AIBU to want Year 3 given discussion after watching Newsround?

[jesst81]

My 7-year-old daughter (Year 3) is really struggling with anxiety at the moment and I’m wondering if I’m being unreasonable here.
Her grandfather passed away about five weeks ago, which I’m sure is playing a part. We’ve been doing a lot of talking at home about feelings and grief, and generally she’s quite a sensitive child. She also loves learning about the world and is very curious.
Recently the school have been showing Newsround to the class during the day. I understand that it’s aimed at children and that the school say it’s appropriate from age 6+, but lately it has been covering things like the war in the Middle East and the UK’s involvement. My daughter seems to find this really worrying.
The issue for me isn’t necessarily that they watch it — it’s that there doesn’t seem to be much context or discussion afterwards. From what I understand, the children watch it and then move straight on with the day. My daughter comes home with lots of questions and worries that she doesn’t fully understand.
Her anxiety has escalated quite a lot. A few weeks ago she might have had the occasional wobble, but now she’s having what I’d describe as anxiety attacks several times a day. It’s really distressing to see.
I have spoken to the school and her teacher, but the general response has been that it’s age-appropriate and that they try to talk about it later in the week if they have time. I completely understand teachers are busy, but I’m struggling with the idea of children this young watching news about war without the space to process it or ask questions.
Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit more explanation or discussion around it for children this age?
Just interested to hear how other schools handle this or whether anyone has been in a similar situation.

DS learnt about Jesus being nailed to the cross and about WW2 in reception, I thought it was totally inappropriate tbh, and once it's done you can't take it back. Why introduce them to such horrors at such a young age? I remember becoming obsessed with germs after things we were shown at school in the early 80's - could easily have led onto OCD to be honest as that runs in my family.

Schools are often shite at handling this sort of thing IMO, then they wonder why there's an anxiety epidemic. Tell them she's bereaved and not coping with the upsetting stuff she's watching and that you'd like her to go sit in another class and read a book or something while it's happening. You will have to advocate for her though because teachers really don't seem to have the time to cater to individual needs off their own back, speak to the Head if the teacher doesn't see the issue.

Yea that’s why there’s an anxiety problem. Nothing to do with current parenting or excess screen time at all…

But that doesn’t need to start at 7. There are loads of unpleasant aspects of life that are to either be experienced as they come, or learned later in teenage years.

You seem to be thinking a 7 year old can bear the weight that adults can, that worries me. If you make your child grow up too soon, they won’t thank you for it. Nor will they be better adjusted. They will likely just lose the spark we all hope our children keep for as long as possible.

Look, we all raise our children as we see fit. If you’re happy for your young children to see images of war, crime and crisis, that’s fine. But I’m not, I think it’s totally inappropriate. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

My class (Year 2) watch newsround sometimes at snack time. However, I don't show them the political or war bits as they are too little in my opinion for this. They liked the winter Olympic stuff recently and things like that which we then chat about.

It’s Newsround, remember. Not BBC News 24.

Israel bombing Palestine has been going on for years and yes this was the conflict. Talking to children about current affairs is responsible. Delegating adult responsibilities - parents or teachers - to a tv programme is irresponsible and lazy.

My DCs are 19 & 22 . You misunderstand me they need exposure to age appropriate stress, how do you think teenagers learn to cope ? It absolutely starts early, I would suggest well before 7 tbh.

1000% agree. I just don’t think the only options are news round or playground chat. Adults speaking to young children about these issues is the best way in my option. Not a tv programme with no discussion or support ti process the information because even as adults understanding the reasons for conflict is complex, and resolving conflict is hard.

Agree with Faster. Informing 7 year olds of the details of war is not “age appropriate stress”. Why not let them have a few years of innocence? They will learn soon enough in our age of ultra information.

Humans never used to have all this information about far away places certainly not children, Our forebears certainly didn’t. This information overload is very recent.

Everyone I knew growing up all used to watch the news with their parents and innocence have you been any where near a group of kids that age in a playground? or speaking about what they watch on their devices

And this is why kids end up leaving school with zero commonsense nor any knowledge outside the few streets they live in

My daughter’s class was watching newsround as Covid started and it was very, very difficult for her. She is autistic and has anxiety and the constant reminders about all the scary stuff really pushed her into a dark place. I eventually told them to have her sit in the hallway when it was on and she’d bring a book. Some kids really do struggle with newsround.

