Should Your Child Watch TV News Surprising Opinions of Top Anchors
Supplementary than yet, brood witness incalculable, now and then traumatizing,
news measures on Tube. It seems that violent crime and awful reports is unabating.
Foreign wars, normal disasters, terrorism, murders, incidents of child mistreatment,
and medicinal epidemics flood our newscasts daily. Not to cite the grim
wave of fresh train shootings. pene grande
All of this intrudes on the blameless earth of children. If, as psychologists
say, kids are like sponges and absorb the lot that goes on in the region of them,
how greatly does watching TV news in point of fact involve them? How vigilant accomplish
parents require to exist in monitoring the flow of news addicted to the home, and how can
they locate an approach that works?
To reply these questions, we curved to a panel of tested anchors, Peter
Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley--each having faced the
complexities of raising their own vulnerable brood in a news-saturated
world.
Picture this: 6:30 p.m. After an exhausting daylight by the side of the office, Mom is tiring
making feast. She parks her 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son in face
of the TV.
"Play Nintendo pending dinner's ready," she instructs the little ones, who,
instead, found flipping channels.
Tom Brokaw on "NBC News Tonight," announces that an Atlanta gunman
has killed his wife, daughter and son , each and every one three with a hammer, sooner than disappearing on top of
a shooting run riot that leaves nine dead.
On "World News Tonight," Peter Jennings reports that a oversized jetliner with
more than 300 passengers crashed in a spinning metal fireball on a Hong Kong
airport.
On CNN, in attendance's a report concerning the earthquake in Bomb, with 2,000
people killed.
On the Discovery channel, in attendance's a opportune individual lying on hurricanes and the
terror they create in family. Hurricane Dennis has previously struck, Floyd is
coming.
Finally, they perceive a restricted information tale regarding a roller coaster misfortune next to a New
Jersey amusement commons that kills a protect and her eight-year-old daughter.
Nintendo was never this riveting.
"Dinner's ready!" shouts Mom, oblivious that her children may exist terrified
by this alarming assortment of TV news.
What's mistaken with this picture?
"There's a LOT mistaken with it, except it's not that easily fixable," explanation Linda
Ellerbee, the creator and host of "Nick News," the award-winning intelligence
program geared intended for kids ages 8-13, ventilation on top of Nickelodeon.
"Watching blood and pierce resting on Tube is NOT first-class intended for kids and it doesn't accomplish
much to enhance the lives of adults either," says the fasten, who strives to
inform family about planet measures without petrifying them. "We're into
stretching kids' brains and there's nothing we wouldn't cover," as well as
recent programs on euthanasia, the Kosovo crisis, prayer in schools, book-
banning, the death penalty, and Sudan slaves.
But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity of parental supervision, defensive
children as of unfounded fears. "During the Oklahoma City bombing, here
were terrible descriptions of children being hurt and killed," Ellerbee recalls. "Kids
wanted to know condition they were safe in their beds. Inside studies conducted by
Nickelodeon, we originate not in that kids find the news the most frightening fixation
on TV.
"Whether it's the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or else what
happened in Littleton, you have to reassure your children, greater than and over another time,
that they're going to subsist OK--that the reason this story is news is that IT
ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News is the exception...nobody goes on the air
happily and reports how lots of planes landed safely!
"My trade is to put the information keen on an age-appropriate context and inferior
anxieties. Then it's actually out of bed to the parents to observe what their kids watch
and converse it with them"
Yet a new learn of the role of media in the lives of children conducted by
the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that 95% of the nation's children
ages 8-18 are watching TV without their parents present.
How does Ellerbee view the distinctive scenario of the harassed care for above?
"Mom's attractive a beating at this point. Where's Dad?" Ellerbee asks.Perhaps next to work,
or income disjointedly as of Mom, otherwise absent altogether.
"Right. Most Moms and Dads are operational as stiff as they can as we
live in a society where one takings just doesn't cut it anymore,"
NBC News correspondent Maria Shriver, the mother of four--Katherine,
13, Christina, 12, Patrick, 10, and Christopher, 6--agrees with Ellerbee: "But
Moms
aren't by means of the TV as a babysitter because they're elsewhere being paid manicures!"
says the 48-year-old anchor.
