I'd like to get ideas on how parents here handle the news. The bad news that falls under war, crime, drugs, burglaries, etc.

Since gifted children can be more sensitive and feel emotions and opinions more strongly, how much do you share about what's happening in the world, at what age? Do parents leave the newspaper out for them to read independently? How do you gauge how much information to share with them? So that they don't begin to develop fears and worries that interfere with their sense of security and peace?

Well my mother thinks I'm negligent because I don't watch the TV news and therefore my children weren't always aware of what is going on in the world.

It really depends on their age, and the story. I was out of the country during 9/11 and my oldest was about to turn 7. My children were home with my husbands parents watching them. At that time we deliberately kept what was going on away from my my 7 year old daughter, (and my son but at 2 that wasn't as hard) Thankfully her school made a policy not to talk about the trama but it's a wonder she didn't pick up much from the other kids. My inlaws were very good at not watching the TV news when the kids were home. We did have conversations about it when we got back and she didn't have to worry about us.

As they aged, I would often tell them in my own words about major breaking news. They were going to hear about it on the playground, and around other kids and I wanted them to hear the information from me first.

My children are now teens/young adults and I encourage them to read the newspaper as much as they want. Or watch/read news online. I will particularly talk to them about something going on. Last weekend big headlining news, I made my son read about as I wanted to discuss it with him. This particular issue hits close to home for a number of reasons. I particularly wanted to talk with him about some of the the deeper issues and before he started seeing some of the stuff online. My parents also turned my son onto the Daily Show, and he now records it and watches it when he gets home from school. I usually watch it with him and this gives us a chance to talk about the issues.

At age 10, I know there are some things he should know about. Some things... but how do parents present it?

His school offered the Rachel's Challenge presentation. Big assembly supposed to teach tolerance and respect, Rachel's message from her diary entries, just before she was a victim at Columbine High School. But the assembly included the scary 911 phone call recordings, and school surveillance video showing the two shooters, as well as their up-close faces making those scary and angry comments from their personal video movie they made. Does anyone remember this assembly? I just wonder if this was the best way to teach tolerance and respect.

My son was worried for a couple of days about going to high school.

We screen very hard here. We do not watch the news. However, we do read. Our local paper has things like community happenings which are more event oriented. He can read this.

Most of our news comes from DH and I screening online news. We usually pick things of current interest (usually science). We will also highlight current worldwide events for cultural exposure. Ex: France will celebrate the 70th anniversary of D-Day next week.

ETA: We talk about historical wars. We talk about why people go to war, when it is good, when it is bad, etc. We talk about conflict resolution, etc. So even though he knows there was a really bad man making some really bad decisions in WWII, he does not know HOW people were treated during that timeframe. (and now back to the original message.)

We do NOT show anything which would trigger personal fears. We are still struggling with a movie watched in preschool with predator/prey themes in it.

Personally, I would be very upset with the school for showing the gore and detail as you described.

We teach tolerance and respect by noting how wonderfully different characteristics from different people enrich our lives. We also teach that everyone is different and unique. We also have a lot of discussions as to how paradigms influence decisions and that's ok.

I didnt talk to school because after couple of days seemed he forgot all about it. I think he deliberately put it out of his mind. I wonder if I did the right thing by not talking to them. I wonder if I should talk to my son again about school violence... I guess its not necessary... but I still dont understand how exposing him to the fear and violence taught him anything.

I really think it depends on the child. For me, animal cruelty and violence against children, particularly sexual crimes, are always most personally disturbing.

To this day, I try to avoid these types of stories, as I become personally fixated on the victim's suffering and have difficulty getting over my sadness/vengefulness on their behalf. I generally read The Economist, The Atlanic, and Ars Technica on an ipad, and these give me the "hits" I'm seeking-- economics, politics, technology, and current issues, so our household is fairly benign.

I store up my wrath over the world's many injustices and pour it into raising my son to be a good person, as well as lobbying my elected representatives and working in the non-profit sector. I know that my efforts contribute to protecting the vulnerable, and that's the message I want my son to hear when he's older: you must rise up against oppression and demand change. I want his first exposure to weighty issues to be through seeing my husband and I working to overcome the challenge, because I think an internal locus of control is necessary for not becoming overwhelmed by the senseless violence and injustice in the world. So my answer is that he'll volunteer alongside us from an early age and meet real people impacted, from the perspective of being the solution. It's a little Harry Potter-esque, I guess.

