tv news

[justineo]

should you let children watch tragedies and violent crimes on the news?

[Mrs_Pegasus]

Depends on the age of the child.

My daughter is 6 and I dont allow her to watch the news.  I know at Christmas she saw the terrible tsumani tragedy and was very concerned and asked loads of questions.  So it was out with the atlas and an explanation.  Even so, we did avoid watching it when she was still up in the eveing.  Ironically, when they returned to school it was talked about in her class and a fundraising event was held so I take the stance that unless you can reassure the child I would avoid allowing them to watch.

But I reiterate what i said at the beginning, it really depends on age and their understanding.

[acw]

I agree with Mrs_Pegasus.  You could always start them off with Newsround on BBC1 (at 5.20pm I think).  It explains things really clearly and of course the images used are child friendly.  I think it's an excellent programme to show kids until they're old enough to see such scenes as we adults view on the later news bulletins. 

[acw]

PS - Kids shouldn't be sheltered from what's going on in the world.  It's important to help them to care about the world around them, especially geography and politics, in order that they maintain this interest later on and develop into rounder people (obviously TOO much TV and they really would be round little people, but you know what I meant!)

[mum1]

I think kids should watch the news so they can learn about different things after all this subjects are talked about in schools now

[llindsey1]

Not I do not think so. My daughter has never watched anything violent. My nephew watches voilence all the time. He is always talking about stabbing people. He takes objects such as pens and stabs holes in all types of things. And he also has fake guns which he points at people and says he is going to kill them. My child who has never been exposed to anything aside from kids shows and adult sitcoms has never once said anything at all violent. Also my daughter and my nephew are the same age and my daughter seems to have more innocence than him.