and precious?

[Decanter]

As much as I can, I prevent my DCs from seeing news that may disturb or scare them, and that they do not NEED to see. E.g. I would tell (if asked, tbh) them in age appropriate terms about terror attacks, or refugee crises, or perhaps a prominent person's death but not about isolated murders etc. We do not read newspapers and never buy them or have them at home, and I am as careful as I can be about them seeing tabloid and trashy magazine covers (take a break) etc. when we are out. They are 4 and 7.

DD(7) told me today that she and a schoolfriend read about a "baby called Liam who was strangled and died". She was referring to the horrific case of little Liam Fee. Turns out her school provided the newspapers for them to cut bits out of etc. for craft.

I am a supporter of Child Eyes, the charity which campaigns for the censorship of sexualised images and headlines, and I believe that a young child reading stories of children being murdered are potentially as scary and anxiety-provoking to a young child.

Would I be U and precious, if I asked the school not to use newspaper for this type of activity?

Appropriate way not want. Grrr

Yes, Newsround is on CBBC. The problem is tv viewing is so much more fragmented. We always seem to have Nickolodeon on instead.

I think you can find a happy medium between her knowing the full horror of some stories, and her living in a bubble where no-one must let her know anything that's going on. In reality, the second option isn't sustainable. School lessons will talk about current events, her friends will, she'll hear the radio news etc. She'll have to learn to understand the really complex stuff going on around her at some point. And doing it all in a rush when she reaches some cut off age might be a massive shock!

Just want to add that there are an awful lot of conclusions being jumped to here!

That we teach that newspapers are "bad".

That we don't teach our kids about politics.

That we don't discuss death, or prepare them for death of family members/people they know.

Outfoxed - exactly. We really have no idea of the impact exposing kids to graphic news stories has

I've always been a bit cautious about the DCs hearing stuff on the radio/seeing stuff on the TV/reading headlines that might either be traumatic, or require me to be dismissive or be less than honest and straightforward, just because every aspect of a story is beyond their desirable understanding (ie when Radio 2 persistently puts "child sex abuse" headlines on the school run bulletins).

Now they watch Newsround every day at school and read First News, so I take my lead on tone, content and explanations from them, since both are written by experienced journalists who know how to strike the right note for children. They are now generally better informed than I am, TBH.

They do get sad and worried about stuff in the news, but they are also learning valuable lessons.

I think it's just one of those things where I have to accept that you can't wrap them in cotton wool forever or live in The Truman Show, and there will come a point where their friends, and the internet, will be more influential than I am.

Given that, what matters for me is that they don't take everything at face value, they learn to analyse and critique and form their own opinions, and they develop a rounded, balanced, compassionate world view. And they just won't get that from being "protected", however much I would love to.

I think that the school would find you decidedly odd if you went in and asked them not to use newspaper for cutting up in craft lessons because of what your children might read.

You can't shroud them in cotton wool. This is just one example of how the news is all around them and they will hear things about it no matter what you do to try and shield them.

I never tried to shield mine from the news stories of the day. My DD1 was 6 and at school when the 9/11 attacks happened. They were watching it at school. Nobody complained as far as I know. We were all watching it at home prior to picking them up from school and then continued when we got back. No harm was done at all.

DD2 was 3 at the time and DD3 just a couple of months old, so neither that bothered about or aware of what was going on.

You almost had me on board until you got to avoiding them reading front pages of magazines in shelves.

Once children can read by sight well they will pick up on all words around them. That will be newspaper bill boards, billboards in general, articles in shop windows etc. By 7 some children will be able to read well enough to catch the headlines on newspapers form a distance. The headlines are often far more harrowing and upsetting than the content of the article.

I believe children need to be sheltered to some extent from the actual ins and outs of some media reporting. But it's far better to start young with age appropriate explanations than them suddenly hitting their teens and finding out about how awful the world can be at times and in places.

I think that it's much better that they are able to discuss things with you having been exposed to news stories. By not having paper/news on etc do you think you could be creating an environment where outside events are almost taboo?
I was a very early reader (by 2 ) and would read anything I could get my hands on, whether that was the back of a cereal packet our the daily papers. It was almost a compulsion for me and still is - I'm drawn to print.
Consequently I read stuff in the papers at 3 onwards but was able to discuss with parents in an age appropriate way.

