We hear many accusations of “fake news,” “disinformation,” and “misinformation” today. What can we believe? How can we know what’s true? Even worse, our children are subjected to “fake news,” “disinformation,” and “misinformation” in their lives as well. They see it online, in their social media feeds, on various news apps, and even from friends. As parents, we don’t have the ability to protect them from all the possible information they might receive. But, exposing young children to online information with careful oversight and education can help them gain the tools they need to sort fact from fiction. In fact, a study published in Nature Human Behaviour suggests that “given children’s natural skepticism and early exposure to the internet’s boundless misinformation, it is crucial for adults to teach them practical fact-checking skills.”  This study focused on children 4- to 7-years-old and found that the more false claims a child found online early in the study the better fact-checkers they became. Those who had a reliable environment, one that did not offer false claims or narratives, did almost no fact-checking at the end of the study. In other words, when children encounter things that aren’t “quite right” in controlled, imperfect environments, we have the opportunity to help them learn how to figure out what is actually true and what is not. We can help them learn to be more discerning. The practical question becomes, how do we do this? How can we teach discernment to our children?

First, limit access to online information based on your children’s developmental age. Young children do not have the developmental maturity to understand all the world events and news they find online, hear at the dinner table, or watch on the news. Limit their access to that information. That may include limiting your conversation about various items while in their presence. Of course, this will change as your children age, become teens, and mature into young adulthood. The important message is to match the information your children receive with the developmental age of your children.

Second, become a discerning consumer of online information yourself. Don’t binge on news and information beyond what you can manage. Stop “doom scrolling.” Determine the amount of information you can “digest” based on your own levels of emotional and mental stress. If it becomes overly stressful, consume more wisely. By doing this, you become an example of healthy news/information consumption.

Third, help your children recognize the “echo chamber” inherent in social media and online sources. “With social media and personalized algorithms, echo chambers have become a major problem in our digital world—especially when we connect to (and stay in) our bubbles of like-minded people.” (From Echo chambers, what are they and how can we avoid them? | Kidslox) Help your children understand the dangers of the “echo-chamber” and how to recognize it. Teach them to seek out balanced information to learn a more complete picture.

Fourth, teach your children how to identify the bias of various sources. Teach them to check the credibility of the source and the bias of the source (left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative). Teach them how to check for citations to verify the information. Some resources to help with this education include:

• https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
• https://www.allsides.com/about including the chart at https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/fact-check-bias-chart
• https://www.factcheck.org/
• https://www.snopes.com/
• https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/
• for more tools see Tools for Evaluating Online News – Understanding and Spotting False News – Research Guides at Texas A&M University.

I know this is not a comprehensive list of sources or a comprehensive guide for teaching our children about media discernment, but it is a start. Perhaps we can learn with our children to be wiser consumers of the information we receive from social media, news channels, and neighbors. We need to become wiser consumers for the sake of our mental health and our community health.