Helping Children Frightened by California Wildfires

The horrific images of the California wildfires are no doubt frightening many young children who happen to be in the room when their caregivers are watching television. Kids are often frightened by vivid visual images of threats in the news -- even if they don't seem to normally pay attention to the news. This is a problem that has repeatedly occurred whenever a vivid natural disaster has been covered in the news. I have posted advice on my web site to help families cope in similar situations. If this is a problem in your home, I recommend that you check out the advice I gave on coping with responses to Hurricane Katrina. If you have any questions on this topic, please post it as a comment.

Can you believe it? Using Halo3 to lure kids to church?

A story on the front page of today's New York Times entitled "Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game," describes the fact that many pastors around the country are so desperate to attract teens to their churches that they are sponsoring events in which children sit around in groups playing the popular violent video game, Halo. The latest version, Halo 3, has exceeded $300 million in sales in just two weeks. The game is rated M, for mature audiences, which means you have to be 17 to buy it. And yet, young teenagers are participating in these sessions, which are often followed by a lesson involving church teachings. There has been some criticism of these policies, but many pastors seem to argue that children know that it's only pixels they are shooting, so they're confident that the trade-off is worth it.

Well, there's a great deal of research on the harmful effects of violent video games. Here's a link to Professor Craig Anderson's web site, where he discusses many of these findings and their implications. And the web site of the Center for Successful Parenting talks about the impact of playing violent video games on brain activity and has an archive of research on media violence. In addition, research on the effects of prosocial communication documents that trying to undo the strong audiovisual and interactive media messages of violence by giving verbal explanations after the fact is woefully inadequate. What these children are coming to church to learn is that violence is a great solution to conflict, that it's easy, exhilarating and risk free, and that the church endorses it! What are church leaders thinking? Isn't there any other way to attract kids? And if not, are they creating more problems than they know?

The News Frenzy About Missing Women

A few days ago, I was interviewed by a reporter from the Wisconsin State Journal who was writing an article about the news coverage of yet another missing woman in our area. It turns out that, like another missing woman recently, this one left suddenly of her own accord because she was feeling stress, and she was later found unharmed. Unfortunately, earlier this year, there was also a tragic local story about a missing woman whose body was found in a county park and whose murderer is apparently still on the loose. The question the reporter asked me was, "how should the news handle these stories, without freaking children out who may be in the vicinity of a television set?" My answer was that news programs are in a difficult position. If a person is missing and foul play is suspected, new programs are doing a public service by notifying the community to look for her. My advice was that a news program could perform that service by matter-of-factly announcing that police were looking for a woman (perhaps with her picture), who was last seen in a particular type of car in a particular location, etc. This would not make a "compelling" news story, however. The purpose of television news is not simply to provide useful information; it's to bring in as many viewers as possible so that stations can charge high fees to their advertisers. Because of this, news programs usually don't stop with the facts about who's missing and from where. They often speculate about the kind of ill fate that might have befallen her; they often talk about the dreaded outcomes that have occurred in similar situations; and they sometimes even interview distraught friends and family members. These are the things that upset children greatly. As long as the purpose of TV news is to make money, news channels are not likely to limit these stories to providing necessary information. This makes children the secondary victims of these events (even if everything turns out OK for the missing woman). Many children will be left with residual anxieties and sleep problems. So it is all the more necessary for parents to avoid watching the news when children are present.

What do you think? Should television stations avoid emotionalizing these missing woman stories? Should they care more about their impact on children or their advertising revenues?

Viewing "The Exorcist" Changed Her Life

Here's an email I received last week:

Dear Dr. Cantor,

I just finished reading "The Elephant in the Living Room" and came across your research for the first time. The issues you raise has made a tremendous impact on the choices I am now making for my children ages 5 and 1. While I feel I have been mindful of their viewing habits (no TV for the one year old), I saw room for improvement and have taken action.

I wanted to share with you an experience I had as a child that changed the landscape of who I am. When I was nine, my parents left me in the care of my 12 year old sister for the evening. While they were out, we watched "The Exorcist". The terror those images instilled in me lasted for YEARS. It set in motion obsessive compulsive behaviors and bizarre rituals I developed in order to protect myself from demonic possession. No matter what I did, I could not "unsee" Linda Blair's body transformed by Satan. As a young adult I sought counseling (for several reasons) and was finally able to watch the film again and deal with the horror I had seen.

It saddens me when I look back on my childhood and see so many passages marked not by family experiences, but rather by The Bionic Woman, and the Love Boat/Fantasy Island combo that I watched for years. Yes, we had other issues at home, and in some ways TV was my escape, but like any other vice, it came with a high price tag.

I wish TV was not so much a part of our lives. My husband likes the background noise at night, when the kids are asleep, but I would rather enjoy a quiet evening. TV has a huge impact on marriages. I am curious to know if there is research in that particular area.

Thank you so much for your valuable work. I plan to order your books for my family.

-- Concerned

Dear Concerned,

Thank you very much for your message. It is good to hear that my work is helpful to you. And you certainly are not alone in your traumatizing experiences! If you haven't seen it, you'll enjoy a brief paper I posted on my web site that reports similar experiences:

http://joannecantor.com/longtermfright.html

I agree that the dominance of TV in our lives is not a good thing and that it does affect family life and marriages greatly. I am not familiar with any research that specifically answers your question about the effect of background TV on marriage, (although there is research that shows that it interferes with homework! and there's some research about fighting over the remote!) I do believe that the emotional impact of the background noise of television is negative -- that it probably increases anxiety levels. However, many people find silence aversive and always want to have something on, be it music, chatter, or whatever. I think that people can change, though, once they get accustomed to peace and quiet. We are regular TV viewers in my family (although I try to turn it off when there's nothing good to watch ), and I notice how much calmer I feel on the occasions, like vacations, when TV is not available. I certainly don't like to have the TV on in the background when I'm reading, as I've found doing one thing at a time is so much easier and less stressful. (Try to tell that to all those teenage multi-taskers!) So it might be worth attempting quiet evenings or quiet moments in your home if it wouldn't cause too much conflict.

