Effects of Media Violence on Children
News Reports of Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart and Other Kidnappings
Sep 6, 2009
Eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was snatched by Phillip and Nancy Garrido while walking to her bus stop one day eighteen years ago. Her step-father witnessed the abduction from his home but was unable to stop it. The kidnapper, Phillip Garrido was a known sex offender on parole. He and his wife kept Jaycee captive in a series of sheds and tents in their backyard. Jaycee bore him a daughter at the age of fourteen. Another daughter followed three years later.
Jaycee Dugard Was Held Captive for Eighteen Years
Eighteen years later, at the age of twenty-nine, Jaycee and her daughters, ages 11 and 14 - who thought Jaycee was their sister all along and didn’t know that she had been kidnapped - were reunited with Jaycee’s family, while the Garrido’s were both charged with numerous felony counts.
Elizabeth Smart was Taken from her Bed
Several years ago, Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her own bed in the middle of the night by a handyman who had worked on the Smart home. She was held captive for nine months, before she was reunited with her family.
How Common is Child Abduction?
Though kidnapping by strangers is not that common, for the hundred or so children who have their lives, their security, their innocence snatched from them each year, it is a fact of life. Statistics put this type of kidnapping at between 115 (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) and 300 (other sources) per year. Twenty-four hour news coverage bombards peoples’ living rooms and psyches with the knowledge of the horror that human beings sometimes inflict upon each other.
In a study at the Mayo Clinic, almost 75% of parents feared that their children might be abducted and 30% of parents reported that this fear was more intense and frequent than any other concern, such as car accidents which are far more likely to occur.
However, there may be between 3,000 (Amber Alert Registry) and 29,000 (Crimes Against Children Research Center) cases of children being sexually assaulted each year, so parental fear about abduction may not be limited to just "kidnapping" per se.
Balancing Safety and Fear
The dilemma for parents is that they need to set safety rules for their children and inform them about how to keep themselves safe. At the same time, they must protect their children from the debilitating anxiety that can result from focusing on every danger and uncertainty in the world because that anxiety can literally cripple people and take away their lives in another way.
Overly fearful parents who convey to their children that the world is an unsafe place can be a contributing factor in the development of anxiety disorders.
Television News Programs can be Harmful to Children
In the Journal Pediatrics, Juliette H. Walma van der Molen reports that news has been found to “overemphasize brutal crime and to rely heavily on sensational presentations of violence.” This is from her article, "Violence and Suffering in Television News: Toward a Broader Conception of Harmful Television Content for Children."
Effects of Media Violence and News Coverage on Children
Van der Molen further states, “Studies reveal that children experience profound emotional reactions in response to news programs. Some children even developed post-traumatic stress reactions to coverage of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center."
The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music and video games, and news programs is a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents. Some consequences to children are aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares and fear of being harmed. This is according to a policy statement in Pediatrics Volume 108 No. 5 November 2001, pp. 1222-1226.
Recommendations on Children and News Watching by the American Academy of Pediatrics
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 8 be shielded from crime news programs entirely, and that older children be protected from unlimited violent and traumatic news coverage. The Academy advises parents that if their children are watching news, parents should watch with them and engage in dialogue about it. They recommend parents ask children open ended questions, like, “What are you worried about?” Parents are encouraged to explain that most people in the world are kind but that bad things sometimes happen. They also recommend that parents point out examples of good things going on in the world to balance the child’s perspective.
The chances of a child being kidnapped are slim, but for children like Jaycee Lee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, the odds didn’t help them. Parents must teach their children how to be safe without instilling an overdose of fear and anxiety. Shielding children from news programs and other media that portrays either real-world or fictional violence is recommended by pediatricians.
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