Design For Life: How much of the news should I let my children watch?

This week, child psychotherapist Dr Colman Noctor advises a reader who doesn’t want to expose her small kids to coverage of the war in Ukraine

How do we develop socially conscious children without having them lying awake at night worrying about nuclear bombs, or their fathers having to go and fight in a war zone?Picture: Getty/iStockphoto

Dear expert,

I have two children aged nine and six. They have started asking me a lot about what's going on on their television screens with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to the point where they've asked if Daddy is going to have to go and fight in a war. I don't know how to talk to them about these kinds of things. How much information is too much information?

Dear reader,

This is a ...