How parents can help keep their kids safe from over exposure to sex and violence in the news
This article is not about the Janet Jackson super bowl incident. It’s not even about the sexual content of today’s “entertainment”. That’s another challenge parents of young children face today and I’ll save that for another article. No this is about the news, especially as it may affect our children and cause them unnecessary anxiety during what should be the “care free” days of childhood.
In recent years it has become increasingly difficult for parents to shield our children from the media and in particular the news. From September 11 th to the recent Tsunami, tragic images are shown, almost continuously, especially right after events occur. And the coverage of violent criminal acts, or reports of abduction, murder or sexual abuse of children appear almost nightly. Think about these stories from the point of view of a child.
The news is bad, and bad news sells, and sex sells even more. The reality of these facts and the lack of restraint on the part of the major news networks in recent years, the advent of continuous cable news networks, has put an additional strain on parents, trying to interpret these stories to curious younger children or to discuss them with older children in a way they can understand without being overwhelmed.
Children under the age of five should be shielded from as much of the news as possible and adolescents require a different approach.
But here is some advice for parents of school age children age’s five to twelve:
Children ages 5-8
Try your best to shield them from the worst and most graphic stories. Children especially young children do not have the capacity to understand, interpret, analyze and process this information as adults do. The younger the child, the more primitive their skills. They have very vivid imaginations and some difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy. Watch the news when they are asleep. Keep gory or upsetting front- page pictures out of view. With the younger children, don’t go into any more detail then is necessary and only answer questions they ask. They usually can only handle one fact at a time. Reassure your child.
Children ages 9-12.
Ask them what they have heard. Ask them to explain these things to you. Find out what they think has happened. Correct misapprehensions. Ask them why they think something has happened. Share your own feelings, if appropriate. Bring in your religious beliefs when relevant. Let them know that the news media magnifies the bad stories. Remind them of the good people and beautiful things in the world. Every day (or week) find some positive news stories in magazines or newspapers, someone helping another someone else. This age group responds very well to parents. Despite sometimes acting like they are all grown up they still long to be kids. They are still very attached and still want to hear what you have to say. They want your reassurance in a scary world.
For all children:
Supervise your children’s television watching. This means don’t place a television in your children’s bedrooms. Occasionally watch their favorite shows with them so you can see if the news promos interrupt their programming.
Do not have cable news networks on all day long. Only watch the news when children are not around or are asleep. Since the news is cycled over and over you won’t miss anything if you wait till later to hear a story. Avoid watching repeated images of tragedies when children are around. Younger children may think it is happening again and again even if it is the same video clip. (It’s not healthy for adults either!)
Set parental controls on your Internet provider, so that only the children’s home pages come on without urgent headlines asking for a click.
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