Re: News and a 5 yr. old

[illecebra]

The world isn't always pretty. If you're prepared to watch the news
WITH your child and help them understand what they see, I don't see a
problem with it. I was always up on current events around that age,
and I believe that discussing them with my folks helped me think
analytically about the world. Then again, I ended up starting
politics at age 9 so be prepared if your kid wants to change what they
don't like. (I had many good experiences doing so, but a few
not-so-great ones too. Such is life.)

That said, I won't watch the news when my son is awake, simply because
it's a bit emotional for me right now (my husband is deployed to Iraq
indefinitely), and I don't want the munchkin (4 months old) to have to
deal with me if I end up in a bad mood. When the deployment is over,
the news will likely be a part of family life again.

just my two cents, and that's about all it's worth

Susan

In > on Sun, 29 Jun
2003 15:06:02 EDT, Spiralmoons > wrote:

>
>I have read on here a few times that there are parents who don't watch the
>news while their kids are in the room. Can I ask why? I have no formed
>opinion on it and now that my ds is of the age (5) where he watches things
>and can relate them to his life, I wonder if our house should do the same
>(not watch news in front of the kids). Then again I don't want him to be
>totally ignorant of current events, or is he too young to be exposed to the
>awful things that can happen. So, again, can someone explain why they do
>this or why they don't? So I can make a good decision before I start staying
>up 'till 11:00! :)
>Maybe I should just subscribe to the paper again! LOL!

[Spiralmoons]

Thanks guys! I haven't made up my mind yet about the news but we certainly
DO censor everything else the poor thing is exposed to. Mostly because I
don't want to have to deal with nightmares and bad language and such. They
are really innocent for only a short period of time and I intend to prolong
it as long as possible! LOL! ( it's all over when he starts kindergarten in
the fall! )

s


"Spiralmoons" > wrote in message
a...
>
> I have read on here a few times that there are parents who don't watch the
> news while their kids are in the room. Can I ask why? I have no formed
> opinion on it and now that my ds is of the age (5) where he watches things
> and can relate them to his life, I wonder if our house should do the same
> (not watch news in front of the kids). Then again I don't want him to be
> totally ignorant of current events, or is he too young to be exposed to
the
> awful things that can happen. So, again, can someone explain why they do
> this or why they don't? So I can make a good decision before I start
staying
> up 'till 11:00! :)
> Maybe I should just subscribe to the paper again! LOL!
> --
> Shana
> J.R. , 4
> K.B. Born Feb 27/03
>

[Kevin Karplus]

In article >, Spiralmoons wrote:
> Thanks guys! I haven't made up my mind yet about the news but we certainly
> DO censor everything else the poor thing is exposed to. Mostly because I
> don't want to have to deal with nightmares and bad language and such. ...
>
> "Spiralmoons" > wrote in message
> a...
>> I have read on here a few times that there are parents who don't watch the
>> news while their kids are in the room. Can I ask why? I have no formed
>> opinion on it and now that my ds is of the age (5) where he watches things
>> and can relate them to his life, I wonder if our house should do the same
>> (not watch news in front of the kids). Then again I don't want him to be
>> totally ignorant of current events, or is he too young to be exposed to
> the
>> awful things that can happen. So, again, can someone explain why they do
>> this or why they don't? So I can make a good decision before I start
> staying
>> up 'till 11:00! :)
>> Maybe I should just subscribe to the paper again! LOL!

Hang onto that last sentence!

My wife is a news junkie, but relies on radio (mainly NPR and BBC) and
newspaper (different ones on different days: NY Times Tuesday for
Science Times, SF Chronicle on Wed for food, ...) for the news, not
TV. Not only does this avoid the problems of traumatic TV viewing for
our son, it provides us with less distorted news coverage. When we
travel, my wife does watch news on TV, but we find the dumbed-down
talking heads rather annoying.

By eliminating the TV completely, we don't have the problems other
people seem to have with saturation advertising targeted at our child.

We also have the paper sitting around for our son to read if there is
something interesting (he often reads a short article from the Science
Times section of the NY Times, and occasionally another article will
catch his attention).


