How much news do you expose your kids to?

[4speedy]

I have a5 & 8 year old.  The 8 year old is very interested in the world around her and is mature enough to handle a lot.

my 5 year old is immature, a drama llama and he has anxiety. We expose him to NO televised or radio news because it causes nightmares.  for example, If he hears a story about an earthquake he will have nightmares for a month because there is a crack in our street and surely that means a quake is coming thus causing the crack to open wider and daddy will be swallowed by the earth on the way to work.

I would love to discuss world events with my older child at an age appropriate level without scaring the shit out of my younger child.  

So curious, how much world news do you expose your elementary aged kids to and through what sources.  What do you filter out?

[eddy]

None

We don't turn the tv on when they are awake unless it is a kid show. We sometimes talk about current events with our 7 year old, but I sort of love the idea of keeping his life innocent for awhile. We normally just talk about fun positive stuff.

I am sure he hears stuff at school.

[tres3]

they listen to NPR in the car

[hocus2]

My kids get no exposure to news. I find "news" shows highly biased in many ways and rarely listen them myself. If I though there was something I needed to talk about with my kids because they would hear about it at school or because it would impact them I'd talk with them about it maybe try to find a kid news paper article as a jumping off point.

[cville]

I've cut back after when L overheard a discussion about Syria on NPR and I explained it was a war and then had to describe what a war was and she proceeded to flip out for a week and draw disaster pictures nonstop. She's not quite 5. I want to be sensitive, but I also don't want to lie. It's VERY VERY HARD.

This is the same kid who remembers over a year later that I told her my grandfather died because smoking made him sick, and plans to bring it up with my uncle (who smokes) at Thanksgiving this year. FOR REAL. She's all "doesn't he know about your grandpa? I'll tell him."

THAT WILL BE COMFORTABLE.

[penguingrrl]

None. We do discuss issues and events with them when they're deemed age appropriate, but since news media is mostly sensationalized headlines with little to no merit I keep it off when the kids are awake (and, for that matter, when they're asleep).

[saz]

I try to keep it to none although the 5 year old found the election ads fascinating and still talks about Cory Gardner sometimes. Election ads were unavoidable.

Also I was watching the Colbert Report recently and my 3 year old overheard and repeated "huge douchebag" so I won't make that mistake again. #worstparentaward2014

[auntie]

You're wise to be thinking this through. Depends on the kid.

Given the differences in your children's ages and temperaments, it might make sense to make news something that is an older kid thing. Your 8 year old is only a few years from covering emotionally complex and difficult current events and history in school so you'll want to edit her options while slowly preparing her for more emotionally wrenching stuff to come.

DS is bright and curious, but he's got the wicked anxiety, phenomenal visual memory and finely tuned sense of injustice that comes with having Aspergers. We had to be very proactive around media and information exposure. Some of what we were told to di make sense for any young children. YMMV.

9/11 was DS's first day of 2nd grade. His reading teacher's father worked in one of the towers. The dean's husband did as well and his classroom teacher had a dad and FI working there. (All 4 men made it out alive) DS's psychologist, who works with anxious kids and those on spectrum, suggested limiting the visual, especially video, images. In the days that followed, we read newspaper articles and listened to radio reports if he was awake.

As he got older, we could expose him to more news including videos, but we were pretty careful around things like CNN, Fox and the local affiliates until he was middle school age. He's pretty discerning now that he's older- he gets most of his news from BBC World Report, John Oliver, The Daily Show and Google News. He reads The Week or The Economist if I have it around. I can tell he's home from work or school because I hear KYW or NPR on his car radio in the driveway.

[meshaliuknits]

Nov 24, 2014 9:41:23 GMT -5 cville said:

I've cut back after when L overheard a discussion about Syria on NPR and I explained it was a war and then had to describe what a war was and she proceeded to flip out for a week and draw disaster pictures nonstop. She's not quite 5. I want to be sensitive, but I also don't want to lie. It's VERY VERY HARD.

This is the same kid who remembers over a year later that I told her my grandfather died because smoking made him sick, and plans to bring it up with my uncle (who smokes) at Thanksgiving this year. FOR REAL. She's all "doesn't he know about your grandpa? I'll tell him."

THAT WILL BE COMFORTABLE.

Please let us know how that goes.

[ttt]

We talked about election stuff with SST (she's 6) so she understands that. She's seen stuff about storms in various places, things that are relatively neutral/nonviolent. But regular news, we try to keep her away from it because she already has enough anxiety and fears about random things and she's not really capable yet of understanding that just because someone got shot on the TV, that doesn't mean she's going to get shot too.

[Melissa W.]

My eight year old listens to the news on the radio. I stupidly didn't put it together that this was happening until she told me how bad she thought Dan malloy was this last election and said I should vote for Tom Foley. It made for a great conversation about radio advertisements, negative campaigns and asking questions. All I wanted was to let her fall asleep to some good music (soft rock) and she is waking up to the news.

[cville]

Nov 24, 2014 10:45:03 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Nov 24, 2014 9:41:23 GMT -5 cville said:

I've cut back after when L overheard a discussion about Syria on NPR and I explained it was a war and then had to describe what a war was and she proceeded to flip out for a week and draw disaster pictures nonstop. She's not quite 5. I want to be sensitive, but I also don't want to lie. It's VERY VERY HARD.

This is the same kid who remembers over a year later that I told her my grandfather died because smoking made him sick, and plans to bring it up with my uncle (who smokes) at Thanksgiving this year. FOR REAL. She's all "doesn't he know about your grandpa? I'll tell him."