Not sure if that is helpful, but that's the untested approach I'm thinking I'll take.

DD's emotional regulation and social precosity has meant that we've never really shielded her in any way-- which was fine for her.

She saw news footage of 9/11 as a toddler. She knew what she was watching, much to my horror (in retrospect-- and she didn't see much of it, because THAT, we felt, was something that definitely called for censoring for our 2yo). But she processed that just fine-- she didn't bottle it up, (well, once she knew that WE knew that she knew) and she asked questions, etc.

For her, I dunno, but this is going to sound super-weird, and I think that it deserves explaining specifically, because NOT censoring things has been a very deliberate choice on our part. Okay-- my DD nearly died at 11mo old, and somewhere, there is a visceral memory of that. Okay, so it could happen again without warning (and has, on a few occasions); that sense of powerlessness is a very hard thing to live with. It takes a lot of courage and-- well, nerve, I guess-- to live knowing that all the time. Because she has pretty much always known that, it made so very little sense to us to shield her from all of this stuff that she observed and asked endless questions about ANYWAY. In some respects, this is a self-serving decision on our part, because we WANT her to be tough this way-- people are sometimes incredibly mean to her for reasons that have nothing to do with WHO she is, and everything to do with WHAT she is. That just plain sucks. But it doesn't suck so much that she ought to waste her time dwelling in self-pity. I've seen kids raised with chronic medical conditions paralyzed by it, and so I knew from the minute of her diagnosis that this was something to avoid. She needs to be STRONG-- and she also needs to know that others have it way, WAY worse than she does.

KWIM?

But she isn't even most gifties in this respect. She is tough as shoe leather in some respects, and this is one of them. Her response is to DO SOMETHING about stuff that bothers her-- or to live in such a way that the world is a better place for her having been in it today.

One other thing that I've learned over the years, too? Because I have a child that talks and interacts with others as though she is many years older than her age, adults sometimes tell her things that they'd never DREAM of saying to a child of her chronological age. If she hadn't already known that her diagnosis was potentially fatal, the children's librarian let that one out of the bag right in front of my wide-eyed 5yo after prominent media coverage of a similar fatality. Another adult, remarking obliquely on the disappearance of a local young woman, referred to some things being "worse than dead." (Meaning, if she was being held and tortured). DD, then 6 or 7, insisted on knowing what on earth that person had meant by that statement, since she'd been exposed to the virtually wall-to-wall coverage (some of it national). So yeah, we discussed rape and torture with her-- because SHE WANTED TO KNOW. Really.

She seems to have an internal center of calm that is undisturbed by this stuff, however. It's not that she is detached, or doesn't understand. She does. But she processes it, and places it in its proper place in her understanding of the universe and the people in it. She sees the good in the everyday, as well. So it seems that we've done okay in this regard-- but honestly, it did make me wince when my 3yo confessed that her favorite show on TV was CSI.

HK my dd4 does the same thing, I was gutted to find out dh had been watching the news with her while I put ds to bed. He said last week the first time he didn't have an answer of her was when a transsexual one Eurovision a few weeks ago, personally I would much rather my dd knew about that than war and rape etc. water off a ducks back to her though. I would really stress about her empathy levels if I didn't see her day to day interactions

Mostly I despair at the standards of journalism these days that I can't watch news on TV or read the papers due to the sensationalizing and editorializing, let alone worrying about what the news is actually about No, I don't let my kids watch the news, both out of concern for quality as well as content. They're too sensitive and prone to worry. We do talk about important and relevant current affairs as the interest takes us.
MIL is of the generation where the world stops while you watch the 6pm news so I have to try to coach the kids into ignoring it and finding something else absorbing to do while they're at her house. Sigh - they still come home worrying about Russia starting WWIII

I was a journalist for ten years, and I'm still a news junkie. We don't have a TV, but I hang out a lot on reddit and twitter and spend an hour or two each morning reading news from a variety of sources - world, national, industry - before I start my day. My spouse also likes to keep up with world events and news, especially keeping up with news within our industry. Because of this, our kids have grown up with the news of the day being fodder for dinner conversation on a daily basis. But our conversations not only discuss the what is happening but the possibly whys and outcomes. We also have talked at great length about what we can or cannot do to effect change over something we see in the news. After one story about the children at a local hospital having very few toys to play with, we talked about it over dinner, and our kids - on their own - chose several toys that they thought were sturdy, interesting, and in good enough shape to donate. It took a sad story and created not only an empowerment over the bad news but a great lesson in sacrificing personal gain for the greater good. Our kids have all synthesized news within the context of their own life and knowledge, and so the disgust and outrage over horrible events is tempered with the larger understanding of it being an event and not an edict of all human behavior.

