Dear Parents and Guardians,
In light of the terrible tragedy in
was informative. It includes a link to a PBS site that gives age by age guidelines for talking to your children about tragic events in the news.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Hirsch
Talking with Kids about the News
Monday, January 19, 2010
Every time there is a massive loss of life somewhere in the world, and pictures are beamed on television and over the Internet, the question arises about how and when to talk to kids about the tragedy. Now, and in days to come, the news will be about
the devastation and death in Haiti.
Trying to keep bad news away from children (except especially young ones) is futile in today’s wired world. One study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that children today spend almost 61/2 hours a day with media. Half of kids ages 8 to 18 live in homes where the TV is on most of the time.
So experts on child development say the best thing for parents and teachers to do is to be as honest as possible in ways kids can understand.
PBS has a detailed. age-specific guide on how adults can help kids absorb and understand bad news. Parents can control what preschoolers see, and it is advised that those children not see repeated viewings of a tragedy. Even if you tell them that something bad happened far away, they don’t understand distance.
But once children enter school, the advice changes. Children ages 6-8 want to know what is going on in the world, and kids often learn in school--from their friends as well as teachers—things parents might not want them to know.
Adults should talk to those children about the news without too much detail of taking the child into a zone of obvious discomfort. Start by finding out how much they know and get a sense of how much they would like to know.
With older children, it is safe to go into more detail, although the amount depends on age and emotional maturity. In many cases, parents can watch the news with their children and explain what is going on.
For the PBS guide, www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwithkids/news/agebyage.html