Help Kids Cope With Nightly News

As quarrels about the television rating system continue, still unrated are the most sensational and upsetting programs: TV news. Millions of children are exposed daily to images of mayhem far worse than those found on most TV-M rated shows. The mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe is a prime example. Children will have important unanswered questions about violence and religious cults. As the details of these bizarre deaths emerge, many youngsters will be terrified, confused and saddened.

In a survey by Children Now, 65% of the children reported watching a news program the day before their interview; half felt depressed, angry or sad after watching. Yet concern about news shows is absent from discussions of quality television, the V-chip and the rating system.

This silence stems from the competing values of protecting children and freedom of the press, a tangle that seems impossible to undo. The obvious question--if news can be harmful to children should it be subject to ratings?--is an ethical and political nightmare. News programs, consequently, are omitted from the rating system. Yet news can have a powerfully negative impact on kids.

When the Challenger blew up before the eyes of millions of American school children, adults rallied to help them cope with this dramatic tragedy. In the wake of the explosion, experts offering advice for families appeared all over the media.

More recently, the Oklahoma City bombing prompted an outpouring of concern for children’s well-being. In contrast, we do little to help youngsters manage less dramatic but no less disturbing news--the routine stories about violence, sex and natural disasters featured on the evening news, like the mass suicides discovered Wednesday.

As media become more competitive, news stories are packaged to attract instant attention. Unfortunately, adults are not the only ones whose interest is piqued. Children’s natural curiosity makes them a vulnerable, if unintended, audience for the explicit gory details of each day’s happenings.

Parents can shield young children from upsetting news stories, but older children are more difficult to protect. What they don’t see on the 6 o’clock news is reported in detail by their more media savvy buddies.

It’s natural for children as young as 9 to be interested in the world; we should nurture their curiosity. What they find in the news, however, may be titillating, confusing and disturbing.

The life and death of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, for instance--from her prematurely sexualized poses to the brutal fact that she was murdered in her own home while her parents were there--may be seriously troubling to children. JonBenet’s murder could easily be the plot of a TV-M television movie. Yet children all over the country have been following her story.

Also troubling is the considerable media coverage of powerful men mistreating women--from O.J. Simpson’s murder trial to reports of sexual harassment by military and government officials. Millions of preteens will incorporate these images of abuse into their developing sexuality. How do we talk to girls on the cusp of puberty about sexual harassment in the context of the government or the military? Or to young boys whose sports heroes are charged with rape or murder?

However strongly we support freedom of the press, these are tough questions. They are especially hard for parents, who may be unsure of their own reactions to current events. The issue is not whether it is good for children to be exposed to the seamier side of life in the 1990s, but how to help them cope with the sordid news events that infiltrate their consciousness.

We cannot abandon our children to make their own way through the news. We should discuss Wednesday’s tragedy with them. They need adult guidance, as they do with their homework and social life. Talking with kids about news stories helps them learn to think critically about the media and current events. Ongoing discussions about upsetting stories help youngsters feel less isolated and may soothe fears. We don’t have to know all the answers. Just listening and sharing our own reactions is helpful.