More than actually, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing,
news events on TV. This seems that violent crime and bad news is unabating.
Foreign wars, natural disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of child misuse,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Let alone the grim
wave of recent school shootings.
All of this specific intrudes on the particular innocent world of youngsters. If, as individuals
say, kids are really like sponges in addition to absorb everything of which continues around all of them,
how profoundly will watching TV reports actually affect them? How careful perform
parents need to be able to be in watching the flow regarding news into the home, and just how can
they look for an approach functions?
To answer these types of questions, we converted to a section of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Nancy Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced the
complexities of bringing up their own prone children in a new news-saturated
world.
Image this: 6: thirty p. m. After an exhausting time at work, Mommy is active
making dinner. She park systems her 9-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy in front
from the TV.
“Play Nintendo until dinner’s prepared, ” she instructs the little kinds, who,
instead, start flipping channels.
Tom Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, very well announces that an Atlanta gunman
provides killed his partner, daughter and child, all three having a hammer, before heading on
a capturing rampage that results in nine dead.
In “World News Today, ” Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner with
more than 300 passengers crashed within a spinning metal ball of fire at a Hong Kong
airport.
In CNN, there are a review about the earthquake in Turkey, with 2, 000
individuals killed.
On the particular Discovery channel, will be certainly a timely specific on hurricanes and even the
terror these people create in youngsters. Hurricane Dennis has struck, Floyd will be
coming.
Finally, they see a neighborhood news report about a journey accident with a New
Jersey amusement park that kills a mother and her eight-year-old child.
Nintendo was never ever this riveting.
“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Trending News , unaware that will her children may possibly be afraid
simply by this menacing potpourri of TV media.
What’s wrong with this particular picture?
“There’s a LOT wrong with this, but it’s not necessarily that easily repairable, ” notes Hermosa
Ellerbee, the inventor and host associated with “Nick News, ” the award-winning news
program geared with regard to kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.
“Watching blood in addition to gore on TV SET is just not good regarding kids plus it doesn’t do
much to be able to enhance the life of adults both, ” says the anchor, who aims in order to
inform children about world situations without terrorizing these people. “We’re into
stretching kids’ brains plus annoying we wouldn’t cover, ” like
recent programs upon euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book-
banning, the death fee, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee highlights the necessity for parental supervision, protecting
children by unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma City bombing, generally there were terrible images of children being hurt in addition to killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
wanted to know if they were safe inside their bedrooms. In studies conducted by
Nickelodeon, we all found out that will kids find typically the news the most frightening issue
upon TV.
“Whether it is the Gulf War, typically the Clinton scandal, the downed jetliner, or perhaps what
happened inside Littleton, you have got to reassure the children, over and even over again,
maybe going to end up being OK–that the reason why this story is reports is that THAT
RARELY HAPPENS. News will be the exception… no person continues on the surroundings
happily and records how many airplanes landed safely!
“My job is to be able to position the information into an age-appropriate context and lower
worries. Then it’s really up to the parents to monitor what their kids watch
and discuss it with them”