"My parents dont let me watch the news": reflections on 11+ interviews I have carried out

so do you get your news another way? Or do you just not know what is going on in the world?

@AllOutofEverything

Yes I read it online.

Sometimes I will miss what’s going on in the world if I don’t read it for a few days if my MH is playing up but it’s impossible to know about everything that’s going on in the world anyway.

I tend to skim read it everyday because I get an email with local news and the big issues.

I also think this is why some people share those stupid memes on facebook lamenting that everyone talks about covid/austerity/latest tragedy in the West and no one talks about what is happening in Eritrea.Palestine, etc. Because it is not true. Decent news sources in the UK have good international coverage of events in many countries including Palestine. But if you never read or watch it you wont know about that.

Several things;

• firstly there are many age appropriate ways for children to have access to the news. It doesn’t have to be TV news; there are children’s News magazines, websites, news round etc. The OP wasn’t specifically asking about watching TV news, but being aware of current topics.
• It could be the question wasn’t understood by the kids; they didn’t understand it was about current issues and not specifically about TV. watching and therefore they answers about not watching TV news, rather than showing they did know something about some issues but through a different medium.
• This raises the question not about TV news (which some have become fixated on) but children being aware of bigger issues in the world. This doesn’t have to include specific nasty incidents of murder etc, but broader general issues like the environment, war with Ukraine, royal family etc. Part of being in an interview even for 10 year olds is to talk simply about issues and to share some thoughts or perhaps to engage in simple discussion. It doesn’t have to be at a high level - the process is looking for engagement and ability to talk and discuss. Remember this is an academic school. Likewise children would be asked to talk about books or hobbies and engage with discussion. It’s not so much about their knowledge but being willing and able to talk and engage.

In Primary schools of all types, and especially in Preps, children will have had to deliver a short talk about a topic of interest. Talking to others and in front of others is an important skill and part of learning today. I’d say, being interested in the wider world and being curious is an important part of being successful academically. There are age appropriate ways to encourage this, but often it comes down to if parents are interested in the wider world and curious themselves. Some families watch TV or look at the internet together or they discuss ideas at dinner, even with very small children….at a level they can cope with. Some people instantly think this is exposing them to horror. No. It could be talking about what do they think about there being a Royal family, or about reusable water bottles, or vegetarianism. Children if all ages can start to grasp some information and develop some views.

Im sure OP didn’t reject these children on the basis of this. The key thing determining their place would have been their entrance exam result. Interviews can help decide if someone is marginal and the interview or chat is there to gauge their enthusiasm for the school and to do a PR job (as often the kids have applied to multiple schools). Op was simply surprised as she’d heard the answer more than once and it made her think about some wider issues relating to how children are growing up.

@ManyNameChanges Children still have to get news from somewhere. But I agree if parents are not interested then children will never hear it being discussed.

Surely watching the news at 6 etc or online or even Newsround is basic preparation for life?

We don’t watch the news at 6 because we don’t have a TV in the house….
It doesn’t stop anyone to talk about the news as a family. And my two dcs are both pretty clued up on what’s going on in the world. Sometimes, quicker than me.

The issue isn’t that some children aren’t watching the news. The issue is that news aren’t a subject of discussion within the family.

Being informed re what the news uses to get you hooked and make an impact is more useful than just saying watch the news.

It’s not necessary to be a news consumer, there are better ways to access knowledge and it’s good to help dc learn about the strong influence of the media.

@Cocobutt so do you get your news another way? Or do you just not know what is going on in the world?

I don’t watch the news and I’m an adult.

My DD is allowed to watch the news but doesn’t.

When I am in the right frame of mind then I’ll read it.
I don’t watch it and wouldn’t encourage it as I try and protect our MH as much as possible.

Watching the news is no reflection on what type of person you are.

@mathanxiety This is not about watching the six o clock news. There is Newsround and lots of other ways to learn about current affairs.
And I do think adults who do not want to know what is happening in the wider world are lacking curiousity and that usually means they are less intelligent. It is not the childrens fault if their exposure to the wider world is lacking, it is the fault of the parents.

I also feel sorry for children when they do eventually learn the things that happen in the wider world. It must be a shock to suddenly move from being over protected to learning what the world is actually like.

Yes the term over protection is a value judgement. If an 11 year old knows nothing or very little about the wider world I think they have been over protected or lack intelligence.

And the wider world includes current affairs and many other subjects. Intelligent curious children and adults want to know about animals and plants, geology, history, astronomy, etc etc. That type of curiosity is a hallmark of intelligence.

@AllOutofEverything

I think your two assumptions are misplaced and based in unexamined value judgements.

Overprotective and lacking in curiosity about the wider world are not attributes I would ascribe to the parents or the children.

