by Dr. Wayne Warburton Whether we like it or not, our children are going to engage with the wider world more and more as they grow older. Having a wider knowledge of how the world works (in both positive and negative ways) provides them with a wider framework in which to understand events in their own lives and events as they occur to others.

Exposure to helpful media sources helps children and adolescents to know more clearly the social norms for acceptable and pro-social behaviour, and to prepare for future activities such as voting, engaging with other people in the workplace, undertaking intimate relationships, maintaining friendships and becoming parents.

Of itself, learning about current affairs doesn’t help kids make sense of the world – it just tells them what the world is like according to the news source.

How do kids make sense of what they see?

1. Context and Framework:

Firstly, parents and teachers who engage with their children during and after exposure to media can help to provide a framework for what the child has seen and heard by answering questions and offering comment.

Putting events in a broader context or helping a child to make sense of something disturbing can help allay the child’s natural fears about some of the material they are exposed to, and reduce the chance of the child forming enduring patterns of thinking about the world that are unhelpful (for example, a ‘hostile attributional bias’ whereby the child starts to see ambiguous and innocent actions by others as being hostile and deliberately intended to hurt).

2.  Filtering and Expectations

By the ages of 2-4 kids also begin to filter what they experience through established patterns of knowledge and expectations about key situations (schemas) created through interactions with key others. Kids with parents who are harsh or uncaring or inconsistent are more likely to develop schemas in which they see themselves as unlovable and unworthy, and others as untrustworthy and hostile.

Once we develop such expectations we are more likely to remember and process experiences consistent with these expectations (e.g., when someone I trusted tried to hurt me) and forget or not process inconsistent information (when someone I trusted did something to help me).

Kids approach media with the same biases and expectations, and the media itself may provide information that facilitates the development of new biases in thinking. For this reason, it is important that:

(1) parents and teachers and others work alongside children to help them understand what they see in current affairs shows, and

(2)  that the shows themselves are pitched in a way that helps the child to make sense of what they see, provide a balanced and helpful report of events, and help a child who may be a bit anxious or fearful about the world to put a helpful framework around potentially disturbing information.

One program that I like in this regard is the ABCs Behind the News (BTN). BTN reports important world and local events but does so in a thoughtful manner that is suitable for children of school age and provides a platform from which parents and teachers can help kids to further understand what they see and hear.

Often the reports from such programs can help kids to understand things that are directly relevant to them. Why does our school have a new assembly hall with that Stimulus Package sign out front? Why is my mum finding it hard to get a job? Why does my dad complain and mutter under his breath every time he opens the electricity bill? Why can’t we have cherries this Christmas?...

About the author:

Dr Wayne Warburton is a lecturer in developmental psychology with the Department of Psychology and is the Deputy Director of the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University (Sydney). Wayne is also a registered psychologist, and is a consumer representative on the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s governing council. He has a number of publications in scientific journals and books, primarily on topics around aggressive behaviour.  Link: http://www.iec.mq.edu.au/research/cfrc/staff_profiles/warburtonW.htm

Articles in this series:

Floods and Other Catastrophes: Helping Kids Cope
Coming Soon:  How Parents Can Model Healthy Media Habits

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