--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Louise]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 18:44:54 EDT, Penny Gaines >
wrote:
>Final thing: there is a children's news programme that the BBC show:
>unlike the main news, they don't assume knowledge of the background.
>When they are ready to see more, I'll let them watch that.

When and which channel is that on (1 or 2)? What is it called?
Anyone else know whether it's on BBC Canada or BBC America?

When I was a kid, I remember one of the American networks having short
news stories on Saturday mornings between the kids' shows. It was
quite a while before I figured out that those news stories were
directed specifically at kids.

Louise

[Rosalie B.]

x-no-archive:yes Spiralmoons > wrote:

>
>I have read on here a few times that there are parents who don't watch the
>news while their kids are in the room. Can I ask why? I have no formed
>opinion on it and now that my ds is of the age (5) where he watches things
>and can relate them to his life, I wonder if our house should do the same
>(not watch news in front of the kids). Then again I don't want him to be
>totally ignorant of current events, or is he too young to be exposed to the
>awful things that can happen. So, again, can someone explain why they do
>this or why they don't? So I can make a good decision before I start staying
>up 'till 11:00! :)
>Maybe I should just subscribe to the paper again! LOL!

When I was growing up there wasn't TV and my mom would not let me
listen to scarey radio programs because she thought it would give me
nightmares. We didn't watch TV news much when my kids were growing up
because we were usually eating dinner (at the table with the TV off)
when the news was on. Now I see my grand kids watching TV all the
time without a problem.

I myself avoid watching the news on TV as much as possible. I did not
watch the 9-11 events but once or twice. I turned off all those
broadcasts about the Gulf War. Once something has repeated unless I
didn't 'get it' the first time, I turn to another channel. (There's
always something else on or else I turn the TV off) I don't listen to
the national news on the TV - only local. The way local news
broadcasts are now, I get plenty of what I need to know (more in some
cases), especially living near D.C.

We do get the daily and local paper, and I read the sections that I'm
interested in and discard the rest unread.

AFAI am concerned the only real important news is the weather. And
even that can be overdone - after 5 hours of coverage of a blizzard or
some weather event, it's more than enough. I listen to the local news
on FOX in the morning and at 10. When I was working, we woke up to
the clock radio which had news weather and traffic and that was what
we needed then.

But I think it only fair to mention that I don't go to the movies or
rent video tapes or look at soap operas or read much fiction or listen
to call in shows on the radio either. It is just too emotionally
stressful for me. I listen to the local news because some of it is
local - local oil spills, local traffic delays, local political issues
etc., and especially local weather is of importance to me.

grandma Rosalie

[dragonlady]

In article >,
Spiralmoons > wrote:

> I have read on here a few times that there are parents who don't watch the
> news while their kids are in the room. Can I ask why? I have no formed
> opinion on it and now that my ds is of the age (5) where he watches things
> and can relate them to his life, I wonder if our house should do the same
> (not watch news in front of the kids). Then again I don't want him to be
> totally ignorant of current events, or is he too young to be exposed to the
> awful things that can happen. So, again, can someone explain why they do
> this or why they don't? So I can make a good decision before I start staying
> up 'till 11:00! :)
> Maybe I should just subscribe to the paper again! LOL!
> --

TV news coverage often has some pretty upsetting visuals, which can be
too intense for some children. I wouldn't watch TV news with DD#2 in
the room until she was quite old, as pictures of someone bleeding or
being hurt or bombs going off upset her a great deal. Even with the
others, I would not watch extended coverage of a war or even a natural
disaster where many people had been injured and killed while they were
in the room; I'd talk about it, so they knew what was going on, but I
didn't think the constant barrage of "moving pictures" was good for
them. (Or for me, come to think of it!) On the other hand, I never
hesitated to listen to NPR news when the kids were around; I didn't
listen for hours on end, just because it isn't my style.

Dad talks about watching news coverage of the Viet Nam war with my
brother in the room, thinking my brother wasn't paying much attention.
There was news footage of a blindfolded, handcuffed man being shot and
killed. My brother was clearly extremely upset by this. I'm not sure
it's something I would want the average 5 yo to have to see.

But I can't imagine life without at least one daily newspaper!

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care