They stopped showing it when my son was that age as it was just too triggering. One incident was a group of children telling my jewish son and his Muslim friend they shouldn’t be on the same football team in PE as they were enemies now. Of course children are exposed to all sorts at home, but this was directly related to the newsround episode that day. Given a lack of time or resources to contextualise scary topics, and a large and growing refugee population in the school, it was creating more problems than it solved.

How much detail are we talking? Because like someone mentioned further down about their DD reading about news stories from actual newspapers in the shop - children still heard about conflicts before Newsround’s segment was played in schools. TV, radio, papers, overhearing chat from adults or other kids.

Definitely not recent for kids to be aware of current affairs, kids used to know about the prospect of nuclear war. Unlike a nice padded Newsround clip shown by a teacher or parent, it was scary and they probably had nobody to discuss it with. Those of us from other countries saw sad things with our own eyes when we went home.

Info overload, I would argue, is specific to adults who seek out awful stories in the news or videos of conflicts, or stories about horrific murders. Children today are far more protected than ever before. It’s real but not a problem that 7 year olds are facing whatsoever.

As a child growing up predominantly in the 90s, I was aware of the Gulf War (my dad was working in the Gulf at the time), AIDS (we talked about this a lot at school) and have vivid memories of Dunblane (I was in P6 at the time). Princess Diana dying in a car crash was also well known amongst us all. We were all aware of it, despite no internet. I don’t know if children are more anxious now, or we are just more protective of childhood innocence. What do you all think? I am not even sure myself tbh!

Because they don’t watch the news or newsround?! No, sorry. They can still learn about the world through book, programmes, culture days, sharing the classroom with friends from different cultures/nationalities. There are lots of wonderful ways parents and schools teach their children about the world.

My 7 year old has a lot of common sense, we talk about money management and practice through chores and savings. We talk annd engage in healthy eating and exercise to grow strong. We talk about what’s kind, what not, risks and challenges. They’re very smart with a good head on their shoulders.

But they don’t know what’s going on in the Middle East. They don’t know much about global warming, beyond that we must care for our planet, and they don’t have to burden themselves with issues they can’t control or partake in.

On the playground they play football and tag, they joke around with their friends and even still imaginary play.

Theyre 7, not 17. They’re enjoying childhood, innocently, naively and joyfully. That’s how it should be. As they get closer to secondary school age, the serious stuff will play a bigger part im sure.

Innocence is not rhe same thing as ignorance!
The world may be harsh , but it is thecworld your child is going to grow up and live in. I would want them to have a rudimentary understanding of how it works , and of what is going on.

Why do they need to know when they’re seven?! It’s ridiculous

For one thing, wouldn't you rather your children was told in age appropriate way through a childrens TV show, than any of the myriad of other ways they can find out? Can your 7 yr old not read for starters?

YA really NBU. It's irresponsible to have young children watching news about quite significant current affairs but then not provide any context, discussion or questions. It's not learning to just shove them in front of it and expect them to know what to do with it.

It's also NOT shielding children from the world to not have them watching newsround. If they're not going to provide any kind of follow-on from it, then I would say at this time while she's struggling and needs extra support, you ask for her to be removed from the class while they watch it. It's ok to support your own child. She's had a bereavement and is struggling and some temporary measures might be necessary. Just keeping chucking her in at school isn't going to help her in any way. Contrary to popular belief, exposure to distress isn't what builds resilience.

In general children are already dealing with many things way, way beyond their ages and stages - we absolutely pile it on them under the guise of education and they're overloaded.

It's not age appropriate if there's no supportive environment in an educational setting to process it and ask questions.

Maybe it's also why we have high rates of poor child mental health.

Children have less exposure to sad or grown-up topics than previous generations; have excellent standard of living in safe western countries compared to how billions of people around the world, and have parents who are more willing to speak openly and reassure them if they have questions or worries.

Newsround, or even the actual news, is not responsible for people’s MH.

They have, theoretically, less exposure now because we as a society recognised how we were damaging them. 'It used to be worse' isn't a reason to ignore the damage that is happening to the OP's child, now, in real time, or to pretend that she will be the only one.

I also haven't suggested that Newsround is responsible, what I did say is that children watching it and having no supportive environment to discuss what they've watched in that moment is irresponsible and not actually anything to do with learning and education.

But thanks for the lecture bro.

"They have, theoretically, less exposure now because we as a society recognised how we were damaging them"
So how come, with all this overprotective parenting of primary school children, we now have an epidemic of anxious,teens with no resilience ?

I’d rather be able to discuss them with my kids myself rather than them being spoonfed their teachers’ opinions…

Have you heard of something called the Covid pandemic?