Is the news stressing your kids out? Tips for getting through it

The news is often scary, confusing, and sometimes overwhelming. And kids who learn and think differently may have an especially hard time with intense news cycles. 

In this episode of In It, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek talk with returning guest Dr. Kristin Carothers. Kristin is a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta and New York City who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy and behavioral interventions. She’s also an adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine and an expert contributor for Understood. 

Kristin offers tips and strategies to help parents and caregivers navigate difficult news cycles with kids who learn and think differently.

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at init@understood.org.

Related resources

• How scary news can impact kids who learn and think differently

• What is perseveration?

• Racism and violence: How to help kids handle the news

• ADHD parenting tips from a Black clinical psychologist

Timestamps 

(3:18) Understanding the effect the news is having on your child

(6:45) Flexible thinking

(9:50) Respecting different points of view

(13:32) Perseveration

(17:08) Managing the impulse to overshare

(17:44) Understanding levels of disclosure

Episode transcript

Gretchen: Hello and welcome to "In It," a podcast for families with kids who learn and think differently.

Rachel: Here you'll find advice, camaraderie, stories of successes, and, yes, sometimes failures from experts and from parents and caregivers like you.

Gretchen: I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.org.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer, editor, and mom who has definitely been in it. Today, we're getting some advice on how to help our kids...

Gretchen: And let's face it, ourselves...

Rachel: Manage news cycles that can feel scary or confusing or just overwhelming. Like, say, a presidential election.

Gretchen: These cycles can be especially hard for kids who struggle with anxiety or flexible thinking or focus.

Rachel: To help us help them, we're talking with Dr. Kristin Carothers, a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta and New York City who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy and behavioral interventions.

Gretchen: She's also an adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine and an expert contributor for Understood. We've had her on the show before, and we're so glad she's joining us again.

Rachel: Kristin, welcome back to "In It."

Kristin: Thank you for having me, Rachel and Gretchen.

Gretchen: We're so happy to have you.

Rachel: So, I think it's fair to say that many adults are preoccupied with the news right now.

Kristin: Yes.

Rachel: We're at the way end of a very polarizing election season, and that's brought with it anxiety, arguments, you name it. What impact can an intense news cycle like this have on kids? And I realize that the answer probably varies depending on whether we're talking about elementary school-aged kids or adolescence. But can you talk about that, maybe starting with younger kids?

Kristin: Sure. So, I'd actually like to start with adults. So, I want us to realize as adults that we are also experiencing very strong emotions. Likely, there are lots of things that are happening in the world, whether it be things in terms of natural disasters and things in terms of like the political climate and concerns not just in our country but in other countries. And so we're watching the entire world, which can lead us to feel anxious or depressed. And so, I want us to be aware and to acknowledge that the level of stress we're experiencing also causes us to have some emotional experience.

And many times our children's emotional experiences will mirror our own. So, even if we think we are calm and we are not exposing them to the news cycle or to our concerns about what's happening in terms of current events, it is likely that they are picking up on our moods and emotions, and as a result, they may be experiencing some difficulty.

Additionally, they are in schools, most likely if they're school-age children and they're getting some information and they may be presented with things on social media. And so, I decided to start with adults and work my way down because I think what you'll see is the people who are getting like direct information will be older, the people getting indirect information and really picking up on our moods and emotions, though, will be those younger kids who may not have the language or who may not have the exposure because they're not in school yet.

(3:18) Understanding the effect the news is having on your child

Rachel: Yeah. So, what is the best way to find out what impact a difficult news cycle is having on your child?

Kristin: I think you start by asking them, do they have any questions. So, "I know that there are lots of things that have been happening lately. There may have been things that you've seen in social media or that you've heard on the news when I had the news on this this morning. Do you have any questions for me?" Opening up the stage for them to be able to say, "Well, actually, I didn't understand this. Could you explain that?"

Now, if you have a kid who's younger or a kid who doesn't have any questions, you might say, "Well, I've noticed that I've been really preoccupied with thoughts about this. And so, what I'm trying to do is to make sure that I focus on what happens in our house first before really getting overwhelmed with what's happening outside." That's a strategy that I've tried to implement myself because sometimes when we feel out of control about what's going to happen in the world, right?

So, we can't control a natural disaster, we don't necessarily have control over what happens in an election cycle. We can contribute to it by voting, but we don't necessarily have the ability to decide what the outcome will be. What we've got to do is kind of go insular, so focus on the things that we can control. Maybe we make the decision that we're not going to watch the news in the family room where everyone has exposure to the news cycle. Perhaps we will watch the news after the kids go to bed in our own rooms or on our devices.