THAT WILL BE COMFORTABLE.

Please let us know how that goes.

I'm talking her out of it, slowly.  Like "honey, he already knows.  There are chemicals in cigarettes that makes it very very hard to stop smoking.  So you don't have to tell him."

I reiterate this DAILY.

Fortunately, my uncle thinks L walks on water, so if anyone at all was to say it to him, she's the right person.  I mean, this summer he let her DRIVE HIS BOAT (obviously he sat right there and it was not close to other boats/land, but still).  He didn't let ME drive the boat last year.  

[summer]

I started talking about some racial stuff in the news with DD1 when she was 4-5ish. Not too deep, but a general explanation of things that came up. We also around that age talked a bit about poverty and stories about kids who didn't get to go to school.

[ijack]

Our oldes (6.5) hears things on the radio and will ask questions. It's so hard to try and keep it at an appropriate level so I really try to limit what she hears.
She somehow related something she heard recently to a school lock down they had the week after sandyhook, and I was kind of amazed at how she put it all together

[lauralala]

DS will be 5 next week. I watch the news with him in the room. He doesn't act like he's paying attention, though for some reason he is fascinated by the restaurant reports on the local news. If he starts to ask questions, I will try to answer in a way he can understand. I remember my parents watching the news every night when I was growing up, and I was interested in world events pretty early because of it. Obviously if it was causing DS stress I would not watch it with him there.

[rosiedozie]

Nov 24, 2014 12:40:52 GMT -5 @mx said:

One of my cousins receny went on a Facebook rant about how her 11 year old was watching some kid-centered news program at school (maybe from CNN?) and they taught her about ebola and ISIS this ending the innocence of childhood. I still haven't decided whether I think she's crazy or has a point

Was it Channel One? We started watching that in 6th grade at school.

[stealthmom]

Nov 24, 2014 9:41:23 GMT -5 cville said:

I've cut back after when L overheard a discussion about Syria on NPR and I explained it was a war and then had to describe what a war was and she proceeded to flip out for a week and draw disaster pictures nonstop. She's not quite 5. I want to be sensitive, but I also don't want to lie. It's VERY VERY HARD.

This is the same kid who remembers over a year later that I told her my grandfather died because smoking made him sick, and plans to bring it up with my uncle (who smokes) at Thanksgiving this year. FOR REAL. She's all "doesn't he know about your grandpa? I'll tell him."

THAT WILL BE COMFORTABLE.

we have the same kid.

My father died of lung cancer from smoking and I made the mistake of telling stealthson a few years ago before I knew how sensitive he was. BIG mistake. Now he cries about his granfahder regularly and looks at smokers with obvious disgust.

To answer the question: too much. This post has inspired me to stop listening to npr news when stealthson is in the car.

[devonpow]

DS1 is 7.5 and is pretty casual about things...they don't affect him particularly (in terms of him internalizing/nightmares, etc). We actually just had a conversation about what is going on in Ferguson and I touched briefly on racial profiling (he was curious about it and related it back to what he has learned about MLK jr). The other day we walked by the holocaust memorial in downtown Boston and he asked about it/I briefly explained without touching on too much of the details.

We were terrible parents in the aftermath of the marathon bombings. The day of the manhunt our town was in lockdown and we all stayed in and watched the news all day. He saw the shoot out live with us (well past his bedtime....again, not stellar parenting) - he was ok with it because he new the bad guy had been caught, like it's "supposed" to happen. (He knew details of the bombings because DH works right by the finish line and calked right after it happened, and he overheard that conversation and my worry)

Certain things I'm crazy about sheltering him from. After Sandy Hook was hard because he had a lot of friends with older siblings who gears/talked about it. His school had a moment of silence a few days after and the principal sent an email that they were going to tell the kids the moment of silence was to "send our good thoughts to the families of the children in Sandy Hook". You bet your butt I was on the phone with the principal and shut that down/had them change the wording. I did NOT need my 6 year old asking me what Sandy Hook was and why we were thinking of them.

[orangeblossom]

Nov 24, 2014 12:40:52 GMT -5 @mx said:

I'm finding this interesting. Is there an age at which you guys think kids are "old enough?" for some news?

One of my cousins receny went on a Facebook rant about how her 11 year old was watching some kid-centered news program at school (maybe from CNN?) and they taught her about ebola and ISIS this ending the innocence of childhood. I still haven't decided whether I think she's crazy or has a point

This is also interesting to me.  I'm sure my parents must have shielded what I watched at some point, but I really can't remember not seeing the news and reading the newspaper.

We always had the news on when we watched dinner, and the paper was always there to read.

I think it's kind of weird to think at 11, that your child would not hear about current events in some form or fashion at school, whether it be from the teacher or another student.

[erbear]

Nov 24, 2014 9:38:01 GMT -5 eddy said:

None

We don't turn the tv on when they are awake unless it is a kid show. We sometimes talk about current events with our 7 year old, but I sort of love the idea of keeping his life innocent for awhile. We normally just talk about fun positive stuff.

I am sure he hears stuff at school.

This. Mine are younger (3 and 5) but we don't watch the news when they are around. i listen to it on the radio sometimes, but usually only if they are talking to each other and not paying attention. We talk about things that are happening, but not bad and scary things, really.


I have 8th graders whose parents don't let them watch news because "it upsets them". I've had them email me when I ask their kids to do current events. I think that's ridiculous at 14.