A Culture of Fear

24-Hour News Coverage and Parenting Styles

Crime is down in this country. Over the past 25 years, America has seen a dramatic reduction in criminal violence that has cut the crime rate in half since it peaked in the early 1990s (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2015). Young parents today are raising their children in an undeniably safer environment than the last generation’s, and yet for many, the idea of allowing one’s children to walk home from school unsupervised is unthinkable. So why the discrepancy between current crime statistics and public belief that our neighborhoods are no longer safe? Why are parents so afraid of the world? One reason could be constant access to 24-hour sensationalized news networks.

Turn on the television or browse the internet long enough and you will eventually encounter some variation of fear-based news coverage: mass shootings, vehicular accidents, sexual slavery, terrorist attacks, Amber alerts, drug trafficking, impending natural disasters. This is the result of highly competitive, anything-for-a-story journalism that depends on viewer beliefs that the world is a dangerous place. But what actually happens when we are exposed to emotionally-charged depictions of violence in the media on a daily basis? Research suggests that frequent exposure to violent images can have a lasting negative impact on psychological well-being. In a study of 116 journalists working with uncensored photos and videos, researchers found that frequently viewing disturbing images independently predicted higher scores on scales measuring depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and alcohol consumption (Feinstein, Audet, & Waknine, 2014). This supports the theory that continual exposure to violent media and fear-based news contributes to feelings of pessimism and demoralization. In short, sensationalized news coverage is making us overly fearful of our world.

It isn’t difficult to see how such widespread uneasiness would inevitably impact parenting styles on a societal level; parents are naturally driven to protect their children. A general pessimism over the state of our country and world has led to an obsession with safety and well-intentioned parenting practices that deny children the freedom to take risks and make mistakes. Children must be allowed some measure of independence in order to discover their world and their place in it. In attempting to provide adequate protection from perceived environmental threats, paranoid parents may actually be denying their children the experiences necessary for the development of competent risk management (O’Neill & Fleer, 2015). Safety-conscious parenting techniques that once would have been disapprovingly referred to as “coddling” are now the norm and parents who allow their children basic freedoms such as walking home from school are subject to accusations of neglect.

Sensationalized, fear-based news stories prey on our natural insecurities and encourage us to erroneously believe in rising crime rates and unsafe neighborhoods. This leads to overprotective parenting and children who are afraid to take chances. So what can people do to insulate themselves from the fear mongering of 24-hour news coverage? Until media outlets start to value truth over money-making, we will have to learn to protect ourselves at the individual level against feelings of pessimism and panic. One way to do this is to set personal boundaries – limit your exposure to unpleasant or violent media by avoiding sensationalist stories. Don’t be a passive consumer, and don’t allow fear to rule your life and the way you treat others. Parents must manage their fears in a way that doesn’t interfere with raising healthy, resilient, competent children.

References

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2015). Crime statistics. Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

Feinstein, A., Audet, B., & Waknine, E. (2014). Witnessing images of extreme violence: a psychological study of journalists in the newsroom. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 5(8), 1-7.

O’Neill, S. & Fleer, M. (2015). Better than bubble wrap: do we “over regulate and over protect” children at the expense of them learning how to “take risks”? Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education, 9(1), 111-127.

Pain, R. (2006). Paranoid parenting? Rematerializing risk and fear for children. Social & Cultural Geography, 7(2), 221-243.

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1 comment

  1. Tiffany Wilkinson

    This is a topic that I fight with constantly. I am one of those parents that wants to do everything possible to ensure the safety of my children. I live in a very safe rural town, where I know a great majority of the people in my very small secluded neighborhood by first name. My sons’ bus stop was (they are both now driving, and no longer ride the bus) a block from our home. When we moved here my youngest son was 7 years old and my oldest son had just turned 10. I walked them to the bus stop every day, and I was there to walk them home every afternoon when they came back from school. They didn’t seem to mind me walking with them, in fact they usually had several things to tell me the second they saw me, and our small walk home was a chance for us to talk about their day. There was a time about a year later when my husband asked me why I was still walking them back and forth to the bus stop. I made the decision at that point to allow them to walk home together, but it was a difficult decision for me to make. I even asked myself at the time what I was so fearful of, and the first thing I thought was that someone was going to kidnap them; which isn’t a very rational thought, because that has never happened in my small town, there is a crossing guard that watches the kids for nearly the entire block that they have to walk, and our wonderful elderly neighbor usually sits on her front porch and watches the kids walk home from school. I think back on it now, and I think the reason I feared this stems from my mother. I was six years old when Adam Walsh was abducted and murdered. I remember it vividly being all over the news, and I also remember my mother not allowing me out of her sight afterwards. I really think that is what prompted my mother to be so overprotective of me, which then made me feel the need to be overprotective of my sons.
    It is hard to get away from the news, and you were correct when you stated that these stories “encourage us to erroneously believe in rising crime rates and unsafe neighborhoods”. With all of the stories about the school shootings, kidnappings, and etc. it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like we are totally unsafe everywhere that we go. It is difficult to get away from these sensationalized news stories too; they are everywhere, on television, on the internet, social media like Facebook, the radio, and I even get alerts on my cellphone. In order to keep this type of news from making me anxiety ridden, I do my best to limit how often I go on news sites, I no longer watch the news on television, and I limit my exposure to Facebook. It is a difficult balancing act, because I want keep up on what is going on in the world, however I don’t care for how depressed, and sometimes paranoid what is in the news makes me feel.
    Great post!

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