TV AND RADIO REVIEW : 2 Public Broadcasts Take Children’s Needs Seriously : ‘The Lives of Children’ Series and ‘Listening to Children’ Special Are Profoundly Affecting and Revealing

The word children seems to have little real meaning in public rhetoric, other than as a political football to be tossed into conflicts over education, family values, violence, Medicare and welfare. It’s convenient to manipulate concern by giving children, particularly poor and minority children, a stereotypical face.

That’s why a new Public Radio International series, “The Lives of the Children,” and a PBS television special, “Listening to Children: A Moral Journey With Robert Coles,” both airing today, are so profoundly affecting and revealing.

In “Listening to Children,” Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist Robert Coles, with the aid of director and noted cinematographer Buddy Squires, offers a rare public look into the work he has done for 35 years, exploring children’s inner lives as they face daily challenges and sorrows.

Coles began his life’s work in 1960, inspired by a little girl named Ruby Bridges as she courageously faced abusive white mobs daily on her way to school, a desegregation pioneer at age 6.

Coles wondered how children find such strength and moral resolve, and that’s what he explores here with eight children, through their words and drawings.

They range from a 13-year-old boy in a New Orleans housing project, picking his way through a minefield of danger with the help of his remarkable mother, to a privileged young teen-ager in Massachusetts, plumbing depths of compassion and grief over his uncle’s death of AIDS and his sister’s mental retardation.

Sisters in North Carolina, daughters of migrant farm workers, try to understand why they are targets for bigots. Sisters in South-Central Los Angeles try to avoid the deadly danger on their streets and sort through negative racial messages, with the help of their single mom and a close extended family.

That the overwhelming problems children face hinge mostly on the actions of adults, from parents to politicians, is tragic: What Coles’ decades of observation have shown is that, even in difficult circumstances, a child’s best chance to become a humane, responsible citizen is to grow up with loving adults who treat him or her with respect and teach by example.

Public Radio International’s “The Lives of the Children” series, airing today on KPCC-FM (89.3) and next month on KCRW-FM (89.9), is the perfect complement to Coles’ documentary. Created by Claudia Hampston Daly and hosted by Linda Ellerbee, the five-part series offers a compelling glimpse into the challenges facing children.

KPCC will air four of the half-hour shows today, beginning with “The Throwaways,” a disturbing profile of homeless children and mothers. “I think if you don’t have someone to care about you, you, like, die,” says one girl.

“Colin’s World” taps into the hopelessness that even seemingly privileged teen-agers feel in the face of societal ills. “El Otro Lado: The Other Side” points up the insecurity and alienation of Latino youth--the children of maids, gardeners and child care givers in affluent Sam Clemente. Culture shock is the theme of “A Good Hmong Girl,” profiling young women in St. Paul struggling to find a balance between their patriarchal Hmong traditions and American life.

“Fostering Change,” about a boy in the foster care system, won’t air within KPCC’s two-hour format but will air later on KCRW. KPCC returns to the subject of children next Friday with the series’ passionate, two-hour, “solution-oriented” discussion, moderated by ABC correspondent John Hockenberry.

* “Listening to Children: A Moral Journey With Robert Coles” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28. “The Lives of the Children,” programs 1-4, air from 5 to 7 p.m. today on KPCC-FM (89.3), with the discussion show following next Friday at 5 p.m. KCRW-FM (89.9) will broadcast the five documentaries on Thursdays at 2 p.m., beginning Oct. 5.