I had five children under the age of five on September 11, 2001. I remember frantically plucking the older ones from school, suspiciously eyeing a sprawling pharmaceutical campus I passed on the way home wondering if it might be an attractive target to some crazed attacker. John rushed home from work, as much to be with us as because I was terrified someplace in Philadelphia might be next.

Every night of the following week, after we tucked the kids into bed, we crept back downstairs to quietly watch the news and cry. The collapse of the buildings. The unspeakable courage of the first responders. The distraught ash-covered faces of countless stunned people picking their way through the rubble, trying to make it out of the city, home to people who were desperate to know they were alive.

We grieved for and with everyone who’d been lost and hurt and touched. And we grieved for our kids. How could we explain what had happened when we didn’t understand ourselves? How could the world ever feel safe and secure again for them? 

What our Kids Hear and See on the News can Deeply Impact Them

Fortunately, in those bewildering days after the attack, members of the media realized what so many parents were grappling with. They invited parenting expert after pediatrician after psychologist to offer guidance about how to shepherd our kids through what we were seeing on the news. Don’t let young children see video of the attack; they won’t understand it’s a loop and may think that attacks are happening everywhere. Tailor what your children know to their ages and processing abilities. Answer their questions without elaboration. Help them to focus on whatever good there is to see. Most importantly, reassure them that they’re safe – as often and insistently as you need to.

Since 9/11 – thank God – we haven’t had to face anything on that scale. But we have had to face a steady drumbeat of bad news, less a galvanizing calamity and more a constellation of crises. Covid. Climate Change.  Insurrection. Impeachment. #MeToo. Riots. School shootings.  

Since 9/11, the way we consume news has changed, as well. There are fewer newspapers and many more visual options, making news stories less intellectual and much more intimate and real. Thanks to cell phones, we not only learned about the last nine and a half minutes of George Floyd’s life, we witnessed them. Thanks to body cams and street surveillance, we heard every horrifying second of Tyre Nichols’ murder. Videos of tsunamis. Televised genocide. Live coverage of war. They stream through our phones and laptops and past our sofas not just as news, but as videos and soundtracks. As visceral experiences. Not just once, but over and over, on twenty-four-hour news channels eager to gin up ratings with sensationalistic videos.

What I haven’t heard since 9/11 is much guidance on how to help our children – from littles to teens – manage this barrage of bad news. I think this lack of recognition of just how much bad news our kids are exposed to combined with too little guidance on how to manage their consumption and understanding of that news is hurting our kids. I point to the most recent bit of bad news out of the CDC: research showing that our teens, especially our girls, are battling unprecedented levels of sadness and hopelessness.

I spy a connection.

Ideally, Kids Under the Age of Six or Seven Should Have Only the News You Give Them

So, what can we do to help? First, the only news littles really need to know is the stuff that impacts them directly. They’re not psychologically prepared for the woes of the world. You should be the filter of whatever news they hear. To the extent you can, keep it positive and personal. Do they really need to know that scientists think the climate is tanking? Maybe it’s better to stick with, “We recycle to help take care of the earth.”

Remember that kids are constantly watching and listening to you. (Well, not when you tell them to clean their rooms. More like when you wish they weren’t listening to you.) So don’t leave the news on in the background assuming they won’t pay attention and be mindful that they’re listening when you’re chitchatting with friends.

What if there’s some bit of bad news you can’t insulate them from, like, say – I don’t know – a worldwide pandemic? When something is obviously wrong, trying to minimize or ignore it only stresses kids out. Give them the basic facts in a straightforward way, then let them ask questions. Follow their lead – they won’t ask questions they don’t want to know the answers to – so you don’t give them more info than they’re really ready for.

But you take the lead in tone. Try to be calm and factual, and don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know an answer. The most important thing little kids need to know is that they’re safe, and they need to know that in spades. Your hugs and attention convey that as much as your words do.

As They get Older, it Becomes Much More Difficult to Filter the News our Kids Hear

Alas, this bubble period doesn’t last long. At some point, your kids will start coming home with more pointed and specific – and sometimes truly complicated – questions. Why is Russia hurting people in Ukraine? What does Black Lives Matter mean? Why would somebody bring a gun to a school?

This is a really excellent opportunity for you to become a trusted truth-teller to your child. Again, though, you don’t want to overwhelm them, and the overarching goal is to reassure them that they are safe. Start by asking what they already know. They may only be idly commenting on something they saw on TV or heard on the bus. Don’t assume they’re ready to hear the darker points in life until you’re sure that’s what they’re asking about. 

