Helping Kids Navigate Scary News Stories

Updated 10/17/2025 by Jennifer Herbstritt

It’s not just about turning off the TV news when your kindergartener is in the room. Kids watch us respond to events, they hear kids talking at recess, and they peek over our shoulder and see headlines, social media posts, or breaking news alerts flashing on our smartphone or tablet. And they have questions.

The trick for parents is knowing what to do next. Here are a few suggestions from PBS for parents.

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As well, we wanted to share some tips and insights from one of our experts at VTV.

Kelly Berthold, LCSW, is the creator of Know Your FundaMENTALs, offering online courses and coaching programs that deliver the start-to-finish science and skills to thrive across life, relationships, and career. Learn more at knowyourfundamentals.com.

Below you’ll find an article she wrote to help parents navigate the emotion of fear.

Listening to Fear, Finding Our Power

By Kelly Berthold, LCSW

For parents, the worries feel endless—how our kids are doing at school, whether they’re safe, and how to prepare them for a world that feels more unpredictable every day. Add in the reality of safety drills, hard conversations, fast-changing information, and what seems to be relentless devastating tragedies, it’s no wonder so many of us feel shaken, helpless, and afraid.

And here’s the truth: you should feel. Fear, grief, anger, sadness—these feelings are not a weakness—they are evidence of your humanity. When we stop connecting to our emotions, when we fear how we feel, we give up our power. Emotions are not signs of weakness. They are signs that you care deeply. The challenge isn’t that we feel them—the challenge is what we do with them.

We’ve all heard the famous President Franklin Delano Roosevelt quote: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR likely did not have any formal social and emotional learning (SEL) in his classroom, but what he and others knew over the course of examining history is this: fear is used to control people, and the less individuals are emotionally educated, the more others can control that fear and turn it into helplessness and hopelessness for gain. This continues to be true today. Despite this quote being nearly 90 years old, we still have a lot of work to do to help people learn how to connect with their emotions as teammates rather than enemies.

Adding on to this emotional history lesson: FDR during World War Two had what he called a “Brain Trust”—a group of advisors of diverse disciplines and backgrounds that may not have agreed with each other, but all shared important perspectives and unique expertise from their own background. They shared it with FDR, and he ultimately was left to make choices and behaviors based on the collective of that information.

Your emotions (all emotions, including the comfortable and uncomfortable ones), thoughts, and physical sensations (smell, taste, touch, hearing, seeing) are your brain trust. You may not always like what they have to say, but they are communicating important perspectives of information. It is up to you to listen to that information, discern what is helpful or harmful, what is safe or dangerous, and make the best possible choice based on your own self-awareness and self-trust.

Fear is not our enemy—it is a teammate. The problem isn’t that we feel fear; the problem comes when we run from it, block it, or let it consume us. Fear is a messenger that has an unpleasant job. Fear, in particular, often gets a bad reputation, but it has a vital purpose. It alerts us to danger, focuses our attention, and reminds us of what matters. When we stop running from it, blocking it, or letting it consume us, fear can actually become a guide.

Instead, we can choose to listen to fear. It is a messenger that alerts us to potential danger and reminds us to pay attention. When we connect with our fear, listen to what it has to say, and bring it to the Brain Trust, we can critically think and make intentional choices. It can help us focus on what is truly in our control and guide us to act effectively. When you fight fear, hide from it, or just let it control your actions—you’re no longer in control; your emotion is.

Here’s the truth:
Where there is avoidance, there is hopelessness.

Where there is blind emotional rage, there is powerlessness.

But when we listen to fear, accept reality as it is (not as we wish it were), and take intentional action—there is power.

So how do we move from fear into grounded, intentional action?

Ground yourself in the moment. Simple practices—like breathing slowly with longer exhales, noticing your senses, or placing both feet firmly on the floor—help reset your nervous system and clear your mind when emotions feel overwhelming. A relaxed body helps us connect to all our senses and keeps us the leader of our emotions, thoughts, and physical sensation crew members.

After you are grounded, connect to your right-brain emotions and actively listen to them like you would a friend. Empathize and validate that what you’re feeling is coming from somewhere, and honor the truth in its context. Emotions provide information—not facts—and it’s only through actively listening to hear their perspective that we can bridge to left-brain problem-solving more effectively. If you don’t connect with your right-brain emotions, you simply won’t see the most effective solutions. You’re a human being, and a mammal, and this is how we function best (whether or not we like it).

Have age-appropriate conversations with your children. When you and your child are grounded (and not overwhelmed by emotions), help them connect with their emotions—including fear—so they learn to listen and manage feelings instead of suppressing or amplifying them. When they understand that emotions are normal and purposeful, they begin to trust themselves to create healthy relationships with their brain-body crew members.

Engage in effective conversations with schools and leaders. It is in our control to use our voices with school professionals, community representatives, and politicians. Showing up not with helplessness or rage in control of our behaviors, but with clarity and compassion, creates the possibility for meaningful change, community, and collaboration.

Model compassion and acceptance. Acceptance is not approval. It is seeing reality clearly so we can respond wisely and effectively. When you show empathy, validation, and compassion—for yourself and others—you model resilience for your kids and your community.

The world will never be a utopia. But pretending it should be, or numbing ourselves so we don’t have to face it, leaves us powerless. Negative emotions—fear, sadness, even anger—are not there to destroy us. They are signals, calling us to pay attention. They sharpen our focus, ignite our energy, and direct us to act. But that only works if we treat our minds and bodies as allies, not enemies.

How we relate to ourselves is how we relate to the world. If we approach our own fear with compassion, empathy, and validation, we show our children and our communities that there is another way forward. We model resilience. We model courage. We model healing.

And healing does not mean going back to how things were. Healing means growth. It means rising after devastation with new strength, new perspective, and new determination to make meaning from the pain. A psychological term for this is post-traumatic growth—the ability to turn suffering into resilience, innovation, and purpose.

Violence is the outward expression of unhealed misery in our society. It is devastating. And it is also through our agony, our grief, and our hope for something better that we find the courage to rise. To channel fear into focus. To channel pain into purpose. To contribute compassionately to ourselves, our families, and the world around us.

So do not fear fear. Listen to it. Let it guide you back to what is in your control. Let it empower you to make intentional choices. That is how we heal, that is how we lead, and that is how we model for our children what it means to live in a hard world with courage, clarity, and heart.