We use the news and differences to emphasize empathy, tolerance, and respect for others. We don't generally watch TV news, except for the Daily Show but do read news stories online. With DS8 reading over my shoulder occasionally, there are often questions regarding stuff he sees and it opens the door for a frank discussion.

I'd rather he discuss it with me than get it 99% wrong from his friends.

To the original point of the thread, I think a sensitive balance is involved in transitioning our children from a sheltered life to exposure to the world at large, be it for moral reasons or to avoid some of the ugliness of violence in the world.

I think media that present points of view that oppose our own provide a good opportunity to start conversations with our children about the basis for our views. However, parents are the best gauge of their children's maturity, and I think it is entirely reasonable for parents to limit their children's exposure to challenging or morally complex topics until they determine their children are ready to hear reasoned arguments. There's a delicate hand-off between building a cognitive and moral foundation for your child, and helping them become independent thinking, self-sufficient adults.

As a Catholic, I'm going to have to become proficient at planting seeds of discussion as DS grows older, as my beliefs diverge from secular views on a handful of issues of conscience. I will almost certainly censor his access to some topics, moral and otherwise, until he reaches the age of reason. Pornography is one topic that comes to mind.

Very well-stated, Aquinas. It's so individual.

Just a reminder to please discuss the original topic in a general sense and leave the specifics out. As clearly stated in the board rules:

Avoid discussions about politics and religion, unless they specifically pertain to gifted education. There are other online resources for these subjects.

I deleted/edited a number of posts and most corresponding ones too that since they no longer make sense in context as responses.

Best,
Mark

I listen to NZ national radio at work and read the paper at work during lunch and watch the delayed news after they are in bed. I do discuss politics and points of interest but ds7 is still frightened by kid's cartoons. Occaionally I will watch the headlines while they are up but not the graphic bits. To be honest our local news is probably less hair raising than yours. I don't feel ready to discuss a woman being stoned to death though.

Agreed 100%.

No television news at all - total dross.

We do get the NY Times at weekends but that is mainly so we can see the upcoming happenings (museum exhibitions, plays and fairs etc) in NYC, for DD to be exposed to blatantly political written bias (part of guiding her to self calibrate her BS filters) and to read the occasional decently written article.

I also get it to have newspaper to line the kitchen sink with when dressing pheasants or gutting fish and to get my chimney starter going - LOL

Whatever happened to just reporting what happened leaving a person to intelligently and independently draw their own conclusions w.r.t the whys, hows and impacts?

Although I think the NYT is informative -- I've probably posted dozens of NYT stories in this forum -- I also think it is biased. The Wall Street Journal has a weekend edition similar to the New York Times in coverage but different in overall viewpoint.

One of the most interesting exercises a teacher had us do in middle school was take a major news story and find articles and headlines with a skewed slant. We were just required to cut them out and bring them in. Then the teacher would take all the headlines and read them out loud, and as a class we decided where on the spectrum of left or right the headline belonged. It was eye-opening to me that one story could have so many different slants to it.

I've done the same for my kids when we talk about news stories. What emotion do you think the editor wanted you to have when you read that headline? How could the headline have been written to still be interesting but not evoke that emotion? What headline could have the opposite emotion?

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.

(Emphasis added.)

I'm with you on the latter (in which I would include any disturbing images and ideas, including explicit sexuality that she's not ready for); but I have trouble relating to the former. I can't think of anything I believe is wrong, that I would have difficulty explaining to my very intelligent child why it is wrong.

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.

We don't shield our kids from most news in this house (obviously, there are boundaries regarding things they don't understand yet). ***edit*** We had a long and meandering discussion about Trayvon Martin, racism, gay marriage, and other stuff lasts night with my 9- and 12-year-olds. I tried to help my kids understand why people shoot a kid with Skittles and iced tea, and why prejudicial ideas develop and persist. We spent a chunk of that time discussing Stand Your Ground laws. We want our kids to feel comfortable coming to us with any questions they have about whatever.

So I agree with others here that exposing young kids to the ugliness of the world is important. It helps them develop an ability to analyze events and people's attempts to manipulate others. Developing an ability to self-protect is very important part of that process.

