lampshaded: "Yeah, I think he’s already seen enough, Betty."
- Invoked: "Betty, quick, cover the kid's eyes!"
- Exploited:
- Charlie's bully takes advantage of the distraction and the censoring hands to steal Charlie's toy unnoticed and make his getaway.
- Alice, Bob, Betty and Carol are thieves stuck in a room with Charlie and the jewel they are after, and they are unable to get Charlie out and unwilling to hurt him. Alice and Bob kiss so Betty would have a reason to cover Charlie’s eyes and Carol can snatch the jewel without notice.
- Betty is planning to kidnap Charlie, but knows that he’s too smart to trick and would resist if she attempts to incapacitate him, so she sabotages Alice’s outfit before she gets on stage. When it falls apart on stage and leaves her naked, Betty covers Charlie’s eyes and injects him with a sedative before carrying him away.
- Defied: Cute Kid Charlie puts up a fight and slaps away the censoring hands.
- Discussed: "Hey, I wanna see what's going on!"
- Conversed: "Why do they always put their hands over the kids' ears and eyes whenever something inappropriate for kids shows up? Why not just take the kid out of the room?"
- Played For Drama: Alice is being raped in the room next to Charlie and Betty is trying to distract him from her cries and screams.
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