Should Your Child Watch TV News? Surprising Opinions of Top Anchors

 KIDS AND THE NEWS

More than ever, youngsters witness innumerable, on occasion traumatizing,
information activities on TV. It appears that violent crime and awful information is unabating.
Foreign wars, natural failures, terrorism, murders, incidents of toddler abuse,
and clinical epidemics flood our newscasts every day. Not to say the awful
wave of latest school shootings.

All of this intrudes at the innocent global of youngsters. If, as psychologists
say, children are like sponges and absorb the entirety that goes on round them,
how profoundly does watching TV information really have an effect on them? How careful do
mother and father need to be in monitoring the waft of information into the house, and how can
they find an technique that works?

To solution those questions, we grew to become to a panel of seasoned anchors, Peter
Jennings, Maria Shriver, Linda Ellerbee, and Jane Pauley--each having confronted the
complexities of elevating their very own susceptible kids in a news-saturated
international.

Picture this: 6:30 p.M. After an onerous day on the workplace, Mom is busy
making dinner. She parks her 9-yr-vintage daughter and five-year-old son in front
of the TV.

"Play Nintendo till dinner's prepared," she instructs the toddlers, who,
alternatively, start flipping channels.

Tom Brokaw on "NBC News Tonight," declares that an Atlanta gunman
has killed his spouse, daughter and son, all three with a hammer, earlier than happening
a taking pictures rampage that leaves nine dead.

On "World News Tonight," Peter Jennings reports that a jumbo jetliner with
extra than three hundred passengers crashed in a spinning metallic fireball at a Hong Kong
airport.

On CNN, there's a report approximately the earthquake in Turkey, with 2,000
people killed.

On the Discovery channel, there is a well timed special on hurricanes and the
terror they invent in children. Hurricane Dennis has already struck, Floyd is
coming.

Finally, they see a local news report about a curler coaster coincidence at a New
Jersey amusement park that kills a mom and her eight-year-antique daughter.

Nintendo turned into in no way this riveting.

"Dinner's ready!" shouts Mom, unaware that her youngsters can be terrified
through this menacing potpourri of TV news.

What's incorrect with this image?

"There's a LOT wrong with it, however it is not that without difficulty fixable," notes Linda
Ellerbee, the author and host of "Nick News," the award-prevailing news
program geared for children a while 8-thirteen, airing on Nickelodeon.

"Watching blood and gore on TV is NOT correct for children and it doesn't do
tons to enhance the lives of adults both," says the anchor, who strives to
inform kids about global occasions with out terrorizing them. "We're into
stretching youngsters' brains and there may be nothing we wouldn't cowl," consisting of
current packages on euthanasia, the Kosovo disaster, prayer in colleges, ebook-
banning, the dying penalty, and Sudan slaves.

But Ellerbee emphasizes the necessity of parental supervision, defensive
children from unfounded fears. "During the Oklahoma City bombing, there
have been horrible photographs of kids being hurt and killed," Ellerbee remembers. "Kids
desired to realize in the event that they have been secure of their beds. In studies performed by way of
Nickelodeon, we determined out that youngsters news business locate the news the maximum scary thing
on TV.

"Whether it's the Gulf War, the Clinton scandal, a downed jetliner, or what
came about in Littleton, you have to reassure your youngsters, over and over once more,
that they are going to be OK--that the purpose this tale is information is that IT
ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. News is the exception...No one goes on the air
happily and reports how many planes landed adequately!

"My job is to position the facts into an age-appropriate context and lower
anxieties. Then it's genuinely up to the parents to reveal what their youngsters watch
and talk it with them"

Yet a brand new take a look at of the function of media in the lives of children conducted by means of
the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation famous that 95% of the kingdom's children
a long time 8-18 are looking TV with out their mother and father present.

How does Ellerbee view the standard scenario of the harried mom above?

"Mom's taking a beating here. Where's Dad?" Ellerbee asks.Perhaps at work,
or living separately from Mom, or absent altogether.