"Those mothers are struggling to make trimmings assemble and they do it because
they require lend a hand. I don't believe kids would live scrutiny [as much TV] if their
parents were home organizing a touch football game.
"When I want the TV as a babysitter," says Shriver, who leaves full TV-
viewing directions after when roving, "I put resting on a secure tape. I don't mind
that my kids have watched "Pretty Woman" or "My Best Friend's Wedding"
3,000 time. Credentials subsist extra afraid condition they watched an hour of limited news.That
would scare them. They might feel: 'Oh, my God, is somebody going to come
in and shoot me in my bedroom?'"
In a budge to supervise her own kids supplementary intimately because her husband,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, became Governor, Shriver
scaled flipside her workload as Contributing Anchor to Dateline NBC and set out of bed
her place of work on home: "You can by no means live on your guard an adequate amount of with your kids," she
says, "because watching violence lying on Television evidently has a gigantic collision lying on
children--whether it's TV news, movies, otherwise cartoons."
This outlook is communal by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, which states: ""TV is a commanding power in mounting cost
systems and shaping behavior...studies locate that children may become immune
to the horror of violence; slowly believe violence as a way to solve troubles;
and alternative to anti-social and aggressive deeds, imitating the violence they
observe."
Although present are no regulations about surveillance TV in 49% of the nation's
households, TV-watching by the Schwarzenegger home is about entirely
verboten:
"We have a blanket law that my kids perform not fob watch one Tube by all throughout the
week," she notes, "and having a TV in their bedrooms has never been an
option. I have an adequate amount of problem being paid them to accomplish their homework!" she states
with a laugh. "Plus the partially hour of reading they have to do all night.
According to the Kaiser survey, Shriver's household is a conspicuous exemption to
the decree. "Many kids have their own Box's Videotape recorder's and video sports meeting in their
bedroom," the study comments. Moreover, kids ages 8-18 actually use up an
average of three hours and 16 record watching TV daily; only 44 record
reading; 31 record using the computer; 27 action live tape sports event;
and a meager 13 record using the Internet.
"My kids," Shriver explains, "get home on 4 p.m., have a 20-minute shatter,
then go away correct hooked on homework otherwise after-school sports. Then, I'm a full-size believer in
having relatives feast point in time. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting next to the
dinner bench and listening to my parents, four brothers, and my grandmother,
Rose. We didn't watch the news.
"After feast now, we play a game, after that my kids are in double bed, analysis
their books. There's no point in time in that day designed for any Television, apart from resting on weekends, when
they're permissible to watch a Disney video, Sesame Street, Barney, The Brady
Bunch, otherwise Pokemon."
Beyond in safe hands entertainment, Shriver has eliminated wholly the option of her
children inspection news proceedings unfolding exist resting on TV: "My kids," she notes, "do
not timepiece one Television news, additional than Nick News," as an alternative as long as her children
with Time for Kids, [Teen Newsweek is also available], Highlights, and
newspaper tops discussed over dinner.
"No focus be supposed to live off-limits," Shriver concludes, "but you must filter
the reports to your kids."
ABC's Peter Jennings, who reigns over "World News Tonight," the nation's
most-watched dusk news update, categorically disagrees with a censored
approach to news-watching: "I have two kids--Elizabeth is currently 24 and
Christopher is 21-- and they were allowable to watch as a large amount Television news and
information anytime they wanted," says the attach. A hard believer in
kids considerate the world about them, he adapted his bestselling book,
The Century, meant for children ages 10 and big in The Century for Young People.
No downside to kids watching news? "I don't know of some downside and I've
thought regarding it numerous era. I second-hand to worry concerning my kids' exposure to
violence and explicit sexual characteristics in the movies. Like most parents, I originate that although
they were exposed to violence quicker than I would have liked, I don't feel
they've been pretentious by it. The jury's immobile absent resting on the sex.
