I think avoiding the news with our kids (I'm not talking exposing little kids to disturbing images, topics, etc.) means we lose out on a great opportunity to teach our kids to be analytical and skeptical about the motives behind what is presented. That is one of the most powerful tools we can teach our kids - whether it's seeing the bias in a news story, a sales tactic or friends trying to convince our kid to do something.
Could not agree more.
I'll add that one of my kids' biggest frustrations with their classmates is how uninterested and/or uninformed they are about current events and the world in general. While some of that can certainly be attributed to typical age-related myopia, it certainly limits any meaningful discussions they might have at school.
Agreed-- this is a
tremendous frustration for my DD, as well. She finds that most of her peers academically are
woefully incapable of tearing apart bias in sources, etc., or even understanding that
quotes can be taken out of context, etc.
Colbert, Stewart, Fox, and major newspapers have been a huge part of her 'education' on our part. We
want her to be thinking
hard about the agenda behind what anyone is telling her. What are they hoping to persuade her of? WHY?
As she put it to me last election--
It's incredibly annoying that so many of my classmates are going to be old enough to vote in less than a year-- and so FEW OF THEM will actually be remotely capable of doing so as anything but sheeple.I credit news cycle immersion-- and vigorous in-house debate and discussion of the same-- for her political savvy.
