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

Yet apparently, according to others on this post you are treating your 10 year old as a ‘baby’ and setting them up for a life time of snowflake and anxiety if you don’t encourage them to watch. Baffling

I don’t agree with the last line. As pp said it is a separating question that works on what a child is exposed to in a household, and not in their control.

Ds did the 11 plus for a day school in London known for academics, and that has a wide range of careers after, and the process was interesting in that it was looking for talent / academics. Some would find the questions quite abstract and unrelated to daily life but they served a good purpose.

As for having to read print I prefer experts speaking. To give an example when it came to something like Covid we discussed the science not the headlines, they saw none but knew stuff like airborne / who was at risk etc. Zero anxiety over the virus but useful knowledge and interested in hearing more.

I’m sure there is some good print out there but reading this thread I don’t agree on some approaches - that it’s a good question at 11 plus nor that dc need to harden up by watching news.

Yeah your right- any no better way to do that than show them scare mongering tv deliberately designed to instil fear and helplessness with a bit of torture death and murder thrown in.
Exactly. Who knew the way to avoid mental health issues in young adulthood is to make sure primary school aged children get to have their regular dose of real life crime, updates on rape and murder investigations, and a helpful dose of live war footage?

Yeah your right- any no better way to do that than show them scare mongering tv deliberately designed to instil fear and helplessness with a bit of torture death and murder thrown in.

That would be correct. It is better to start with MSM than with Social Media, is the point I am making.

Some MSM is subscription-based like FT and WSJ, which is more independent and quality journalism. The Week and the Economist are also a good publications, the former being a good segue into news-based printed media.

My job requires researching information in the public domain and from more trusted databases. The difference between people who can only put info together (cut-and-paste style) and people who can read, analyse and summarise often contradictory information from different sources, is quite stark. We are talking adults here with many years of work experience. The level of general knowledge (lack) can also be quite shocking. These are educated professionals.

However, those people who reach the senior management levels of my organisation are to a person well read not just in their area of expertise but generally. Most get their news from FT and WSJ. Commercial awareness and the ability to think strategically relies on being well informed and intellectually curious. It is a valid question at 11+.

Thing is OP, the news isn’t like it was when you and I were young

Sorry @Stardu but , I mean propaganda, cbeebies? Rape and toture on the 6 oclock news??

Your post reminds me of my neighbour who thinks BBC is all woke propaganda, all media is too woke and GB News is the truth...My other neighbour thinks BBC is in the pockets of the hard right Tories , all media is very right wing and the only news he reads is in the New Statesman. 🙄

Couple of points. Firstly, with the increase in mental health problems and suicides, especially amongst girls, I don't want to add to their anxiety by saying "let's all start watching the news together and afterwards we can discuss how you felt about the rapists, murderers, wars, corruption, missing people and misery". My eldest already has more than enough anxiety over their school exams without me adding to it. And yes, I remember the scary adverts about how to survive a nuclear bomb blast when I was a kid and they were scary, (and in reality utterly useless) and there was nothing I could do about it at all apart from worry.

Secondly, yes, dealing with anxiety is something that people need to do at times, but it's not that easy these days and we have more and more reasons to be anxious. I suffer from anxiety and have done for a number of years and it's not just a case of just learning some life skills and you're sorted. I wish it were, so I didn't have this condition. We're assaulted by more information in a week than the average person a hundred years or so would have received in a lifetime and our brains have obviously not been able to evolve to deal with that jump in information.

Ref the OP, I'm thankful that when my kids were interviewed for a place in private school after passing their 11+, that there weren't any questions about what they thought of the news. I think it's unfair to expect that of a 10 year old. There are plenty of other questions that can be asked and which were asked. If, as an adult I was asked what I thought of the news, I'd say I never watch it because it's the same unchanging misery which I cannot influence at all (and yes, I know I have a vote). If someone thought that made me less of a person, then that's on them and not me.

Mainstream media works on clickbait and sales.

You’re better off equipping them with how to navigate mainstream media rather than think of it as completely benign.

Critical thinking includes critiquing the media

If you do not expose your child to some form of mainstream media, then they will grow up with (fake) news fed to them on Twitter, facebook or social media. They would not have enough of a base level of knowledge or critical thinking skills to know what is truth and what is propaganda/sales/clickbait.

Children have had to digest some pretty rough news growing up. It is sad that some children don't have the choice (those in or fled Ukraine) and others have parents who consciously decide their children don't need to know.

This level of anxiety in the general population in peacetime just seems unprecedented.

The OP choosing this type of questioning in an interview suggests they are more about getting people in the OP's image from households who do things the OP's way than they are learning anything meaningful about the child and the child's potential

When I was a child I looked at the news at 6 and Newsround and my parents discussed global world news with me. For my own kids, I do the same, we often watch newsround on iplayer and discuss the issues raised. To me its nothing to do with 'an image' or class, but all about intelligence.

I find it weird that you think a well rounded child knows nothing of current affairs aged 10. Mine are younger and aware of climate change, world poverty, at 6 they could tell you who the prime minister was and who's in charge in America and Russia and why those countries are important.

Yeah, because its so precise in revealing the school and the pupils concerned....and not useful info to the thousands of parents stressed out by 11+....

The OP was interviewing children for entry to a selective private school. I’m not sure how much they’re worried about a class bias
Many independent schools offer bursaries and scholarships.

Not all families, even naice middle class ones, sit down together round the 6pm news to discuss the day's events.

Plenty of families who have the money for private education are only just getting in from work when the news starts, and are likely to have other things they need to do when they get through the door.