There are many reasons not to watch the news. One is lack of a TV for family viewing. This is a deliberate choice for many families based on home layout and availability of other tech. Another reason is lack of time to sit down together as a family. Many parents work late, many families prioritise extra curricular activities in the evenings. Yet another reason is a strong interest in other stuff. The 'wider world' is wider than you seem to be saying it is. Narrowing it down to the content deemed newsworthy is a mistake.

'Overprotective' is a strange value judgement that is not based on a clear understanding of the idea of age appropriate exposure. There's a reason video games and media content are rated and why parents are strongly encouraged to only allow children access to appropriately rated material.

But you want them turning on the nightly news and exposing their children to rape, murder, torture, abduction of African schoolchildren, the bombing of civilian targets, the threat of nuclear war - and worse, all of that is followed immediately by sports, weather, perhaps some fluffy piece about a dog show. News as hodgepodge entertainment is a highly problematic development.

@AllOutofEverything and not everyone needs to be curious about the wider world to be intelligent, funny how you with your vast intellect and knowledge of the world don’t seem to be able to grasp that.

It is not about divergent interests. It is about curiosity about the wider world.

@AllOutofEverything It may mean I know less about the world events, but I can guarantee I’ve a lot more knowledge than you in other areas. Does that mean you’re less intelligent because you don’t have the same knowledge or does it mean we simply have diverging interests and we’re both bound to be more knowledgable in different areas of life?

Narrow-mindedness on others intellectual levels is not an attractive trait.

The news is an endless parade of negativity, sensationalised to a ridiculous degree in order to up viewing figures, and is supplied generally by outfits that are incredibly biased. And once you’ve spotted the biases it’s impossible to trust.

We discuss world events at home, but TV news is dross.

We don't have a TV. My 10yo knows a little about current affairs because we discuss them sometimes but not a lot.

I think it does mean you are less intelligent sorry. I think curiosity about the wider world is a feature of highly intelligent people.

I don’t let my 11 or 5 year old watch the news, the world is a horrific place and they doesn’t need to be exposed to a never ending round of doom, gloom, catastrophe and heartbreak.

My 13 year old occasionally watches it with me but again she’s a rather anxious teen and also doesn’t need exposed to constant negativity.

I personally took a break from watching the news for 2 years during covid because I couldn’t cope with the daily death toll and scaremongering that was going on. Not everyone has an excessive interest in seeing what’s going on in the world, that doesn’t make them any less intelligent or respectable, it just means they’re focusing on life closer to home - which we could all stand to do a bit more of.

I work in news and would not let my child watch news on television. My child is 6, but when older they’ll be encouraged to read the WSJ, FT and other reputable news sites.

I also don’t watch news on television.

I know that happens @NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom It has always happened with playground gossip. And when there is no scary news you get instead stories about local so called ghosts or murders. It obviously needs reacting to and dealing with by adults. But stopping kids watching the news or knowing about current affairs is not the solution.

I once interviewed an overseas applicant for medicine, who basically said she wasn't allowed to go out anywhere by herself. Not because she was disabled, it was a cultural thing. Ever. I did wonder how she'd manage in UK.

I don’t disagree but even giving your child reassuring, age appropriate information (as I had) doesn’t prevent the upset caused by other children giving inappropriate details.

My kid is a childhood cancer survivor so not nearly as sheltered re: death as most 10 year olds.

The school year before there was a similar hoo-ha over Putin & nuclear weapons.

@StaunchMomma Why is it the job of a school to show newsround? If they are it is because parents are failing. It is not the job of a school to teach kids about basic news stories.

@NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom That is why parents need to talk to children about current events. Do you think children finding out about a boy being stabbed locally comes better from discussions with their parents, or from playground gossip?
And kids will talk about things like this. I am not going to over protect my children because some parents want their kids kept in a bubble.

One of my children is in the same year as the children you are currently interviewing and we’ve had at least two incidents since the school year began where multiple children have become so distressed over a news story that parents have been contacted.

One story was a local news story of a teenage boy who was stabbed to death.

The other was to do with images of dead bodies in reporting over the war in Ukraine.

Both school incidences took place because one child had seen it on the news and then told the class what they’d seen.

Clearly, the old tv ‘watershed’ was a practical approach to this problem but we just don’t consume media in that way any more. We don’t even have an actual telly.

I’d like my child to have access to age appropriate versions of current events and we watched the sky kids show on Saturdays for a while but now it clashes with an extracurricular activity and we’ve gotten out of the habit.

No BBC (cancelled the licence in CoL cutbacks!)

I don't watch the news at 6, so why would my child? If I get the chance I listen to BBC news via the Alexa whilst cooking, but this notion of everyone being sat down for the 6 o'clock news is awfully outdated.

Don't most schools show Newsround, anyway?

I'm so glad the grammar schools around here don't do interviews. My child is bright and hard working but has ASD (classic Asperger's, as was) and chatting to strangers is a nightmare for him.

Also, if I were your employer, I really wouldn't be very happy with this judgey thread at all.