Top Of The World

More than ever, children witness countless, sometimes traumatizing,
reports events on TV. That seems that chaotic crime and bad news is unabating.
Foreign wars, healthy disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of kid abuse,
and medical epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to mention the particular grim
wave of recent school shootings.

All of this particular intrudes on the innocent associated with kids. If, as psychologists
say, kids are generally like sponges and absorb everything of which continues around them,
how profoundly does watching TV reports actually affect them? How careful carry out
parents need to be able to be in supervising the flow regarding news into the home, and how can
they come across an approach that actually works?

To answer these types of questions, we switched to a section of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley–each having faced typically the
complexities of raising their own weak children in some sort of news-saturated
world.

Image this: 6: 35 p. m. After an exhausting day time at work, Mom is occupied
producing dinner. She theme parks her 9-year-old child and 5-year-old kid in front
from the TV.

“Play Designers until dinner’s all set, ” she advices the little ones, who,
instead, start off flipping channels.

Jeff Brokaw on “NBC News Tonight, very well announces that a good Atlanta gunman
features killed his better half, daughter and son, all three with a hammer, before heading on
a firing rampage that finds nine dead.

On “World News Tonight, ” Peter Jennings reports that some sort of jumbo jetliner along with
more than 3 hundred passengers crashed in the spinning metal ball of fire at a Hong Kong
airport.

Upon CNN, there’s a statement about the earthquake in Turkey, with 2, 000
people killed.

On the particular Discovery channel, discover a timely special on hurricanes plus the
terror they create in young children. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is
coming.

Finally, they will see a community news report regarding a roller coaster accident from a New
Jersey leisure park that eliminates a mother plus her eight-year-old girl.

Nintendo was never ever this riveting.

“Dinner’s ready! ” shouts Mom, unaware of which her children might be afraid
by this menacing potpourri of TV reports.

What’s wrong with this particular picture?

“There’s Education News with that, but it’s not really that easily repairable, ” notes Hermosa
Ellerbee, the founder and host involving “Nick News, inch the award-winning news
program geared for kids ages 8-13, airing on Nickelodeon.

“Watching blood and gore on TV is not really good intended for kids and it won’t do
much in order to enhance the life of adults possibly, ” says the particular anchor, who works to
inform young children about world occasions without terrorizing these people. “We’re into
stretching out kids’ brains and even annoying we would not 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 for parental direction, protecting
children from unfounded fears. “During the Oklahoma Metropolis bombing, right now there were awful images of kids being hurt plus killed, ” Ellerbee recalls. “Kids
desired to know should they were safe in their beds. In studies executed by
Nickelodeon, many of us found out that will kids find typically the news the almost all frightening point
in TV.

“Whether it’s the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a new downed jetliner, or what
happened in Littleton, you experience to reassure the children, over in addition to over again,
that they’re going to end up being OK–that the reason this story is news is that THIS
ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News will be the exception… no person continues the air flow
happily and reports how many aircraft landed safely!

“My job is to position the information into an age-appropriate circumstance and lower
stresses. Then it’s really up to the particular parents to screen what their kids observe
and talk to them”