Do any other readers have similar media experiences they'd like to share?

Are Infant Videos Good for My Child?

A while back I received a question from a mother about Baby Einstein DVDs and similar products. She had received a bunch of them at her baby shower and said she felt "a little uncomfortable" showing them to her 3 month-old. She wondered if there were any studies out there that might help her decide.

This is an excellent question. It’s one that I hear from many parents who are confused about the mixed messages they are receiving about their babies and the media. On one hand, the American Academy of Pediatrics and many child development experts have recommended that children not watch any television before the age of two, (and I heartily agree with this recommendation.) On the other hand, more and more media products are being targeted toward this age group, with names (like “Baby Einstein”) that suggest they will make children smarter.

First of all, there is no scientific evidence that babies and children benefit from exposure to media before the age of two. And media products such as Baby Einstein were not created by child development experts. According to its web site, Baby Einstein was developed by a mother who wanted to share her love of art, classical music, language and poetry with her infant. While this is indeed a worthwhile goal, doing this by exposing babies to videos is not the most developmentally appropriate method.

The American Academy of Pediatrics argues that infants and children up to the age of two need to spend the bulk of their time in interactive activities that promote brain development, including talking and playing, singing and being read to. What young children need the most is to interact with real people and with real objects in the real world. Baby Einstein’s web site argues that their videos are designed to promote parent-child interaction. However, sitting on a parent’s lap while she reads a book to you and shows you the pictures is a lot more interactive than watching a video together, and it provides a great deal more essential cognitive learning. To the extent that video watching displaces other more interactive activities, it should not be beneficial.

But as a researcher focused on child development and the media, I believe there are other potentially detrimental effects of infants’ exposure to media. As I argued in my parenting book, “Mommy, I’m Scared: How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them,” a great deal of learning goes on in the first and second years of life, and the best way for an infant to discover the world is to interact with it directly. Videos stimulate the senses of sight and hearing, but do not engage the sense of touch (or taste or smell). Young children learn an incredible amount in the first few years by picking things up in their hands, turning them over, and dropping them, for example. They learn that they can exert control over objects, and they learn certain essential facts of the physical world. For example, they learn “object permanence,” which means that if you cover your toy rattle with a blanket, it’s still really there and you’ll find it when you pick the blanket back up. They also learn that if you let go of your rattle while holding it out, it will fall to the ground. These are important learning milestones about the laws of physics. But if you look at TV, these laws don’t apply: Something can appear and disappear in a flash, and a chair can fly through the air for no reason. Time and space on TV also do not follow the rules young children are struggling to learn. So it seems to me that we ought to delay children’s exposure to the “magical” world of media until after they’ve mastered these real basics.

There is no evidence, as of yet, that Baby Einstein products are actually harmful to kids. No controlled research has yet appeared in the scientific literature on this product. There is scientific evidence, however, that another popular media product targeted to the under-2 age group, “Teletubbies,” which is shown on public television, is associated with delayed language learning.

I don’t mean to alarm parents into thinking that they’re ruining their children’s chances for success if they let them watch these videos at a young age. But I do think that young children are just as fascinated by colorful age-appropriate toys that they can manipulate in their own hands, or ordinary items you can find in any home, like a box with a top on it or the gift-wrapping their present came in. And they’ll learn a lot more through this more active exploration than they would by watching a video. Why not introduce a baby to Mozart with an audiotape, so that he can learn something with his hands at the same time? Or teach her about art with picture books that she can look at, turn upside-down, and turn over? Or with a sculpture that she can feel as well as see? There’s plenty of time later for media exposure, and for many other reasons, it’s good not to let your child become too much of a media fan too early.

What to do about scary movies on airplanes

A few weeks ago I was interviewed for an article (see the New York Times, September 1, 2007, p. A1) about how some children are being traumatized by the movies that are being shown on airplanes. Apparently many airlines have relaxed their standards and are now showing R-rated, violent movies, even though it means that many children will not be able to avoid seeing violent images. Violent movies like "Shooter" and "Fracture" have recently been shown. Many parents reported that their children were extremely anxious after seeing only a few images and some ended up tending to their children's nightmares afterwards.

My own research confirms that children can be extremely scared by pictures seen only briefly, especially those that are intensely violent or show creepy images or characters with distorted features. And often the resulting anxiety and sleep disturbance can drag on for weeks, months, and even years.

What's a parent to do when you're stuck at 30,000 feet and your the images are thrust in your child's face? Blindfold him? Spend the entire flight distracting her?

One parent mentioned in the article has started a web site, Kidsafefilms.org, to advocate Federal legislation to restrict violence shown on airline flights. He has created an online petition that starts with the sentence:

"We demand that the United States Congress act immediately to put an end to un-rated and violent films being shown to children on commercial flights operating in United States airspace. " (Movies shown on planes do not receive Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings. They are edited by separate companies for in-flight use.)

Given the high stakes for children's well-being and mental health, I think it's very important that we find ways to protect children from being ambushed by these images. But is Federal legislation the way to go? Would such a solution be too harsh and unfairly limit the viewing of other passengers? Are there other ways to protect children that would work in this situation? I'm interested in hearing what other people think about this.

I look forward to your comments.