More than ever before, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing,
media events on TV. It seems that thrashing crime and poor news is unabating.
Foreign wars, normal disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of kid mistreatment,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention typically the grim
wave associated with recent school shootings.
All of this intrudes on the innocent world of children. If, as researchers
say, kids are like sponges plus absorb everything that continues on around these people,
how profoundly does indeed watching TV media actually affect these people? How careful carry out
parents need to be able to be in monitoring the flow associated with news into the home, and just how can
they come across an approach that works?
To answer these types of questions, we switched to a screen of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Helen Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced the particular
complexities of raising their own prone children in the news-saturated
world.
Picture this: 6: 35 p. m. Right after an exhausting working day at the office, Mother is hectic
making dinner. She theme parks her 9-year-old girl and 5-year-old child in front
from the TV.
“Play Designers until dinner’s all set, ” she instructs the little kinds, who,
instead, begin flipping channels.
Ben Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, very well announces that an Atlanta gunman
provides killed his wife, daughter and kid, all three using a hammer, before going upon
a shooting rampage that results in nine dead.
In “World News Today, ” Peter Jennings reports that some sort of jumbo jetliner along with
more than 3 hundred passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.
Upon CNN, there’s a review about the earthquake in Turkey, along with 2, 000
people killed.
On the particular Discovery channel, will be certainly a timely special on hurricanes and even the
terror these people create in young children. Hurricane Dennis has recently struck, Floyd is usually
coming.
Finally, these people see a local news report regarding a journey accident in a Brand new
Jersey leisure park that kills a mother in addition to her eight-year-old child.
Nintendo was by no means this riveting.
“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Auto News , unaware that will her children may possibly be terrified
by this menacing potpourri of TV information.
What’s wrong with this particular picture?
“There’s a whole lot wrong with that, but it’s not necessarily that easily fixable, ” notes Linda
Ellerbee, the inventor and host involving “Nick News, ” the award-winning news
program geared intended for kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.
“Watching blood plus gore on TV is NOT good intended for kids and it won’t do
much to enhance the existence of adults both, ” says the anchor, who aims in order to
inform kids about world activities without terrorizing all of them. “We’re into
stretching out kids’ brains in addition to absolutely nothing we more than likely cover, ” including
recent programs in euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book-
banning, the death charges, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity for parental guidance, protecting
children from unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma Town bombing, right now there were awful images of children being hurt in addition to killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
wished to know when they were safe within their beds. In studies carried out by
Nickelodeon, many of us found out that kids find the news the the majority of frightening point
upon TV.
“Whether it is the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or even what
happened inside Littleton, you have to reassure your children, over in addition to over again,
they are going to be OK–that the main reason this kind of story is news is that THAT
RARELY HAPPENS. News is the exception… nobody goes on the surroundings
happily and reports how many aircraft landed safely!
“My job is in order to put the information straight into an age-appropriate framework and lower
stresses. Then it’s genuinely up to the particular parents to monitor what their children observe
and talk to them”