Parental Mediation of Children's Emotional Responses to a Violent News Event

Abstract

In a survey among 451 elementary school children (8 to 12 years old), the authors investigate (a) to what extent children's exposure to news coverage of a violent news event is related to their feelings of fear, worry, anger, and sadness and (b) to what extent active (i.e., helping children understand what they see on the news) and restrictive (i.e., keeping children from watching the news) parental mediation strategies moderate the impact of the news. Findings show that children's news exposure is significantly related to their emotional responses. Active mediation successfully reduces the relations between news exposure and fear, worry, and anger but only among the younger children in the sample. Restrictive mediation has no or even an opposite effect. However, findings also suggest that the effectiveness of the mediation may depend on the child's level of news exposure.