MomsTalk: The Kids and Radio News

The past few weeks have been full of dramatic new stories.  Between the royal wedding, the tornadoes in the U.S., and the capturing and killing of OBL there has been an influx of both wonderful and horrifying information.   Please let us know how much of these stories you shared with your children:

Alison Senold, McLean resident, married, mother of two boys.

Since I stopping working to stay home with my kids, news/talk radio has been sort of a life line for me. I don’t really like to watch TV because it pins me to one spot , but I can listen to the radio while going about my day-  in the car, in the yard (and when the boys were little) while playing on the floor. It helped keep me from feeling isolated during those early years of motherhood when it can be so easy to completely lose touch with the world. 

For many years, the boys either couldn’t understand or just paid very little attention to what was being said on the radio. As they got older, more verbal and more aware, I sometimes wondered if I was exposing them to too much too soon. Unfortunately, since their birth, so much of the national news has been dominated first by the War on Terror and then in more recent years by the global economic collapse.

At best, much of the news they hear is anxiety provoking. At it's worst, it can be down-right grizzly and frightening. I have told myself over the years that exposing them to scary news on the radio has to be a little better than the same scary news on the TV. At least it isn’t accompanied by pictures.

Over the past couple of weeks, my worrying and wondering about how much information is too much for the boys has been repeatedly brought to the fore. One day early last week, I nonchalantly left the radio on (and for once the TV, too- tuned to the Weather Channel) so I could keep abreast of the local weather alerts and the devastating tornadoes across the South while we got ready for school.

I probably should have seen it coming, but I was completely surprised by how frightening they found the news of the tornadoes. They went off to school thoroughly rattled and half expecting a tornado to swoop down on them at any moment.

Happily, by the middle of the week, we were all able to turn our full attention to the fun news of the Royal Wedding.  I think the boys still aren’t exactly sure who William and Catherine are and they didn’t really care what The Dress looked liked, but they picked up on all the excitement around the event and were, to my surprise, glued to most of the coverage right alongside me. 

When the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death broke, the timing was such that I had a chance to think about what to say to the boys. I knew I would, of course, have to at least explain the basics of the story to them. Even if I kept the radio and TV off, they would be hearing about it from friends at school.

I was worried that, even if they didn’t understand all the implications, they would pick up on the fact that this was a really big story (like the wedding) but that because it involved killing, terrorism, and homeland security it would be very scary (like the tornadoes).

I was also uncomfortable with responses that seemed  to take on a celebratory feel. I wanted them to understand why I felt celebration didn’t seem appropriate to the situation. Curiosity, amazement, relief and patriotic pride all seemed reasonable, but I didn’t necessarily want them doing high-fives over Bin Laden’s death at school.

Once again, I misjudged the situation. They were almost entirely uninterested in the news. Maybe because the story lacked the nearness of the tornadoes  and the great visuals of the wedding?  For whatever reason, one of the biggest news stories of their lifetime barely made a ripple in their day.