Scary-news plan
When the feed turns dark — the talk and the circuit-breaker.
They saw it before you did. Be the place they bring it.
Processing the scary feed first, then capping the re-watching.
Why it matters
A two-part plan for the weeks when the feed is a war, a shooting, or a disaster on loop: the conversation that helps your teen process what they've already seen, and a circuit-breaker that caps the re-watching without pretending the event away. Teens usually see breaking tragedy before their parents do, raw and unframed, then the algorithm feeds them forty more versions. The talk script leads with 'what have you seen?' instead of a prepared speech, because their feed decided what this event looks like. The circuit-breaker is built together: a check-once-or-twice-a-day window during heavy weeks, plus one trusted source replacing the infinite scroll.
The tool
The processing talk script plus a co-built circuit-breaker for heavy news weeks.
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Key points
- Ask what they've SEEN first — their feed framed the event.
- Cap repetition, not information: a check window, one good source.
- Watch for sleep and mood changes during heavy news weeks.
The science
Disaster-media research going back to televised tragedies shows repeated exposure to the same catastrophic footage amplifies stress symptoms — the fortieth clip adds fear, not information. Doomscrolling runs on the negativity bias: threat-shaped content captures attention best, so feeds organically converge on the darkest version of events. Asking what a teen has seen before explaining calibrates the talk to their actual exposure, which trauma-communication guidance consistently recommends. And scheduled checking with a designated source satisfies the legitimate need to know while breaking the refresh loop that drives the anxiety.
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Scary-news plan
They saw it before you did. Be the place they bring it.
The skill you're building
Processing the scary feed first, then capping the re-watching.
Key points
- Ask what they've SEEN first — their feed framed the event.
- Cap repetition, not information: a check window, one good source.
- Watch for sleep and mood changes during heavy news weeks.
The processing talk script plus a co-built circuit-breaker for heavy news weeks.
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