Gretchen: I love like bringing this up and asking your kids, like, do you have any questions about this? How young is too young to do that? Or like, what's the starting age for this?

Kristin: I just found a video of my son at three. I had like the new Jim Crow laying around, his grandmother sent it to me, and he told me that I wasn't allowed to read the book because he didn't like the cover and he thought it was scary and he was dead on. And I told him that I had not read the book because it was scary for me. And so, I think kids from a very young age can pick up on content. They are always looking over your shoulder. So, be careful, parents, when you've got your Facebook, your Instagram account scrolling, they're watching, they're listening.

When you're in the car, if you're listening to podcasts, I've had parents say to me, "Well, I typically listen to a podcast, and I thought the kids weren't listening. And then they started to ask me questions about the things that were said in the podcast, and I was embarrassed" or "I was, I didn't know if it was appropriate to explain it to them." So, I don't even know if there's an age at which we could say it's too young because we are exposing our kids to so much. So, you should assume, I think, that your kids know more than you think they know.

Gretchen: Wow.

Rachel: Yeah. And on that podcast note, also, if you were listening to a podcast the last time you had the car on, it's going to just pop on.

Gretchen: Yes.

Rachel: Just, that's my PSA.

Kristin: Yeah. Great PSA. I had that situation to an audiobook. My kid and his friend jumped in the car and then they were like, "Your book was on," so. Yes, we got to be really mindful.

Gretchen: Which book?

Kristin: Which book? It was a good book, but it was not a child book.

Gretchen: Oh wow.

(6:45) Flexible thinking

So, I want to talk about ways in which kids who learn and think differently may have an especially hard time with these intense news cycles, possibly because they may struggle with flexible thinking, right? The ability to recognize that other people may not see things or do things the way you do. Can you talk a little bit about this concept of flexible thinking and why it's especially hard for some kids?

Kristin: Sure. I think flexible thinking is hard because of perspective-taking. So, there are some of us who have a very difficult time being able to understand things from other points of view. It is developmentally appropriate to not be as flexible a thinker the younger you are. So, we call that the concrete or pre-operational stage of development. And when children are in the pre-operational or concrete stages, when they are like two through 4 or 5, they are really focused on their own points of view.

"If I don't like cheese, then nobody in the world can make cheese because cheese is gross to me." Right? As kids age and they have experiences with other people, they learn, "Well, maybe I don't like cheese, but somebody else can like cheese, and that can be OK." As you age, and you have greater exposure to people and to information, you develop flexible thinking skills.

For other people who experience like sensory sensitivities or rigidity around needing things to happen the same way every time, maybe kids who might be on the autism spectrum or a kid who's struggling with another learning or thinking difference, that cognitive flexibility is especially hard because it's associated with discomfort.

So, if we take a different route to school, that makes me worried that something bad can happen because I need things to be the same every single time, because when they are the same, I'm safe. When things go as planned, I know what to expect and I can manage that. Versus when things go in an unexpected way, I experience emotional dysregulation, meaning my body feels really uncomfortable, I may lose control of my emotions and they might control me, and it's hard for me to get through the day because I'm panicking.

So, cognitive flexibility is something that is difficult to develop. How do we develop it? We develop it by gradually exposing people to things that are different or uncomfortable and helping them to sit with those things and see that they can be OK. And a lot of the times, the way that we have to kind of encourage kids around cognitive flexibility is to praise them doing something that's a little different.

So, we might say "Your sister is using that green crayon right now, and I know you really want it. I love that you are still willing to take the blue one. Great job being flexible. I know that you like to take your shower first every night. Thank you for allowing your brother to go first tonight. Excellent flexibility."

Gretchen: I'm going to use that one.

(9:50) Respecting different points of view

Kristin: Right, right. You know, there are lots of ways that you can coach this for everyday life so that when we get to big concepts like elections, then we could say you may have people in your class who don't share your view or opinion. And it's important to respect each other even if you don't share the same point of view. If you only can get along with people who share your point of view, you might have a really boring life and it's going to be really hard for you to learn new things. When we are around people with different points of views, they can teach us things.

And I think what we've got to remember in this election cycle is that many people are afraid because they haven't been exposed to people who live differently than them, who are from different cultural backgrounds, who may speak different languages, or be from different socioeconomic strata. And so, that's why things can be so scary when you think about trying to understand somebody else's perspective.

