With so many upsetting and distressing events in the news, it’s important to acknowledge how this might be impacting your child or young person. Parents and carers should manage their child or young person’s exposure to heavy news, as well as help them manage any difficult emotions that may be stirred up.

Here are some tips for how parents and carers can help their child or young person deal with distressing events in the news.

Tips for parents and carers

1. Make them feel safe

• Find out what they know and what they might be worrying about.
• Provide simple explanations, avoid dramatic language, and provide positive options.

2. ‘Normalise’ emotions

• Provide space and time for discussions.
• Provide them with words and phrases to express how they be might feeling. For example, ‘that could feel scary for most people.’

3. Provide authentic and minimised accessed to news

• Check what they might be accessing on social media and the news, watch or read the news with them, and censor for age-appropriate content.
• Limit how much access they have to information, especially if you can notice they are getting upset.
• Have conversations about how news is condensed to headlines and the difference between speculative and factual information.

4. Tailor support to suit the child or young person

• If you have a child or young person who is anxious, they are more likely to fear the worst or over-worry.
• If you have a child who has experienced a loss, watching the loss of lives in the news will have a greater impact.
• Support them by tailoring information to suit them, providing extra support, and watching out for changes in behaviour. Changes could include: sleep or eating changes, agitation, withdrawal, or being clingy. Step in to provide greater support to minimise distress.

5. Support a young person’s mental health with the Combined Minds app

Combined Minds is a free app that helps families and friends to find ways to provide the right environment to help the individuals they support affect their own change. As important influencers in the lives of young people, this provides positive impact on their mental health.

Download the free app on Google Play or the App Store.