Decanter, I didn't intend to state that you were overtly teaching your children that newspapers are bad; my concern is that by virtue of the fact that you are refusing to have them in the house or even to read them yourselves, they will absorb the message that they are abnormal and to be avoided.

I was brought up in an extremely sheltered environment for the same reason, no TV for years, only age appropriate children's books and not only did I miss out on a lot of cultural knowledge (e.g. didn't know what Corrie was aged 10) I also didn't handle what turned out to be reality (news, watching TV programmes) very well either. I was an anxious child and it only got worse from mid-teens onwards when I started seeing the news/watching films with my peers.

I think a sensible balance must be struck. Once your child can read, I think shielding their eyes all the time and acting as if something terrible has happened when they see a headline like that is an over-reaction, it's better to contexualise it and help them make sense of the world. So I'd say, 'it's very sad, some parents are mean/nasty to their children, I don't know why they are like that' and if they want to talk more, go with that. We have had to cover over the last few years: terrorism, child sex abuse (Savile and others) refugees, and all manner of horrible killings of children by their parents. I don't seek this stuff out but it is often on the news or even on Newsround. On the good side, you get to discuss stuff like Tom Daley coming out about ten years earlier than I had heard about gay people when I was young.

I am not saying your worries are unfounded, but once they are 7 upwards, can read the news, hear things on the radio, see newspapers, the cat is out of the bag and you need to work on how you can reassure and contextualise the stuff, so it makes more sense- paradoxically this may make your child less anxious not more, given you can't change where they live.

I will definitely look into FirstNews and Newsround - thanks.

Youarentkidding me - you say that often the content of articles is less harrowing than the headline - this is precisely why Child Eyes want to stop this type of sensationalist stuff being available for kids to see. Gory, shocking headlines stick with kids.

I remember seeing front pages of Lockerbie, and Hillsborough - those graphic images have never left me, and I believe that those types of images are no longer allowed.

For clarity, I don't blindfold them in the supermarket, we just don't hang around newspaper stands

Anyhoo the cat's out the bag now I guess. Despite running around her Gran's garden on a glorious sunny evening with her cousins, she's come to me 3 times and mentioned the article. It's obviously playing on her mind. I don't think it's just curiosity tbh, she's been spooked by it.

I think media has generally become more graphic visually in the past 25 years.
I think that the language often used to describe events is far more emotive and dramatic than it was when I was a child. Even institutions like the BBC are heading down the SKY News road of dramatic statement, then pause for effect TV.
Family/ domestic/ child related abuse was by and large invisible in the media [though happy to be corrected]. Family courts were held in secret for example.

So all in all, I think a lot more information is available now, in real time and with the advent of smart phones, news outlets have access to material that would never been available before. Some of that's good, a lot of it is not.

YANBU. How practical it is to shield our children from the worst of it I don't know but I don't think a 7 yr old who is supposed to be making papier mache something or other should be suddenly reading about some poor child strangled to death without any context or warning, as would usually be the case in a school setting where they might explain a natural disaster in assembly or similar.

Thing is maybe she'd have been less effected if you'd protected her less.

She will hear things in school. Ds is 8yo. The teacher said to the class "We're doing Islam thus year in RE. Does anyone know anything about it?" Apparently they didn't know much... But they did know about Isis. And in quite a bit of detail.
When dd2 was 8yo one of her classmate's mother was killed in a dv. At 9yo a close friend's dm died from cancer.
You can't protect them from real life.

We always had the tables covered with newspaper for crafts. I used to read it regularly. I was a little older, I think year 4 when I read the one that effected me. A little girl called Kimberley. What hit me at that age was the number of people that said roughly "oh yes she was treated badly. I saw....". As a sensitive child it did upset me but I resolved never to not speak up. And even though I am not confrontational and quite shy I do keep to this over 30 years later. I do speak up when I think something is wrong, even when it doesn't effect me.
I think I read much more harrowing things, but that is the one that stayed with me.

I'm a big fan of newsround for kids. They explain the news in an easy to explain way and this can lead into further discussion from you if necessary.
You can't protect them forever from the nastiness and cruelty in the world however much we would like to.

