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

[hannaretch]

Over the past few weeks I have been carrying out 11+ interviews with new applicants to our school -independent day school, outside of London, thought of as the most academic school in our town.

I generally talk to the children for 20 minutes about their studies, hobbies etc and ask them to talk about themselves. The aim is to get an idea of who they are and whether they will fit in with the school ethos. We tend to interview almost all applicants as we feel that a good interview will allow us to get a better view of the individual even those with marginal entrance exam results. They get information on the type of questions they are likely to get before the day to allow them to prepare. We also ask them to bring in an item which they then talk about.

One of the standard questions I and others ask is along the lines of do you follow the news? Talk about a current news story/ what do think about Ukraine/ climate change? type thing. Nothing too major but it allows us to get an idea of their awareness of the world. Most are able to answer with basic knowledge and some understanding of the issues and it often leads to good discussions.

I was shocked that two or three of the ones I have interviewed this year stated that they werent allowed to watch the news and had no opinions/ ideas about the issues. Surely watching the news at 6 etc or online or even Newsround is basic preparation for life? (or school interview at least?)

Could you be with someone stupid?

It's this thread and the Op's dh has fallen down the you tube conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

I could have killed one of my offspring when asked to talk about a news story at a school interview - she told me she couldn't think of one

"what about the war in Afghanistan - your father's out there for heaven's sake"

"but that's not news, that's Dad"

Also she read "the Week Junior" and I always had the morning news on as we got ready for school, and we used to talk about stuff from that.

It was just a moment in interview when her thinking froze.

The trouble is that there is a lot of knowledge in the world that needs to learned, knowledge is cumulative, and it takes years and years to build up.

It's hard to feel interest in something that you know absolutely nothing about, so kids who get well into their teens and know nothing about current affairs, are not familiar with terms used in the news and facts about the world, are unlikely to go out and educate themselves at that point. And then before you know it, they are voting age and still don't have much of a clue about what's going on.

Did the three non news watchers not pass the interview?

My 7 year old would have nightmares until the end of time if I let her watch the news. She watches a small amount of Newsround at school, and that’s plenty for her. She’s a wee anxious thing - no good would come of her knowing what a total bin fire the world is when she’s 7.

I think if we are to direct our children to news sources they should be unbiased (if this is possible). If the child is exposed to the Daily Mail and nothing else they will take on a certain perspective of society and similarly the Guardian. I do believe we should bias our children's political views at an early age. Teachers in particular are obligated not to express political views. It could be argued that a lot of news items need context for discussion e.g.striking, BLM, taxation etc. so I think being conscious of age might not necessarily be a bad thing when gradually introducing children to the realities of the world. Also note not all new is totally trustworthy.

Mine did - must have shone in other ways

Talking about it afterwards, I really do think that the question (totally accidentally and quite unexpectedly) threw her, because she just didn't have a typical grasp on what it meant for something to be called the "news". Her earliest memory of a story was the search for Madeline McCann, other things that stuck were the election of Obama, the rescue of the Chilean miners and British elections

I can still remember news stories from when I was at junior school - botulism outbreak for example, and lived the 3 day week and power cuts, so strikes, industrial relations and wat inflation meant for pocket money were right in there too. Also remember DDad listening carefully to Budget announcements, and I remember thinking that as he thought it was important, then it really must be and I paid attention and got him to explain several of the concepts to me (I must have been such a delight in the playground!)

I'm not actually surprised, OP, but I do agree that it is wrong to shield children from current affairs.

Even if you don't watch the news, you can still discuss daily news stories, and teach children to analyse them. I can't remember a time when I didn't do this, tbh. How are they going to learn otherwise?

I was reading a research study the other day that did a randomised control trial with people either watching news or not watching news and they found an increase in watching news caused an increase in depressive symptoms.

I would do this too m! This and maybe radio 4.

I wouldn’t want my 10yo to watch the news. Firstly the tv in our house isn’t on that much and secondly think there’s some things they don’t need to see. Talking and reading a about difficult topics is very different to seeing a moving imagine of it.

There have been interesting studies about how watching the news invokes our fight or flight response

Sorry, but this just makes me think❄

Wow.

Honestly, this is your take away from interviewing 10/11 year olds? Who, incidentally, are not displaying their innate personality to you in these interviews but presenting you with their parents' work essentially. The idea that they "fit" or don't with the school ethos is awful. At 10! Selection on this basis is surely nonsense and just a 'baked in' privilege thing. Yuck.

3 our of ? are kept from watching the news? Presumably similar numbers are vegetarian or go to church or watch no TV.

There's no way I'd let mine watch the news in general, and I turn the radio down too. Every single news bulletin has headlines involving sexual violence, Andrew Tate trafficking women etc that they do not need to know about at 10 to be a well rounded person in the future!

I agree with someone else who said a lot depends on the age of siblings. My 6 yr old is very anxious and didn't sleep for ages when he misunderstood Ukraine for UK and overheard all the talk of war. Therefore his older siblings are more shielded than those without younger siblings probably.

