More than at any time, children witness many, sometimes traumatizing,
news events on TV. It seems that thrashing crime and poor news is unabating.
Foreign wars, organic disasters, terrorism, killers, incidents of child misuse,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. As well as the grim
wave of recent school shootings.
All of this specific intrudes on typically the innocent regarding youngsters. If, as specialists
say, kids are like sponges plus absorb everything that goes on around all of them,
how profoundly will watching TV news actually affect them? How careful do
parents need to be able to be in monitoring the flow of news into the particular home, and just how can
they look for an approach that works?
To answer these types of questions, we switched to a -panel of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Helen Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced the particular
complexities of bringing up their own vulnerable children in a news-saturated
world.
Image this: 6: 35 p. m. Following an exhausting working day at school, Mother is active
producing dinner. She theme parks her 9-year-old little girl and 5-year-old son in front
in the TV.
“Play Manufacturers until dinner’s all set, ” she instructs the little ones, who,
instead, start off flipping channels.
Tom Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, inches announces that the Atlanta gunman
has killed his partner, daughter and boy, all three with a hammer, before heading about
a taking pictures rampage that leaves nine dead.
On “World News Today, ” Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner together with
more than three hundred passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.
On CNN, there’s a record about the earthquake in Turkey, together with 2, 000
men and women killed.
On the Discovery channel, will be certainly a timely exclusive on hurricanes plus the
terror they will create in young children. Hurricane Dennis has recently struck, Floyd is definitely
coming.
Finally, they will see a local news report regarding a journey accident with a New
Jersey entertainment park that eliminates a mother and her eight-year-old little girl.
Nintendo was by no means this riveting.
“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Mom, unaware of which her children may possibly be afraid
simply by this menacing potpourri of TV reports.
What’s wrong using this picture?
“There’s a great deal wrong with this, but it’s certainly not that easily fixable, ” notes Linda
Ellerbee, the creator and host of “Nick News, inches the award-winning media
program geared with regard to kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.
“Watching blood and even gore on TELEVISION SET is just not good with regard to kids and it also does not do
much to be able to enhance the life of adults either, ” says the anchor, who aims to
inform young children about world situations without terrorizing these people. “We’re into
extending kids’ brains plus irritating we more than likely cover, ” which include
recent programs on euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book-
banning, the death penalty, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity for parental oversight, protecting
children through unfounded fears. “During magic mushroom spores uk , right now there were horrible images of children being hurt in addition to killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
wanted to know if they were safe in their bed frames. In studies carried out by
Nickelodeon, we found out that will kids find typically the news the almost all frightening thing
upon TV.
“Whether it is the Gulf War, the particular Clinton scandal, a new downed jetliner, or what
happened inside Littleton, you need to reassure your children, over in addition to over again,
that they are going to become OK–that the main reason this kind of story is media is that THAT
RARELY HAPPENS. News could be the exception… nobody goes on the air
happily and reviews how many aircraft landed safely!
“My job is to put the information directly into an age-appropriate framework and lower
worries. Then it’s definitely up to typically the parents to screen what their kids observe
and discuss it with them”
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