If you think that watching scary TV can affect your child’s wellbeing, then you are just over exaggerating.
A University of Sussex research has shown that a small minority of children can have extreme reactions to a scary programme or film.
The researchers found that overall children show very little signs of increased anxiety, fear, sadness or sleep problems. The findings further suggest that children are fairly resilient to scary things that they might see on TV.
Professor Andy Field said that across studies, scary TV had an impact on a child’s wellbeing, but it was fairly small on average, suggesting that most children are not affected very much at all.
Professor Field suggested that it is too simplistic to place all the blame for the rise of anxiety in children on increased exposure to media.
The researchers also noted that TV guidelines focus on violent content at the expense of non-violent but frightening content such as worrying news reports or content depicting psychological stress or phobias.
