FEAR OF FEAR ITSELF
I have been noting the level of fear and anxiety parents hold for their children and it’s becoming very clear that it is having a knock-on effect on the kids, and that’s not fair. How did we get to become such jibbering wrecks?
It’s not difficult to work out that in our media-saturated world we have become a victim of repetitive reporting of bad news that can be downright scary at times. The operative word here is repetitive. With 24-hour news reporting, we expose ourselves in our cars, our homes, in doctor’s waiting rooms, in restaurants and on our computers to the disturbing events happening around the world and in our home towns, from tsunamis and floods to the disappearance of children, rapes, robberies terrorism and political unrest.
Technology allows us to re-view distressing images of horrific events, over and over, as if they are actually happening in front of us. This has a much greater effect on our mental stability than hearing or reading about them. Neuroscientists have found that frightening pictures affect the emotional centres in the brain, and the more frequently they’re viewed the more they induce feelings of anxiety.
“Television coverage of horrific news about children and families [in particular] forces parents to confront their worst fears over and over again. The fact that this coverage continues remorselessly, night and day, in the corner of one’s own living room – or in the bedroom just before sleep – makes it even more powerful. So, even though we know the chances of our children being murdered by a maniac, hit by a sniper’s bullet or taken from us by some terrible natural disaster, are infinitesimally small, we are still afraid. We have fallen victim to the worst fear of all: fear of fear itself.”
Sue Palmer, Toxic Childhood (Orion, 2006)
Our own anxiety and the fact that our children are often exposed to the very same media and content that we are, is that they, sadly, are becoming more fearful and are being forced very quickly out of their fantasy world and being thrust, sometimes brutally, into the real world. Despite restrictions on other types of television programming, there’s no restriction on the content of the news. Young children cannot distinguish between real events in real time and drama or video footage; to them, what’s happening on TV is happening now, and it’s probably happening just down the road because they don’t understand geographical distance. Parental anxiety and children’s fears go hand in hand, and the outside world is starting to seem like a very frightening place.
To keep your fear in check, do not fall prey to keeping your TV on and tuned into a news channel 24/7. If you have the option, rather read about the news than watch it. I have taken to reading news headlines online rather than watching TV. Firstly it saves me time because I don’t get sucked into watching for long periods, and I get to choose which articles I am going to read in full. In other words I filter before I even read. I also catch the news headlines on the radio and if I feel the need to watch any further images, I do so by choice.
Continual exposure to negative news stories doesn’t just shock us, it changes the way our brains work. The last thing we want is for fear and anxiety to drive our parenting decisions.
NIKKI BUSH
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