More than ever, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing,
information events in the news. That seems that violent crime and bad news is unabating.
Foreign wars, healthy disasters, terrorism, killers, incidents of child mistreatment,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention typically the grim
wave associated with recent school shootings.
All of this particular intrudes on typically the innocent regarding children. If, as psychologists
say, kids are like sponges in addition to absorb everything that will moves on around them,
how profoundly may watching TV media actually affect all of them? How careful do
parents need to be in watching the flow of news into typically the home, and just how can
they look for an approach that actually works?
To answer these questions, we flipped to a section of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced typically the
complexities of bringing up their own prone children in the news-saturated
world.
Image this: 6: 25 p. m. Following an exhausting day at the office, Mother is hectic
generating dinner. She theme parks her 9-year-old child and 5-year-old son in front
in the TV.
“Play Nintendo until dinner’s all set, ” she instructs the little ones, who,
instead, start out flipping channels.
Mary Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, inch announces that the Atlanta gunman
provides killed his spouse, daughter and boy, all three having a hammer, before heading upon
a shooting rampage that leaves nine dead.
In “World News Tonight, ” Peter Jennings reports that some sort of jumbo jetliner along with
more than 3 hundred passengers crashed within a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.
On CNN, which statement about the earthquake in Turkey, with 2, 000
people killed.
On the Discovery channel, discover a timely particular on hurricanes in addition to the
terror they will create in kids. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is usually
coming.
Finally, these people see an area news report concerning a roller coaster accident with a New
Jersey enjoyment park that eliminates a mother in addition to her eight-year-old child.
Trending News was by no means this riveting.
“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Mom, unaware of which her children may well be terrified
by simply this menacing potpourri of TV media.
What’s wrong on this picture?
“There’s a whole lot wrong with this, but it’s not necessarily that easily repairable, ” notes Bela
Ellerbee, the creator and host involving “Nick News, ” the award-winning reports
program geared intended for kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.
“Watching blood plus gore on TV is simply not good regarding kids and it also does not do
much to be able to enhance the lives of adults either, ” says the particular anchor, who strives to be able to
inform youngsters about world occasions without terrorizing all of them. “We’re into
stretching kids’ brains and absolutely nothing we more than likely cover, ” including
recent programs about euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer inside schools, book-
banning, the death fees, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee stresses the necessity of parental direction, protecting
children through unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma City bombing, generally there were awful images of kids being hurt plus killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
desired to know if they were safe inside their beds. In studies executed by
Nickelodeon, we found out that will kids find typically the news the almost all frightening factor
in TV.
“Whether it is the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, some sort of downed jetliner, or even what
happened within Littleton, you have got to reassure your current children, over and over again,
that they’re going to always be OK–that the key reason why this particular story is information is that THAT
RARELY HAPPENS. Information will be the exception… no one goes on the surroundings
happily and studies how many aeroplanes landed safely!
“My job is to place the information straight into an age-appropriate circumstance and lower
anxieties. Then it’s genuinely up to typically the parents to screen what their children observe
and discuss it with them”