When your Child Watch TELEVISION SET News? Surprising Thoughts of Top Anchors

More than at any time, children witness innumerable, sometimes traumatizing,
reports events in the news. It seems that thrashing crime and awful news is unabating.
Foreign wars, natural disasters, terrorism, killers, incidents of child mistreatment,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention the grim
wave involving recent school shootings.

All of this kind of intrudes on the innocent regarding children. If, as individuals
say, kids are like sponges and absorb everything of which goes on around them,
how profoundly does indeed watching TV news actually affect them? How careful do
parents need to be in watching the flow associated with news into typically the home, and how can
they get an approach that works?

To answer these questions, we flipped to a screen of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Karen Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced the particular
complexities of raising their own vulnerable children in a news-saturated
world.

Image this: 6: thirty p. m. Following an exhausting working day at the office, Mommy is occupied
making dinner. She park systems her 9-year-old girl and 5-year-old child in front
in the TV.

“Play Designers until dinner’s prepared, ” she advices the little types, who,
instead, begin flipping channels.

Education News on “NBC News Tonight, inch announces that the Atlanta gunman
provides killed his wife, daughter and kid, all three which has a hammer, before going on
a capturing rampage that finds nine dead.

In “World News Tonite, ” Peter Jennings reports that the jumbo jetliner with
more than 310 passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.

On CNN, there are a record about the earthquake in Turkey, using 2, 000
individuals killed.

On typically the Discovery channel, discover a timely exclusive on hurricanes plus the
terror that they create in young children. Hurricane Dennis has recently struck, Floyd will be
coming.

Finally, they will see a local news report regarding a journey accident from a Brand new
Jersey amusement park that gets rid of a mother and her eight-year-old little girl.

Nintendo was by no means this riveting.

“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Mom, unaware that will her children may possibly be afraid
by simply this menacing potpourri of TV news.

What’s wrong with this picture?

“There’s a great deal wrong with this, but it’s not that easily repairable, ” notes Linda
Ellerbee, the originator and host regarding “Nick News, inches the award-winning information
program geared with regard to kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.

“Watching blood and gore on TV SET is just not good with regard to kids and it also won’t do
much in order to enhance the lifestyles of adults possibly, ” says the anchor, who works in order to
inform children about world situations without terrorizing these people. “We’re into
extending kids’ brains in addition to annoying we more than likely cover, ” like
recent programs on euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer inside schools, book-
banning, the death fee, and Sudan slaves.

But Ellerbee highlights the necessity of parental supervision, protecting
children through unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma Town bombing, right now there were horrible images of young children being hurt plus killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
wanted to know should they were safe within their mattresses. In studies conducted by
Nickelodeon, we all found out of which kids find typically the news the the majority of frightening factor
on TV.

“Whether it is the Gulf War, the particular Clinton scandal, the downed jetliner, or even what
happened throughout Littleton, you have to reassure your children, over plus over again,
maybe going to be OK–that the main reason this particular story is media is that IT
RARELY HAPPENS. Reports could be the exception… no person continues the air flow
happily and records how many airplanes landed safely!

“My job is to be able to position the information directly into an age-appropriate framework and lower
worries. Then it’s genuinely up to the parents to monitor what their kids enjoy
and talk to them”