Honestly, I don't see much value in shielding kids from the world, and I have trouble even understanding it. First, the kids are less able to develop those skills mentioned above. Also, kids hear about bad stuff when they're not at home (or even at home if the news is playing or if there's a newspaper lying around). Third, when parents avoid controversial topics, they send a clear message to their kids: Don't talk about this with me. Kids can't understand the parental perspective of being "protected." They're far more likely to infer don't talk to mom and/or dad about this topic, and a line of communication is closed. That line won't suddenly open up when the kids are older and are thinking about sex or realizing that they're gay or have questions some topic that mom and dad don't want to discuss. Etc.

So, this post may not make me very popular, but IMO, when parents avoid certain issues, they risk creating kids who aren't equipped to deal with many challenges in life.

I suspect that probably stems from a difference in religious or philosophical views we hold.

I think the real question is at what age do you shield children, and to what degree, because every parent does some shielding, even by omission.

I don't see any value in discussing topics like genital mutilation, the death penalty, or the morality of war with my 2.5 year old, for instance. I don't think that by waiting until he shows signs of being able to understand fundamental principles behind Judaism, Islam, and Christianity that I am in any way closing off productive discussion or communicating that discussion on those topics is verboten.

Now, what we do at this age is talk about respecting one another's bodies, mutual charity, the sanctity of life, the duality of humanity, the diversity of religious views around us, and the need for dialogue and peace instead of violence wherever possible. Those are all age-appropriate introductions to the topics that build the groundwork for a deeper, more nuanced conversation when he's older.

The key here is how you define "young kids."

Our DD at 8 made it emphatically clear that she did NOT want to hear any discussion of Sandy Hook. Given her similarity to the victims, it makes perfect sense. Having prior knowledge would probably not help her against an adult with guns coming to her school. Meanwhile, she needs to go to school every day and be able to function, so there's no time for gibbering fear.

Survival mechanism, that. A child lacking in a basic feeling of security is not going to develop in healthy ways. Sheltering them from some of the ugliness in the world is one way we help them develop that sense of security. The removal of that shelter should be gradual to avoid excessive shock.

I see your point, and wouldn't force information on my kids, either.

But what you've written is very different from a parental decision to avoid the news altogether or to avoid certain topics.

Aquinas, I agree with what you are saying-- I'm not suggesting that I was discussing the concepts of protracted, planned terrorist activities with my then-2yo in the wake of 9/11.

What we did discuss is that labeling people by a common characteristic, "otherness" and "othering" can lead to the kind of irrational ANGER and hatred that leads to such atrocities as flying commercial airliners into civilian buildings.

Because she did want and need to hear that. She was otherwise afraid that buildings can "just fall down." Or that airplanes routinely crash into them. Or that pretty much any angry adult is capable of such a thing.

All of those things are untrue, but they were hypotheses that her 2yo PG brain came up with as alternative explanations. The truth is less pleasant in some ways, but in others it is more comforting.

With another child, it might not have been possible to have that discussion of "othering" and hatred based upon immutable group characteristics-- but my DD had already felt the sting of exclusion and knew what it was. So for her, it WAS in context.

We have very deliberately made no topics "off limits" for our daughter. Sometimes I have to steel myself in order to have discussions with her that I'm not really ready for... like abortion or Mengele with my 7-8yo.

But she can talk to us about ANYTHING. She knows what she believes-- and why. Which is a lot more than many of her peers do at 18-20.

I do agree that sheltering kids who have developed a sense that there is a dichotomy about information (home versus not-home) can regard this not as parents being loving and wanting to protect their children, but as parents being unWILLING to discuss some topics, or failing to appreciate their growing sophistication.

Kids can often manage more sophisticated thinking about the world than their parents give them credit for. I see this a lot in working with youth.

My kids ask for information about the hard stuff (Libya, 9/11), and also ask me to stop telling when they're done being curious for now.

They don't always self-regulate about other things, but they do in this kind of case. It makes it much easier for me to figure out what they need.

Not really, because we had already made a parental decision to shield her from that certain topic. DW and I were just discussing it when DD walked into the room.

I agree with HK here. And particularly with teenagers. I don't see any advantage to shielding my teenager from anything in the news. I see my job as a parents it to teach our children to navigate the world and one of those things is how to make sense of disturbing news stories. When they were younger we did simplified things or explained things in a way that we hoped wouldn't traumatize them.