Tackling Current Events

Healthy consumption of news and current events is a large topic of discussion in our home.

There is a vast amount of information available to us today.  Much of it conflicting, much of it sensationalized, much of it, in the greater scheme of things, totally irrelevant. In Canada our major news outlets are highly subsidized by the government, which presents another fun layer of navigation.

So how do we approach current events in our family and with our teens?

🗞  We highly filter current events until around age 13.  That is when natural curiosity kicked in, and then we explain using super simple, non-sensationalized, neutral language. There is always open discussion about things they’ve heard or seen. As a family, we talk a lot. 

🗞 Once in a while we print off the same news event from different news outlets and watch different news clips to compare how it was presented. What is typically more telling is the news outlets that totally ignore an event… we discuss that too.

🗞 We deconstruct language used in news reports, because the wording of events can have a very strong effect in how we internalize and process what has happened.

🗞 We look into where the “news” is coming from.  Who is delivering it? What is their background? What are their professional connections?  Are they recipients of funding, grants or board members of organizations?  Could there associations be colouring the motive behind their message?

🗞 Lastly, and I think more importantly, we just don’t pay attention to a lot of it and really monitor our consumption. That means no 24 hour news stations, filtered news outlets on the internet and minimal print news. (Out of the three, print news is one area where I tend to relax a bit because print is easier to digest at your own pace. There are only so many bells and whistles you can deploy in print news, and because it isn’t an onslaught of visual stimulation coming at you, it doesn’t send the nervous system into a frenzy quite as easily.)

A book I’d recommend adults or older teens is Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life by Rolf Dobelli. It is a great little read for seeing the news in a different light. The book is filled with some great tips and eye opening view points for less consumption of news.

Until next time,
Marina