"I have exposed my kids to the violence of the world--to the bestiality of
man--from the incredibly opening, next to age 6 or else 7. I didn't strive to hide it. I by no means
worried concerning putting a curtain sandwiched between them and reality, for the reason that I on no account felt
my brood would subsist hurt by organism exposed to violence IF they
understood the context in which it occurred. I would speak to my kids about the
vulnerability of children in wartime--the fact that they are guiltless pawns--
and in relation to what we could do as a family to create the world a additional peaceful
place.
Jennings decisively believes that coddling children is a mistake: "I've never
talked downhill to my children, before to children period. I for all time converse UP to them and
my news bulletin is suitable intended for children of some age."
Yet the 65-year-old fasten frequently gets letters as of irate parents: "They'll
say: 'How dare you put that on next to 6:30 when my children are watching?' My
answer is: 'Madam, that's not my problem. That's YOUR problem. It's
absolutely awake to the parent to monitor the flow of news hooked on the home."
Part of directing this flow is turning it rotten all told next to meal-time, says
Jennings, who believes family dinners are sacrosanct. He is appalled that the
TV is curved on top of through meals in 58% of the nation's households, this according
to the Kaiser study.
"Watching Box through dinner is unforgivable," he exclaims, explanation that
he for all time insisted that his family hang around pending he arrived home as of anchoring
the intelligence. "You're darn true they waited...even when my kids were tiny, they
never ate pending 7:30 or 8 pm. Then we would sit with no harmony, rebuff Television. Why
waste such a golden opportunity? Watching TV at mealtime robs the family of
the essence of the dinner, which is communion and exchange of ideas. I denote,
God, condition the dinner bench is anything, it's a place to learn etiquette and
appreciation intended for two of the furthermost equipment in life--food and drink."
Jennings is also plain in his view of junk Tube and believes parking
kids on the tube creates dull minds: "I believe by TV as a babysitter is a
terrible thought since the damn TV is incredibly downer, drug-like. Mindless
TV makes for passive person beings--and it's a distraction on or after homework!
"My two kids were permitted to watch only a half an hour of entertainment
TV for each night--and they never had TV's in their bedrooms.It's a conscious
choice I complete as a parent not to tempt them...too seductive..."
Adds Ellerbee: "TV is seductive and is destined to exist. The firm, apparent detail is
that when kids are watching TV, they're not liability anything else!"
Indeed, according to the National Institute on Out-of-School Time and the
Office of Research Education Consumer Guide, Tube plays a bigger function in
children's lives currently than always sooner than. Kids watch Television an average of14 to 22
hours apiece week, which accounts for by slightest 25 percent of their free time.
"Dateline NBC" Anchor Jane Pauley, intensely personal, declined an interview
to argue how she and her husband, cartoonist Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury")
handle TV-watching with their three adolescence, two of whom are fraternal twins.
But in a printed retort, she arranged that kids require to exist improved confined
from the offensive of violence: "I was a visitor at a communal elementary train
not extensive back, and was invited to peek in resting on a fourth-grade class on top of 'current
events.' The assignment had been to watch the news and inscribe concerning one of
the stories. Two kids selected the fatal assault resting on a child by a pit bull and the
other wrote about a child who'd hanged herself with a belt! They'd all watched
the most awful blood and pierce 'News on 11' station in settlement. The teacher gave no
hint that she was as appalled as I was. My response was to help the educate get
subscriptions to "Time for Kids" and "My Weekly Reader." People need to live
better information customers. And scandalous Tube is extremely unhealthy meant for kids."
On this point, Ellerbee eagerly agrees:"I actually accomplish suppose the first
amendment STOPS by your front entry. You are the boss by the side of home and parents
have each accurate to observe what their kids watch. What's smooth improved is
watching with them and initiating conversations about what they see.If your
child is watching impressive dreadfully violent, sit down downhill and DEFUSE it. Talking
makes the ghosts run...and kids can rupture from beginning to end their scared feelings." pene grande