Rachel: I want to talk a little bit more about that.

Kristin: Yeah.

Rachel: So, kids might find it especially tricky if the people around them who they look up to, so other, so adults, not other kids, have different perspectives on an issue. So, let's say a teacher expresses a political view that's different from what kids are hearing at home. How do we help them navigate that?

Kristin: That is so tricky. And for kids, it can be eye-opening or jarring, I think is even eye-opening or jarring for us if we're in a social situation or work situation and we're with people that we really like, and then we hear that their political views are different than ours. Sometimes they can be like a shock or disappointment and you're like, "Ugh, I can't believe I love this person so much, and they don't think the way I think," right? And so, I don't know how we can teach kids to manage that without first managing it ourselves.

So, we may need to talk to our kids about having that actual experience. You might say, "You know, I have a friend that I'm very close to and we don't believe the same things. And so, what we've agreed is that these conversations are off limits for us, or we've agreed that we each get to say one thing and then we've got to drop it. Or we've agreed that it never gets personal. It always stays about a specific issue, OK."

For kids, when they have somebody that they look up to, like a grandparent or a parent or a teacher, there's a power differential there. There's somebody who's typically been in control or who's been on a pedestal that shares a belief that might be hard for you. And it may knock them off that pedestal for you. But with cognitive flexibility, we want to remember this is just one thing. This is one view. This is not their entire life. So, we don't want to just discount or discredit the impact that people have on our lives because they have one view that's different than ours.

Again, cognitive flexibility. If the statement is inappropriate, it makes a kid uncomfortable. They should always be able to come to a parent or come to someone to say "That made me feel uncomfortable. That statement was inappropriate" or "I didn't like when this person said that." And then you allow adults to manage it. OK?

So, what do we encourage our kids to do? We encourage our kids to let us know if they hear things that are difficult for them to understand or accept or that they question or that have been disappointing. It doesn't mean that it's going to go away or we're going to make somebody apologize, but we can have a conversation with them about it.

Rachel: I like that a lot.

(13:32) Perseveration

Gretchen: So, I know that during intense news cycles, like things before an election, I can find myself fixating on something and I have a hard time putting that aside sometimes. And so, I imagine for anxious kids or kids who struggle with focus, that kind of perseverating can be a problem. So, how do we balance wanting to help kids process whatever is bringing up those feelings for them while also wanting to help them move on and focus on something else?

Kristin: I think when we have kids who are like, who really struggle with separation or one of the behavioral interventions is that they have to learn to tolerate distress. One of the ways that they don't tolerate distress is they seek reassurance from their parents over and over again. And we actually coach parents that they are only able to provide the reassurance three times. And so, we give the kids something like a reassurance box. They've got three books, maybe three books or the morning and three books for the afternoon.

Or when a kid is getting really good, three bucks for the day. And these are the reassurance bucks. And if they are having a moment where they're having difficulty tolerating distress about that fear, thought, like, "I'm going to get a bad grade, I'm going to get a bad grade," and they want to seek reassurance from a parent, they've got to make a decision, "Is this a good time to use my buck?" Right?

But the parent has to follow through and say, "Hey, I'm only going to do this three times. And once I've done it three times, then you're going to have to go deal with it, and you going to have to go change your emotion by focusing on something else or doing something fun or going to talk to somebody else."

And so, I think if we've got anxious kids or kids who struggle with a learning or thinking difference, who gets stuck on these thoughts or these concepts and want to continue on them, we give a time limit, right? You got two minutes and after two minutes you got to be like, "Allison, let it go." One way, right? Or we can have three times that we check in about this. We can check in before school, we can check in after school, and we can check in once before. But once we've done that three times, we're not going to discuss it anymore.

So, again, is that boundaries and that's limits. But it's also letting the kid know you will be there for reassurance, but you're not going to be there for reassurance over and over again, because what that does is teaches kids that they cannot cope on their own, right? And so, when we, if we are over validating and over and over engaged in this like fear, then we validate the fear and the kid thinks they can't overcome it.

The goal is to give them a tool so that they can tolerate that distress. And you as a parent have to say to yourself, "I'm not hurting my child by not providing constant reassurance. I am helping my child when I set a limit and tell them they've got to tolerate distress."

Gretchen: That is hard for parents to do sometimes.

Kristin: Oh, don't I know it.

Rachel: That it's really hard. It's great, that's a great idea.

Kristin: It is great advice but it is hard.

