Entertainment News than actually, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing,
reports events on TV. This seems that chaotic crime and awful news is unabating.
Foreign wars, organic disasters, terrorism, killers, incidents of kid abuse,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. As well as typically the grim
wave involving recent school shootings.
All of this kind of intrudes on typically the innocent world of kids. If, as specialists
say, kids are like sponges and even absorb everything that moves on around all of them,
how profoundly may watching TV news actually affect all of them? How careful carry out
parents need in order to be in tracking the flow of news into typically the home, and just how can
they find an approach that actually works?
To answer these questions, we switched to a section of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Nancy Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced typically the
complexities of bringing up their own vulnerable children in a new news-saturated
world.
Picture this: 6: 30 p. m. Following an exhausting working day at the office, Mother is occupied
producing dinner. She leisure areas her 9-year-old child and 5-year-old son in front
of the TV.
“Play Designers until dinner’s all set, ” she teaches the little ones, who,
instead, begin flipping channels.
Mary Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, ” announces that a good Atlanta gunman
features killed his better half, daughter and kid, all three having a hammer, before going upon
a firing rampage that finds nine dead.
On “World News This evening, ” Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner along with
more than 300 passengers crashed in the spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.
About CNN, there’s a review 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 and the
terror they will create in kids. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is definitely
coming.
Finally, that they see a community news report about a journey accident from a Brand new
Jersey entertainment park that eliminates a mother plus her eight-year-old little girl.
Nintendo was never ever this riveting.
“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Mom, unaware that will her children may well be afraid
by simply this menacing potpourri of TV information.
What’s wrong using this picture?
“There’s a great deal wrong with it, but it’s not really that easily repairable, ” notes Bela
Ellerbee, the founder and host regarding “Nick News, inches the award-winning news
program geared with regard to kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.
“Watching blood and gore on TELEVISION SET is not really good intended for kids also it does not do
much in order to enhance the existence of adults both, ” says the anchor, who works in order to
inform young children about world events without terrorizing all of them. “We’re into
stretches kids’ brains plus absolutely nothing we would not cover, ” including
recent programs in euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book-
banning, the death penalty, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee focuses on the necessity for parental guidance, protecting
children by unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma Town bombing, generally there were bad images of youngsters being hurt in addition to killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
wanted to know should they were safe inside their mattresses. In studies executed by
Nickelodeon, all of us found out that will kids find the particular news the many frightening issue
on TV.
“Whether it’s the Gulf War, typically the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or even what
happened throughout Littleton, you experience to reassure the children, over plus over again,
that they’re going to be OK–that the reason why this specific story is media is that THAT
ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News is the exception… no person continues on the air flow
happily and studies how many airplanes landed safely!
“My job is in order to position the information into an age-appropriate context and lower
worries. Then it’s genuinely up to typically the parents to keep an eye on what their kids observe
and discuss it with them”