This is a challenging news era in which to grow up

As his children grow up, Will Gore tries to keep them informed without scaring them

Russia invaded Ukraine in Februry 2022 (Getty Images)

In a month I will become the parent of a teenager as my eldest child reaches that terrifying milestone.

If it feels exciting to her, it is frankly baffling for me. For one thing, it seems no time at all that she was dancing around in princess dresses as a Frozen-obsessed toddler. For another, I spend most of my time feeling no different from when I was 28 – bad knee notwithstanding – so the idea that I am of a suitable age to have a teenager in my care feels plain wrong.

Anyhow, time waits for nobody. And the world is lying in wait for my children, whether I like it or not. What it has in store for them feels moderately bleak at present.

On Wednesday, my daughter had been invited to a get-together at a local pizza place, a no-adults gathering to mark the departure of a close friend who is moving overseas. It was the first time we had let our near-teen out to such an event without grown-ups in attendance, and there was extra care and attention given to her hair and outfit: a paradoxical display of innocently studied maturity.

Driving to the restaurant, we chatted about this and that as Radio 2 babbled in the background. At the top of the hour, the news bulletin came on, the calm voice of the newsreader telling us about the latest economic woe, missiles hammering Ukraine and the trial of Lucy Letby, the nurse accused of murdering babies in her care. At this third story, my daughter interrupted: “Can you turn the radio off dad? There’s just so much bad news.”

This year’s Digital News Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism says that 38 per cent of people surveyed sometimes avoid important news items, in large part because it brings them down. If adults don’t want to hear the grim reality of the world, would it be any wonder that children are reluctant too? And, at least for us grown-ups, experience and knowledge enable us to put most things into perspective.

When Covid-19 hit, we could explain to the kids that lockdowns would make a difference to transmission rates. And when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, we could reassure them with a high degree of confidence that Britain wasn’t going to be attacked. We are also fortunate to be able to tell the children that, despite the rising cost of food, energy and fuel, we will be OK – unlike many others.

Still, our kids must have had an inkling during those early days of the pandemic that we were basically bricking it. And although I felt pretty sure that Vladimir Putin wasn’t about to nuke the Chilterns, it’s hard to be completely soothing when there is talk of war in the air. As for the cost of living crisis, we might not be facing the very stark choices that some will be, but I’m still regularly telling the children to turn lights off and to think about how much water they use.

All in all, it is a challenging news era in which to grow up, and I can’t help but sympathise with my daughter’s desire to block out the grimmest headlines. Overall, though, the world is surely a better place when as many people as possible are as fully informed as possible about what’s going on in it.

Although I sometimes fail to read more than a few stories from my daily newspaper subscription, my daughter looks at it fairly assiduously. No doubt she skips some of the grimmer reports, just as I used to do when I was her age, but we endeavour to discuss the issues that are thrown up by the ones she does look at.

As she moves slowly towards adulthood, the understanding she is gaining about the world around her (warts and all) will, I hope, stand her in good stead – however frightening it might sometimes seem right now.