Watching the news on TV, or following too many news sites, can harm the peace of an unschooling home. Some moms, especially when their children are young, have found more peace if they focus inward on their children than outward far away.

Alex Polikowsky wrote: Best thing I did was to listen to you Sandra and I stopped reading the news!!!"

If someone WANTS to be afraid and pissed off, even on a fairly peaceful day, all it takes is to turn the news on and let it affect your entire nervous system, your digestive system, your adrenal glands and hormones, your chance of trusting your neighbors, or of sleeping peacefully.

If ten million people are angry and pissed off, the world will not be better if another million people add their anger, fury, sorrow, and cry and lose sleep. It won't help if it's twelve or fifteen million people, or a billion people.

It won't help if ONE more person gets upset. And if they have children, they're harming more people than themselves.

"I have a suggestion about families, and children, and learning, and the news. Please, anyone with a child too young to google or to read, don't review for them terrible news about dead babies or shootings or wars. Make their lives happy, where they are, today.

For moms: If you don't know anyone directly affected by bad news, don't allow yourself to be "directly affected" in such a way that you go deep into your feelings about "what if" and "poor families." It is possible to slip down too far, and who's taking care of your children then?

For Batman fans. :-)
If you have a kid wanting to go see the Batman movie, Take him! Don't whine or whinge or wring your hands about something that happened somewhere else. It was not about the movie, and it was not about a theater. It was about one guy who was for some reason unhappy.

Don't let your own kids grow up to be so unhappy. Start now! HAVE A NICE DAY!!! Create nice-dayness around you.

A 24 year old did something horrible last night. I have a 25 year old and a 23 year old who have done very nice things this week. Be on the positive team, not the negative team. You can do it.

If anyone posts any details about horrible things, I'll delete them quietly. If anyone posts suggestions for happy things to do to promote joy and gratitude, that would be great!"

I added the writing to this page on July 21, 2018 (when it came up in Facebook Memories).

A friend of this fb friend of mine wanted to defend sharing news with kids:

There are certainly age appropriate levels of information, but I think it is one of the finer qualities of the human race when people are deeply affected by the pain of others... if it leads to personal dysfunction that is certainly not helpful to anyone, but neither is an uncaring attitude. I think that compassion does put people on the positive team.

Yeah, I don't think she's advocating a lack of compassion. She was likely reacting to moms saying, "OMG, how can I ever be okay with letting my children leave the house ever again, because the world is an unsafe place!"

I don't think a mother LACKS compassion when she protects her own child from fear and sorrow. And even among childless adults, if 1,000,000 people are unhappy and crying, that's enough. If my child is dead, she will be no more alive if 100 million people's days are ruined, or a billion people. It would be better for a few families to mourn and for the rest to live their lives without sorrow.

Some people feel self-righteous and involved when they are indignant and horrified, but it's unhealthy for them and for their children.

There is something in each murderer's life that should have been better. There should be more peace in the world, not less.

I remember Sandra saying something about avoiding bad news if it meant it made you unhappy, as that wasn't good for anyone, or something along those lines. A big fat lighbulb moment for me and a *duh* one, too— a kind of *smacks forehead in realisation*

Regarding fears and stress about impending nuclear war, I had earlier in that discussion written about how much they scared kids during the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was little, with maps and duck-and-cover.

I was recommending news avoidance and life-sweetening. Others were disagreeing with me. I bet their lives lack some sweetness they could easily reclaim.

I thought this might do someone a bit of good if I brought it to a more peaceful wall.

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(me quoting someone else, and then my response, September 2017)
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-=-I rarely watch the news... but because of the world we live in, there are a million ways to hear about world events. Unless you live way off the grid and never see another person, it's impossible. -=-

There's a difference between hearing a mention of something you can choose to look up later or not, and sitting in front of an hour (or more) of news reports every day.

"A million ways" makes it sound inevitable. There are conversations, TVs in public places, car radios, newspapers, and magazines. TV at home. Friends sending links on facebook.

I don't think there are a million ways. Maybe ten or a dozen, and telling your friends you would rather talk about something else can work well. Getting different facebook friends helps me.

I'm not an elected official; I don't want to be, and wouldn't want to dress up, make up, suck up to get that sort of thing. I can vote, but my vote is one in thousands (locally or statewide) or millions (nationally).

What I can do, and that I DO do, is to help people live calmly and peacefully. It always interests me when people want me to stop doing that, to take it back, to say that indignation and fear are as good as joy and a feeling of abundance.

And it's not just my opinion, that anger and stress are unhealthy for people biologically, and socially. And it's not escapism or irresponsibility for me to say that when people feel grateful for things in their lives (food, running water, safety, roofs that don't leak) that they will have a happier moment, hour, day, sleep. I didn't make that up. It's self-evident AND backed up by even the slightest knowledge of biology and psychology.

I'm going to leave this conversation now, but I won't stop reminding people that the news isn't designed to make your life better, and that feeling sick over international politics doesn't do anything other than to make you feel sick.

_____end of quote, of Sandra Dodd, from the wilds of facebook where I cannot link_____

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Given up sugar? Great, now it’s time to cut the news from your diet, by Rolf Dobelli

From the series Nothing in the News by Joseph Ernst.

If there were self-help groups for news junkies as there are for alcoholics, that’s how I would have introduced myself to the group, hoping they’d understand. But that was more than 10 years ago...

He shares a bit about the origins of European newspapers, and will get you thinking about why newspapers are always about the same size whether there were big happenings or not, and other things that will help you feel even better if you decide to turn away from "the news" and toward your children.

The newspaper page cartoon has its credits on it, but here they are in more clickable form: John Atkinson, Wrong Hands, Generic Headlines

I did the news news news thing with Word and a screen capture. It's better on the computer than the phone.

Negativity (avoidance of)



Building an Unschooling Nest



Being (being how?)