Rachel: I think this moment is also tricky because there might be conversations going on at home that are not meant to be shared at school or elsewhere. I'm not only thinking about the election supporting certain candidates or caring about particular issues, although those are really big, but also things like the war in the Middle East.

Do you have any guidelines that we can give our kids so they have a sense of when it's okay to share what you or someone in your family thinks and when that's something better to keep private? Like maybe especially for kids who struggle with impulsivity or having a hard time reading the room.

(17:08) Managing the impulse to overshare

Kristin: Yeah, I think for kids who have trouble reading the room or struggle with impulsivity, the Golden Rule just should be "What is said in our house stays in our house," there are some things because they're not going to be able to inhibit the impulse to kind of come out and say what they... And I've had this with clients where that's happened. They've gone to school and they've said some things, and it's been a whole big like drama, right? Multiple times I've had this with with clients and kids who struggle with impulse control.

And so, really for them, they need that hard firm boundary that there are things that you talk about at home and there are other things that you share with close friends. And then there are other things that you share with a general audience.

(17:44) Understanding levels of disclosure

So, they need to know that there are levels of disclosure. Every thought and every opinion does not have to be voiced.

Some of this is about social skills. It is a social skill to be able to keep your business to yourself because everybody might not want to know what you have for breakfast or when you went to the bathroom, right? That might just be too much information. And so, we're teaching them: One, if they don't know how to read the room, they won't be able to inhibit the impulse.

Rachel: Yep.

Kristin: Right? They won't know how to differentiate between what's appropriate versus what's not appropriate. So, I think what's better to do is kind of to prepare them for "You may be at school and someone may say, 'Who are your parents voting for?'"

Rachel: Right.

Kristin: And what you need to say is, "My parents don't discuss who they're voting for with people outside of home." Or "That's not a topic that we are allowed to discuss at school."

Gretchen: I can imagine them, thinking back to when my kids were little, and, you know, all kids struggle with impulsivity when they're young, right? You tell your kid, "You know, this is a personal topic. We only talk about this at home. This is not something you share at school." But then, like somebody said, like blah blah blah."

Kristin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yes.

Gretchen: And there's no way to really avoid that. You just have to keep practicing.

Kristin: No. We can't be prepared for everything. Like, sometimes stuff hits the fan. And so, if they disclose, you know, and then the disclosure was made and then the natural consequence is to see what happens next, right? So, "Well, how did the person respond when you said that?" "Well, they were offended" or "They were really excited" or "They said they weren't going to talk to me."

"OK. So, let's rewind. So, yes, you shared something and the person didn't like it, but everybody has the right to their opinion. So we're going to try to make sure that we don't say things that offend people purposely or put them down or degrade them. But we can share our opinions. But we've got to know when we share our opinions, everybody might not like them." So, that's that distress tolerance for us. We can't go in and fix it all for our kids and we can't be there with them every step of the day to make sure they're perfect and that they don't just disclose something.

Gretchen: Well, I know we've been talking a lot about election stuff, but there are so many other things in the news cycle that can be a source of anxiety for kids. Climate change, gun violence, racial injustice. So, how can we help our kids who are grappling with those issues? Like what is the advice you have for us?

Kristin: I think if kids are grappling with these issues, you allow them to be socially and politically active, right? So, you encourage them to do some research, find out about reputable organizations or organizations that use information that's based in data, that's based in research to promote or help the people that they're concerned about.

Gretchen: I love that. And I suppose if your child is really young and they're still expressing interest in this, this is something you could probably do together, right?

Kristin: Absolutely. There might be opportunities to volunteer.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Kristin: Or to donate or to give back in some way.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Rachel: So, let's say as a parent or caregiver, we are very distressed about something in the news. Do we need to tell our kids everything's going to be OK, even if we're not sure it is? Like is there a way to talk about it where we're being honest and reassuring to some degree, even if maybe that's not the whole story?

Kristin: Yes, this is a hard one because I'm literally trying to think about how I would do it.

Rachel: Yeah.

Kristin: I think sometimes when we are in panic we may overshare or we may isolate and undershare or we may go into a Pollyanna-ish like "Everything's going to be OK," which may do disservice in the long run. And so, I think is like the law of parsimony, keep it simple. "I'm really stressed out. I just got this information. I don't know what to do with this information yet. As soon as I know, I'll get back to you and we'll come up with a plan." Or "I'm going to talk to Mom or Dad or Grandma, Grandpa, or an uncle or a best friend or a teacher," right?

Another adult, not the kid, to get some ideas.

Rachel: Yeah.

