EastnWest,
To answer your question, we limit the amount of TV and electronics in general. Also, because he is homeschooled (and prior to that, he was in a very small private Catholic school), we are able to monitor and control which children he interacts with. However, ds is not extremely sheltered. If he asks a question that seems beyond his age, I answer truthfully. I give as much (or little) info as he is satisfied with in many situations, but if he keeps asking, I keep telling. There have been some times when he's learned about things that I didn't want him to know (such as, killing, murder, wars-when the news was on at grandparent's house). In those cases, I try to make sure he understands that he is safe and that his family will always keep him safe. This seems to be his primary concern (his own personal safety and that of his family.) He is very observant, so he notices everything, from billboards, to magazines, books I'm reading, you name it. And, he wants to know all about it. His only real exposure to info beyond his age is from me or the environment but we haven't had problems with other children. All of our friends share our values, and our son seems to be able to handle info that might be beyond his years. He doesn't share information with others if we ask him not to. We rarely have to worry about his behavior other than having lots of energy and tuning us out at times. Of course I wouldn't want him playing "execution" games,and we have an extensive "bad word" list, but we tend to expose him to the real world as much as possible. Of course, OUR personal world doesn't include much that he shouldn't be exposed to at his age, in our opinion.
Info we share and are open with that some people believe is not age-appropriate: world religions and beliefs of others, death and afterlife-not just our personal beliefs, reproduction & birth, homosexuality-frieds had two mommies, and he wanted to know why, so I told him the truth., divorce, disabilities, homelessness, charity, ghosts and supernatural (he's very interested in this), and the aging process.
Info we limit exposure to and discourage: excessive junk food, killing of any kind-we don't even encourage killing bugs, death of children (because he worries about his own death), bad language-the big ones and others including words like "hate, shut up, stupid, dumb, idiot, darn", child abuse, potty humor-ok, my husband's not too good at reinforcing this one!, TV shows that have no positive benefit at all, video games r/t killing or violence, violence in general. I think these are typical for most of us.
I like the idea of a mixture of homeschool and extracurricular activities or classes outside the home. Balance is important to us. Even if children are exposed to things you don't agree with, the more time you have with them, the more they are seeing a positive model of family, relationships, and life choices.
