In light of recent events in Japan I'm going to take a second to point something out to my fellow parents of young children. The news isn't aimed at your two year old child. Check it:
On September 11th, 2001, terrorists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers and everyone sat in front of their TV's riveted, horrified, oblivious to anything else. Teachers in schools stopped teaching and turned on the news and watched it with their students. Even in child care centers for young children teachers were doing the same. This isn't surprising, it was huge, it was beyond our (U.S. citizens) understanding, how could it happen to us?! No one stopped to think of how these images, repeated over, and over, and over again affected the children watching. Think many, many, many planes crashing into many, many, many buildings. And you thought you were afraid to fly after knowing it was only two planes (four total, but two in the Towers case) and two towers... now think about it from the toddlers perspective. Uh huh.
Young children live in a world centered around them. It's natural, it's normal, it's the limit of their cognitive development. They have yet to learn of a world outside their backyard or how it impacts their lives, or how their lives impact the world. As parents it's important that we teach them these things, but when they're ready, and toddlers simply aren't ready. Not to be hit with horrific disaster images on the TV anyway. This is where the whole "parenting" thing comes into play. You need to slowly introduce these things to your child in a productive way, don't expect the news/TV to do it for you.
While watching the footage of houses being swept away by a flood they are very likely to fear that their house is next. They don't understand that that house on the TV is in another state, another country, halfway across the globe from them. You may not even be aware of their distress, not at first, not at all if you're not paying attention. Nightmares, acting out, sudden increase in separation anxiety. Think about it. Would you willing let them watch a movie that you knew was going to scare the crap out of them? One fraught with explosions, earthquakes, plane crashes? No. At least I hope not... although there are a lot of pretty dumb parents out there...
I never would have thought of this on my own. I don't watch the news myself (I read it on-line thank you very much) so it was never something that I thought about. It was brought to my attention in a class on Child Guidance, aimed at educators, taken because I needed a night class worth at least 2 credits. I figured learning more about child development is never a bad thing. I was right. The class has inspired me to be a better parent. In this case it inspired me to do some more research on the topic.
Here's a decent article to get you started: Children are Traumatized by News Footage of Disasters. If you read the comments by readers remember two things. One, we're talking about YOUNG children. There is nothing wrong with introducing knowledge of the world to your child, teaching them about natural disasters and how to be prepared for them, all that jazz. School age children are ready, toddlers are not, it's about the hard-wiring, brain development people. And two, just because they don't look like they're "paying attention" doesn't mean they aren't absorbing the information. Children are sponges and they take it all in. Never underestimate them or you'll live to regret it.
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