Kristin: So the kid doesn't think they have to take care of you. That's the biggest thing is we don't want our kids thinking that they need to protect us, take care of us, manage our moods and emotions. They need to know that we have the resources to do it ourselves or that we have people who are other adults who can help us so that we can take care of them.

Rachel: Can I flip that over and ask what about when we want them to care more about something? Like, I think that it probably applies a little more to older kids. But if they're just kind of like, "Whatever, that doesn't apply to me because I don't vote yet" or "That doesn't apply to me because I don't live where the storms are" or whatever the case may be. How do we kind of handle it the other way?

Kristin: You just took it right back to cognitive flexibility and perspective-taking. So, right? So, we go insular when things are totally out of our control. But we can't be so insular that we don't know anything else is happening in the world. So, I think that's why it is important to give like a little information and to require some things of kids. And so, if you notice that your kid is behaving in a particularly entitled way or a particularly demanding way, making sure that they understand that it's a privilege basically to be able to be insular because they are people for whom this is not a privilege, right?

Rachel: That's right. Yeah.

Kristin: Not trying to make you feel bad, but I want you to be grateful. And I think that's what it's about, is kind of engendering a spirit of gratefulness.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Kristin: Like gratitude.

Rachel: Yeah.

Kristin: One of the other things to consider is that if there's been like a death or a tragedy and you think that your child hasn't, like, had a big emotional reaction or hasn't shown enough empathy or sympathy for somebody else, or they haven't had their own like, grief reaction that you would expect, it's really important to know that every child is different.

And for some kids is that they're trying to process this information and they don't really know what to feel or how to express what they're feeling. They may have lots of different thoughts. They may think that they've got to keep things together because if they fall apart, they may not come back together. It just, they may not even understand what death really means, which might make it hard to have a reaction.

So, before we get worried as parents that kids aren't having a reaction that we think is like commiserate with what the experience is, know that developmentally they are going through different things. They may be thinking, they may not really understand or they just they may be confused or shocked. Like you can be in shock and not have the same emotional reaction to grief or loss that other people have. And so, just making sure that you hold space for them to come to you later and say, I've been feeling really sad about this or I've been thinking about this, or they may seem to move on, right? They could still have thoughts about it, but it doesn't mean that they, like, lack empathy.

Rachel: Yeah, that's a really good point.

Gretchen: And I think too, I mean, I get the whole developmental thing, right? That kids show things in different ways. And then also sometimes, at least I will say for me as a parent, I sometimes forget that how I react to things isn't the only way that you can react to things, right? So, I may be overly emotional sometimes.

Kristin: Right.

Gretchen: And others aren't, and I have to be OK with the fact that my kid might actually be reacting in the way that works for them. And it's not how it works for me.

Kristin: And it might be that your kid's response is actually more adaptive and appropriate than your response is because they are learning to let other people have their emotions and that they don't have to absorb that entire feeling to have empathy. So, sometimes when we're like impasse or super empathetic, you know, we're crying and we're having the big upset reaction and it's not even about us. It's somebody else's time to have that upset reaction. And we've got to learn to kind of balance, allow the feeling to kind of pass through us and be there for somebody else.

Gretchen: This is all such good information.

Rachel: Yeah.

Kristin: I love talking with you guys.

Gretchen: OK, Kristin, bringing this back to the present moment, do you have any last words of wisdom for how we can help our kids handle overheated news cycles like the one we're in right now?

Kristin: I think we should let our kids know that there are people who will be happy. There will be people who will be disappointed. There will be people who have mixed feelings about all of this and that they may be exposed to lots of intense conversations over the weeks after the election and that it's really important to kind of know what they feel and not think that they have to share everything with everybody, but that they can always feel free to share with you, even if they have a different opinion or view than you do.

And so, just preparing them that this is going to be a really intense period of time that they're going to hear and see many different things that everything that they hear and see may not be verifiable. It may just be based on people's opinions. And if they have questions, they can come to you and you will work with them to do the research to figure it out.

Gretchen: Love it.

Rachel: That's great. Thank you so much.

Kristin: Thank you guys for having me.

Gretchen: Yes. Thank you for coming on.

Rachel: Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any thoughts about the episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at init@understood.org.

Gretchen: And check out the show notes for this episode, where we have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

Rachel: This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

Gretchen: "In It" is produced and edited by Julie Subrin, with additional production support from Cody Nelson and Ash Beecher. Justin D. Wright, mixes the show and Mike Errico wrote our theme music. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

Rachel: From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Thanks for listening.

Gretchen: And thanks for always being "in it" with us.