If your child already has a basic grasp of the Black Lives Matter movement, or what’s happening in Ukraine, and doesn’t seem overly distressed by it, have the conversation, but do it slowly and thoughtfully, asking periodically if that answers their question of if they’d like to know more. 

That’s When our Job Shifts from Controlling the News to Contextualizing it

No event, no bit of news, happens in isolation. It is always swirling in a larger context, often filled with multiple causes and meanings and consequences. Their questions about what’s going on in the world is the perfect prompt to begin teaching your child that truth, to help them learn to understand events by trying to look at them in context.

This country has a long and very troubling history of racial inequality. But there are people who are trying to make that right. Would you like to learn a little more about the civil rights movement?

I can’t explain why one country would violently invade another. I do know that Ukraine was once part of Russia. I bet we could find something online to explain the history a bit.

School violence is a particularly terrible tragedy. That’s why, even though it’s never happened anywhere near us, so many schools, including yours, take special precautions to keep kids safe.

Teach them to be Critical News Consumers

If you can, and if your kids are interested, watch the news with them. There are news shows geared directly toward younger kids, but your tweens and teens will probably want to get news from the same source you do. Again, this is a golden opportunity to give your child a life-long skill: the ability to listen critically.

Many news sources these days have an obvious or only partially hidden bias. Even if you agree with that bias, point it out to your kids. Ask them what they think about it. Why do you think this channel didn’t cover that story? Why does everyone at that round table seem to agree with one another? Isn’t there a different point of view? It sounds like they’re debating their guest rather than trying to get information from them. What do you make of that?

If you’re really old school, and they still exist by the time this issue rolls your way, you might want to show them a little thing we used to call a “newspaper.” Print media – still available on a little thing we call the “internet” – can still be biased, of course, but the stories are longer and can be reviewed as often as necessary to get a solid handle on the story and any questions it raises. Broadcast journalists need to get in and out of a story as quickly as possible, and may skinny or dumb down the content to do it.

Also, broadcast news, like every other show on TV or the internet, needs to be seen to survive. It might be worth pointing out to your child that maybe they’re playing that troubling video or cutting down a complex piece of information into a soundbite for ratings. Help them to understand that news programs filter stories for their own reasons, and if they listen with a critical ear, they’ll be able to figure out which to trust and which to question.

Point Out “the Helpers”

Critical, I’ll remind you, does not mean cynical. I think it’s an incredibly valuable and empowering counterbalance to bad news to point out the people who are trying to help. The rescuers. The protesters. The rebuilders. The solution-seekers. The people who are trying to right whatever wrong we’re confronting.

I reference the eternal Mr. Rodgers here, whose advice to look for the helpers was, admittedly, meant for very young children. But I think it’s powerful for older kids and adults as well, this idea of identifying the “helpers.” Not just as a source of comfort or pride or compassion, but as a call to action and, maybe more importantly, as a challenge to figure out who, after all, the “helpers” really are. 

Use the News as a Springboard to Discuss your Family’s Values

In this sense, sharing the news with your children, discussing and maybe even debating it in an age-appropriate way, is the ultimate wellspring for conversations about family and personal values. When firefighters rush into a burning building, it’s obvious who the helpers are. But often, there are different ways to help and opening that conversation with your child can be a really rich and relevant way to share values. Do you think a good guy with a gun is really a helper? If that man with a knife was suffering a mental health crisis, who do you think would be in the best position to help him? Are protesters helping, do you think? How do you think we could be helpers in the battle for social justice?

Then Turn it Off and Go for a Walk

Personally, I believe engaging with the events in our world is important. It’s an important quality to model and it’s an important quality to inculcate. Sharing the news of the day with your children – again, in a way that’s appropriate to their age and temperament – is one way to do that. 

But if your child seems stressed or overwhelmed by it, if they’re having nightmares or stomach aches or just look weighed down, take a moratorium from the whole thing. Turn off the TV and close the laptop and lose the phone. Go for a walk or a bike ride or an ice cream. Helping our kids learn to manage their feelings about the significant challenges our communities and countries and world face is a long game. If we deliberately and thoughtfully guide them through the process of taking those challenges in without being overwhelmed by them, they’ll be less stressed than hopeful and empowered as they take up the mantle to conquer them themselves.