Q: How do you study these effects
that you say are so devastating - without harming the
children?
JC: I'm glad you asked that because that's why I titled
a portion of the preface "Does Your
Mother Know What You Do for a Living?" The evidence I
present for intense emotional
disturbances in children comes from personal accounts
by people who have been exposed to
frightening media in their own everyday lives. When we
do observe children's reactions in the
lab, we of course get parental permission. Plus, we only
show children short clips of relatively
mild scenes that the children would probably see anyway.
This laboratory research is not
intended to demonstrate harm, but rather to compare emotional
reactions to slightly different
versions of the same program or to the same program when
viewed under different
circumstances. We would never intentionally produce the
type of anguish our research shows
is so common in today's media environment.
Q: Suppose a child is already
frightened by something he or she has seen on TV. Do you
recommend ways of reducing that
fear?
JC: Yes. "Mommy, I'm Scared" explains that different
fear-reducing strategies work
for children of different ages. For example, words and
explanations are relatively ineffective
for children up to the age of 7 or 8. For younger children,
the techniques that work best are
nonverbal: a hug, a glass of water, or a distracting
activity might help. Older children are more
responsive to reasoning, especially information on why
the horrible thing can't happen to them
or how they can prevent it from happening. For all ages,
the sympathetic attention of a concerned
adult is probably the best medicine.
Q: Should parents just get rid of their TV's?
JC: I don't think that's necessarily the best solution,
because there are many good things for
children to watch on TV. The solution I advocate is getting
more involved in your children's
viewing, watching TV with them, understanding the effects
of different contents on different-
aged children, and investing in some parent-friendly
blocking technologies to help you shield
your child from the most harmful fare when you're not
in the room.
Q: Why don't parents just restrict their children from seeing horror movies and scary shows?
JC: The problem is, it's often very difficult for parents
to predict what will frighten their
child. As "Mommy, I'm Scared" explains over the course
of the book, the way children see TV
and movies is very different from the way adults see
it. For example, children under the age of
about 7 are most affected by the way things look - grotesque
monsters, ugly witches, and
vicious-looking animals frighten them more than things
that are really dangerous or could
actually harm them. Fantasy stories that we easily dismiss
as ridiculous and impossible can
haunt children's nightmares for a very long time.
Q: But don't most children know the difference between reality and fantasy?
JC: Actually, learning the difference between what's real
and what's make-believe is very
difficult and complicated. Before the age of seven or
eight, children don't fully grasp the
distinction. Even though they may be able to tell you
that a witch is make-believe, they don't
understand that that means she can't come and get them
in the night! And when children do
understand that distinction, they're confronted with
fiction, which involves stories that didn't
actually happen, but is based on things that can and
do happen. Fictitious stories about things
that are threatening, like murder, kidnapping, and molestation,
really frighten elementary
school children and even teenagers.
Q. How much of a problem is children's
fear from mass media.? Are these just short-term
reactions that kids get over
quickly? And are they limited to just a few overly sensitive
children?
JC: My research and interviews with parents show that
these reactions are very common and
that they're surprisingly intense and long-lasting. In
one study, more than 90% of college
students could recall and vividly describe a movie or
TV show that had caused intense fears
and severe emotional distress. Almost half of them had
stomach problems or trouble sleeping,
and a third of them said their response to one movie
or TV show had lasted more than a year!
Astoundingly, one-fourth of them said that they were
still bothered by what they had seen
many years earlier. Giving up swimming after seeing Jaws
and persistent fears of animals or
insects after seeing horror movies featuring these creatures
are quite common effects. And in a
recent random survey, almost half of the parents we contacted
had noticed long-lasting media-
induced fear reactions in their child during the previous
year. The book is filled with fascinating
first-person anecdotes and vignettes, written by people
who remember their own intense reactions
or report on their children's reactions.
Q: What about the news on television.? Isn't that frightening to children, too?
JC: Television news is very frightening to children, and
unfortunately it is becoming more so
all the time. What's more, as children come to understand
the difference between fantasy and
reality, the news becomes scarier because children often
worry that what they are seeing will
happen to them. One of the scariest types of news stories
for children is a story focusing on a
child victim, unfortunately, we have so many of those
these days. A mother called me from
the East Coast to help her convince her daughter's school
to stop showing news clips to fourth
graders without screening them first. Her daughter had
become enormously distressed over
news coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey murder that she
had seen in. school. Many parents
watch the news while their children are in the room,
thinking that their children aren't
watching, but many of them are absorbing the news' disturbing
messages.
Q: Can movie and TV ratings help parents?
JC: Yes, they can. But parents need to know what the ratings
don't say, as well as what they
can't say. Movie ratings can be very misleading. Many
G-rated movies frighten preschoolers
tremendously, and it's hard to know in advance what type
of content will be in a PG-rated
movie. Television ratings have recently improved by adding
content letters to let parents
know whether it s sex, violence, or coarse language that
caused a program to get its rating, but
it s often hard to find out what a program's rating is,
and not all networks are using the new
system. In addition, TV ratings are quite complicated,
and that's why I've spent many pages
in the book explaining the rating systems.