It is spooking and upsetting, there's no doubt about it. A couple of bad cases recently have really played on my mind. I agree that in the past, we simply didn't know about the abuse so many children have suffered, I am agog and not in a good way that some people are so incredibly cruel and even kill their own children.

I think you have to help her make sense of this though, without it being overly dramatic response or trying to get her off the topic. She's looking to you for reassurance and for an explanation, and I would give her an age-appropriate one. Sometimes children do see something (not necessarily a news item, but can be ina film, one of mine was terrified of something in a children's film which I didn't even perceive to be upsetting as it was a kids film certified U but it freaked them out).

I would try not to mix this too much with your campaign, which sounds great, and have a nice chat at bedtime, she may mention it again tomorrow, but it will hopefully die off in time as long as she feels safe and heard.

I still switch my news headlines away from the children though sometimes if it's something particularly traumatic (e.g. child rape) and they are 10 and 12. I don't hide stuff but I don't shove it in their faces either.

I'm definitely on the more shelter-y side and I'm happy with that. We do talk about what goes on in the world but I wouldn't have the news on in front of DCs if they were showing explosions, death etc. Pretty certain DD (8) has ASD and she takes things to heart pretty dramatically, particularly if it's visual, so I'd much rather talk about it with her without her having the visual 'experience' of an in-your-face news video type thing. During the centenary in 2014 she had an entire year of studying war at school, and honestly she has not gotten over it yet, it really affected her deeply. :( I am NOT saying that's normal - as I said, DD does have different needs than neurotypical children. Most of her classmates managed just fine and I do think the school taught it all very well.

I have been considering doing First News/The Week etc. This thread is making me think I should make it a higher priority :)

YANBU I feel the same. It's our job to protect them from this stuff until they're old enough to emotionally deal with it

Yanbu.

There is a big difference between learning about death, which is part of life, and learning about babies being murdered by their parents.

When a grandparent/ pet etc dies is the appropriate time. Your dd will not gain anything from that experience that she needs at that age.

She needs to know that life ends in death, that it can happen to people she has met, and that its sad for the people left behind but that's it.

I would be pissed off with the teacher.

When my DH taught YR5 he needed some magazines for craft and asked me to go through them to remove non age appropriate content (he was busy planning the lesson; I offered to help) However I would imagine the teacher simply did not have enough time and hoped the kids would get on with the task not read the mags. YANBU to be worried but can you cut the teacher some slack?

I'd be worried too - when I was working full time with children I used the 'Church Times' newspapers from local clergy as they don't have graphic sexual/violent images in them! It saved me time going through more mainstream press taking out images or stories children might see - and this was mainly for covering up tables. Teacher probably doesn't have time to source or scan, so I'd guess your best approach might be to offer to solve the problem by eg. keeping your own and scanning them or approaching a local community group or perhaps your local shop/newsagent to donate unsold papers to the school and then scanning them? Is there a local publication that doesn't have graphic images in (I'm thinking local directory or community magazine?) that might offer the school their unsold back copy and then you wouldn't have to go through it all?

TreadSoftly, your last paragraph sums up perfectly how I feel/felt about what happened today. That there are appropriate times and ways of communicating the sad stuff, but being blindsided during arts and crafts is not that time - thank you. Articulated much better than my longwinded OP!

Cagliostro, I'm sorry your daughter was so upset over the war studies.

HPsauciness thank you, good advice.

Thanks for all your replies. I'm certainly not accepting my opinion's defeat! I still think it was inappropriate and will have a think as to whether or not I take it up with the school. TreadSoftly, if I do, I will br plagiarising your synopsis if that's ok!

I'm in 2 minds about this. I myself am very stoic and don't really get affected directly by what I read. However I think generally doom and gloom makes you feel quite depressed and what's so bad about avoiding that?

To my massive surprise I find myself agreeing with you, OP. I tend to turn off graphic horrible news when the kids are around. I am liberal in most other respects: diversity, swearing, sex ed, giving kids freedom and choices. I'm also careful to teach them about their own privilege, poverty,opression etc but I don't think they need to see pics of dead children or read about graphic sexual violence. They have years and years ahead where the very harsh realities of life will loom large. Let them have a few years of shielding and cotton-wooling.