At our local private schools you've got very wealthy parents with one SAHP parents right through to children there because grandparents pay the fees, others have bursaries and scholarships for certain areas, other have parents working long hours and cutting back many other areas to afford the fees.

The assumption that sitting round the telly at 5/6pm to watch the news together is absolutely assuming a certain type of household.

The OP choosing this type of questioning in an interview suggests they are more about getting people in the OP's image from households who do things the OP's way than they are learning anything meaningful about the child and the child's potential.

Week Junior is excellent. I quite enjoy reading it myself and we discuss it together. We don't watch the news on tv as a family.

@LolaSmiles

Firstly they're making an assumption about a child's home life and likely to get some class bias in there as well, which isn't about a child's academic.

The OP was interviewing children for entry to a selective private school. I’m not sure how much they’re worried about a class bias.

Maybe children need to develop grit prior to adolescence in order to safeguard their mental health.

I think it’s quite dangerous to shield children from the harsh realities of life. We always let DS watch the news but I do remember FIL and MIL criticising us. We talked about it, we still do at the dinner table. I found him reading the paper with his feet on the table, it was The Guardian before it lost the plot when he was 7, it’s not a stealth boast it’s an actual boast as he was such an advanced reader. He got told off for feet on the table.

For those of you recommending the week junior, can you advise on its reporting of women's and trans issues etc, please? Do they report in a very TWAW style or are they more balanced?

Couldn’t agreed more and this is why I won’t encourage my 10 year old to watch news.
A previous poster above actually wrote that if you don’t watch the news you won’t develop critical thinking skills. I mean how ironic can you get?

I’m laughing out loud that you think watching main stream news develops critical thinking skills! Quite the opposite!

I've never really rationed news. Yes, horrible things happen but it's part of life and forms a basis for safe discussions.

The kids that I know, lovely as they are, who are wrapped in cotton wool, are generally the most anxious tbh. I sometimes wonder whether this lack of resilience might be behind the significant increase in mental health issues in the young nowadays?

I always think that, way back in the day, kids on average started working at 10! Of course, not harking back to the past but I think kids have the capacity, if we let them, to cope with more than we think.

Saying that, even if kids are offered to watch the news, it's not given that all kids show equal interest. I have two who are not the slightest bit interested, and one who is.

Also believe that a printed paper is much better for ensuring a wider range of news is on offer. Online you tend to go down a rabbit hole of being signposted to 'similar' stories.

I question whether the OP's question is an effective way of establishing a child's potential to be honest.

Firstly they're making an assumption about a child's home life and likely to get some class bias in there as well, which isn't about a child's academic potential.

Then they're making a decision about what THEY consider the big issues of the day are, and judging a child based on whether the child knows about an arbitrary news event.

It seems like the OP's line of questioning is less about establishing a child's potential or whether the child could excel in the school and more about whether the child is the 'right social fit' aka 'are they like us and from the right type of family?'.

Hmm, maybe others simply have more empathy than you do. Ever think that?

Thing is OP, the news isn’t like it was when you and I were young. It’s become vastly sensationalist and over-dramatic, and often contains graphic and gratuitous descriptions of torture/murder. It creates a feeling of helplessness and depression by constantly bombarding the viewer with horrific situations that the viewer can do nothing about, and mainly spreads fear. (Look at all the threads on here by women scared to go dog walking after reading the last week’s news.)

Absolutely my 10 yr old child is not allowed to freely watch the adult news. He can watch Newsround, but in the last few years I have to keep an eye on the CBBC’s constant flow of propaganda encouraging children to become transgender and police free speech, the accompanying promotion of sexist stereotypes and surgery, and the advertising of dubious ‘charities’ where adult men are keen to discuss sex and sexuality with children.

If something historic happens like covid announcements or Prime Ministers coming and going (as they seem to so often!) I’ll show him a news clip. He’s well aware of the political situation with Ukraine, Russia and China but does not need to read the graphic daily accounts of mothers grieving their murdered sons.

He reads The Week Junior and I sometimes show him BBC website articles, if I can find one without rape/murder/torture in it. I wouldn’t let him read this which is on the BBC front page today for example. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63942615

If you think ten year olds should watch tales of rape/murder/torture then I’m quite glad that we don’t fit in with your school ethos. 👀

Children in the UK have some of the worst child mental health in the world, and that’s mostly down to our schools. Just something to think about.

Yeah I did too and I dont believe my life as a kid was in any way enriched or enhanced by it.
Why is everyone so obsessed with kids ‘growing up’ 10 year olds arnt babies but they are still kids. They have a whole life of adult misery horrors and scepticism ahead of them. No need to start it at 10.

I think you have a point here!

Plus, it's a little random which news stories matter the most. The OP has decided that climate change and Ukraine are the most important news stories because that's what the BBC had told her to think. What if the children come from families that believe the uyghur genocide is the most important issue of the day and don't consider the Ukraine war to be more important than any of the other many conflicts around the world? It's a little myopic to have "must be regularly subjected to mainstream media propaganda" as an entry requirement for school.

I would also love to hear, OP, what would you do if the kids have the "wrong" opinion? For example, if they were to say that Russian-speakers in Ukraine were treated brutally and the West provoked Putin into invading because many of our leaders are gunning for WW3? Or if they'd said that there isn't enough evidence to say that climate change is man made? Would they only have passed the entry if they'd backed down and agreed with you? Could you have accepted they think differently and still admitted them? Is it really just an 'awareness' that you're looking for or do they need to think like you/ the BBC?