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Many topics on the news are inappropriate for young children, who should be sheltered from knowledge of distressing events that they can't really understand. But by the time students are ready to graduate and go to college, they will be expected to be well-informed of the world and current events. I'm thinking that middle school age would be the best time to start talking about the wider world and viewing appropriate new broadcasts, depending on the maturity of the child.
How old should children be before being exposed to the nightly news? What should they know about the world before they leave for life after high school?
A very important topic. Too early and it can do much damage. To late and they are not prepared for real work life.
I remember watching some very disturbing footage of WWII and other wars which still are in my head today. I should not have been allowed to see it. I was probably 10 or older.
I am a news junkie but I always wear TV EARS when the TV is on so my kids don't pay much attention. I do however call them over to watch some stories like storms and death of important people. I TIVOd Nelson Mandela stories for them and they have seen pictures of race riots which happened during my youth in the 1960's.
I think we have to consider each child and their temperament. My 12 year olds have not shown much interest in current events which disturbs me. I was reading the Washington Post cover to cover by the time I was 18 and never missed a TV show about current events. Today I read 5 daily newspapers online. When I find something I want to share I send them a link but they don't always even want to know.
I don't think I will ever require them to watch the news and unfortunately we don't have any newspapers in our home or even magazines like I had when growing up. Maybe we should. But I will continue to send to them stories I think they should know.
It's not the "watching" of the news that we parents need to worry about. It's the digestion of the news, the critical thinking of the "news". What is this person on TV/Radio/Internet really telling me? What does the messenger want to be true? Verify, verify, verify. I teach my kids to never take any reporters/journalist opinion on matters where study, statistics and math are concerned. Go right to the source whenever possible. Never accept what an article or news report says about "some study shows X". Go read the study, so to that end parents should focus on logic, statistics, math, critical thinking, and of course the big one resistance to propaganda. Now, what I've stated is certainly a lot more difficult and time consuming not to mention you reveal your own biases to your children. But, aren't they worth it? Instead of a magic number when you can watch news, we need a lifetime of teaching on how to disect the messages we are bombarded with. My number one rule? If you find yourself agreeing with something? Be doubly suspicious.
Kids should be exposed to the news to learn what not to do, at a very early age
The stuff they see outside is more a risk than what's on TV
And there's very little that will hurt them by watching the news and a lot more that will help them
They will learn how to construct sentences
They will ponder what words mean
They will learn some geography
They will learn guys go to jail when they do bad things
They will understand what a weather forecast looks like
They won't be affected one way or the other by stock index reports so can't hurt them
Like many things, this is a case by case decision. Every child is different in how they process what they see and hear.
Personally, I think most kids under 5 don't need much exposure to daily news and virtually no exposure to the more horrific kinds. After that it will depend on the type of news and the type of child.
If a child internalizes fear after hearing certain things on the news, then they are not ready to be exposed to it.
If a child asks intelligent questions about what they hear, they are ready.
Of course there is the everyday news and the tragic news that is covered for hours/days. Those, to me are very different things. The first should be part of their daily lives long before the second.
When 9/11 occurred my children were 3 1/2, 15 and 19 all girls and this was before my son came along.
My 3 1/2 yr old got virtually no exposure to the media coverage. Instead she was allowed to watch lots of cartoons the first couple of days while I watched and processed it myself. Years later when she was learning more about it she was detached enough emotionally that it didn't make a huge negative impact on her like it would have had she been aware at the time. She definitely internalizes things and needs lots of time to process before she balances out.
My 15 yr old was in high school when it happened and only barely heard anything there. She is not one that has ever wanted to be fully aware of tragedy so she stayed away from most media coverage as well. As she aged she took in small bits at a time to get an understanding of it all, but she definitely wants it to be a distant memory and not one that impacts her personally.
My 19 yr old still lived at home and stayed home that day after seeing the second plane on TV. She stayed close to home and me during that time, but like many of us couldn't stray from seeing it all and hearing all the discussions. It definitely impacted her and her way to balance is to take it in repeatedly until it all processed through her in a way that made it real but also made her understand she could still feel safe.
With things like that since then, the 3 girls are still similar, however the youngest needs to have matter of fact, truthful information to settle her fears.
My son is the enigma. He wants and needs to hear as much details as he can so that he can justify to himself what occurred, why it did and why it does or does not impact him. He has always been that way, so had he been the 3 1/2 yr old cartoons would not have been enough to keep it from him. He doesn't internalize it but he definitely analyzes it.
We've always had the local news on every evening and all of them are pretty good about self censoring things they find out of their comfort zone, just like they do with books and movies.
I'm a big believer of watching and discussing the news with my children. The actual news. Not the Today Show or Fox and Friends. I turn it off if they are playing 911 calls or showing chemical warfare attacks on children in Syria. But we discuss the news every single day in our family, my 1st grader can find Crimea on a world map. My 3rd grader understands the difference between the House and the Senate. We also get a newspaper that the kids are free to read every morning.
One of the things that bothered me the most when I moved to the US was the lack of current event knowledge. I grew up in a house where politics and current events were argued over the dinner table and the newspaper was passed around the breakfast table. I am neither paranoid or anxious, in fact I think the more kids know about the world the less they fear it and the more they know how great we have it.
Eta I do agree with hypercore's point above. Being educated about the news does not involve 24hr coverage of Sandy Hook, a random kidnapping, or mass shootings. That stuff I don't watch and I don't expose my kids to ...big difference.
We often listened to the news on the radio at tea time when I was growing up but listening to the radio wouldn't be as distressing as watching on tv could be. I think its important for children to hear/read/watch the news. Think I might start with the radio in a couple years time (my daughter is 3 at the moment) and get a newspaper delivered once my daughter can read. I don't really watch the news on telly at the moment but maybe I will start doing that once she is school age to allow her the exposure.
Not sure how you get kids interested in news as most of them think its about as exciting as watching paint dry or the lawn grow. if i start going on about some news event i'll get the eye rolls and if i persist the kids will ultimately tell me they really dont care.
In 6th grade our social studies teacher asked us to cut out political cartoons once a week and write a paragraph about what it meant. I started watching the news with my parents so I could understand the cartoons. By 8th grade I was reading the paper cover-to-cover...and 25 years later I still love my daily paper.
My oldest is in 2nd grade. We discuss some big events with her. She overhears us discussing others among ourselves. I have started turning the local news on when the kids are home at least one day a week. They don't usually listen, but occasionally we'll start talking about what we see.
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