Mine watch Newsround at school, read The Week Jnr and we talk a lot about current events. We do watch important things together, like the S35 Bill being debated in parliament and discuss them.. but I'm not sure mine would actually define that as "the news" as they're not presented with current affairs in that way. If you asked them, "what do you think about the s35 arguments?" They could debate the issues with you though.

I absolutely bet my dinner there's things that would come up from talking to 10 yr olds that would bother me a lot more than them being protected from the news though. Like the fact barely of them genuinely read for pleasure, and so many of them take selfies like sexualised posers and aspire to be "famous")

(My parents were v protective of me as a younger child and I remember people levelling these arguments. However they were age appropriate and allowed me to grow up in my teens. I've gone on to do a job in which I deal with the fall out of some of the worst of human behaviour, so being kept from it at 10 is not a terrible thing in my view. It gave me longer in my safe childhood bubble and maybe gave me something that enabled me to do the jobs I have as an adult.)

I listened to the radio news as a child, because my Dad was a newsreader!

One thing that is really important is for children to hear how language is used to describe what is going on in the world. It teaches clarity of expression, vocabulary, how to get a point across. If you do not watch, read or listen to the news then you are missing out in that crucial part of your education. Unfortunately young people now spend more time listening to Your Tubers waffling on, and it shows.

What year/age is this?

I agree people have such strange ideas. Friends of mine were not phased on discovering their 13 year olds had watched squid games (having not watched it themselves) but didn’t want their 15 year olds going to the fair or small local city alone with friends. I just ummed along thinking my 13 yo had already gone into town with a group of friends and I’d be horrified, having watched squid games myself had she watched it without my knowledge.

I think your selection process is old fashioned and a bit biased towards a certain type of family. Old fashioned, because maybe over a decade ago watching the news together as a family was a decent proxy for a family where curiosity and knowledge of the world was valued. Biased, because you are missing the child with a passion for something (gymnastics, football, painting whatever) who basically doesn’t watch TV due to focusing on that (just look at the hours a week in the gym needed for elite stream gymnasts).

My experience of the London 11+ process was that questions about the news rarely came up. Most schools now use pictures, graphs or other stimuli to prompt discussion - with the usual intro question about hobbies.

Surely if your child was going to an interview and you’d been told there might be a news question you’d prepare them by discussing a news topic - they don’t have to watch / listen to the news to do that. Most schools have firstnews or the week junior too.

There's lots of research around HOW we consume information these days and how it affects our brains.

24/7 news coverage, smartphones with news alerts and pop ups, ticker tape repetition, digital radio coverage etc, all combines to assault our brains with information.

Growing up, the news was only in at set points of the day and you had to buy a newspaper and read it in real time to get any detailed information. This slowed down the consumption and volume of information.

Our brains were not designed to deal with the number of sources of information it is assaulted by nowadays and it has an impact on mood, functioning and perception. Of course it does!

The problem might be your question ‘the news’ if asked them something more like ‘what’s an important issue in the world’ or ‘what things that are happening in the world at the moment are you interested in’ you might have a better response.

My gosh. I grew up watching the 6 o'clock news with dinner. Ok it was on a tiny black and white telly but we still watched.

I remember seeing the Berlin Wall fall and I would have been about 6 at the time.

A lot of stuff went over my head. I remember going to look up the word rape in the dictionary when I was early teens after hearing it on the news.

My kids watch the news and they are 6 and 4. Often during dinner, usually when there is something big happening in the world. Mostly they ignore it. Sometimes they ask questions.

What upsets me most about this post is the idea that an 11 has to pass an interview to be accepted into a school...

I am well aware that's fairly normal in the independent sector, but it doesn't make it Ok....

This doesn’t surprise me as it’s something I hear partners talking about. My children see the news. I feel that they need to know a bit about what’s going on in the world. Other children will talk about things like the war in Ukraine at school and I would prefer them to encounter it at home first.

I haven't regularly watched the news in about 15 years, so my DC haven't either. There is very little content left in TV news, everything is sensationalised, even on the 'main' channels.

We do have Radio 4 on throughout the day, so there is the Today Programme and PM on in the background. We do talk about big news stories. The DC sometimes watch Newsround at school too.

TBH, I am a bit judgmental of parents that let their DC watch irresponsible news programmes. It has led to some panic amongst the kids at school times when they have got the wrong end of the stick about something.

My child could watch the news but I don't actively encourage it.
There is a huge negativity bias in news reporting which is not reflective of real life.
I've noticed anxiety is some kids because of this.
We talk about some topics at the dinner table and encourage discussion but I don't put the news on!

I think another big thing is that not many families I know ever watch terrestrial TV. I sometimes tune ours in, but it very quickly loses the channels again, so everything we watch is on apps.

You have to really want to watch the news now, rather than it just coming on before or after you watch something else.

Back in the days when Newsround was on BBC1, you could stick the TV on for your primary aged kids and know that for say 90mins there would be a variety of child suitable programmes, including the news.
Now everything is on specialised channels I think it is harder to access by default.
Additionally how many adults say they get their news from Facebook etc so even parents don't actually 'watch the news'?

That said, having been sheltering DD for 3 years from news, i probably need to actively start changing that now.