Why We Let Our Daughter Watch Dateline

My wife and 7 year old daughter love to watch Dateline. You might be asking yourself how a 7 year old gets hooked on Dateline. Well, it’s similar to how a child starts watching football with their father; sometimes children just gravitate to what their parents enjoy watching. And that’s exactly what happened with our daughter. At first we discouraged it since our first thought was a 7 year old doesn’t need to watch Dateline. One relaxing evening at home when the kids were playing we found that our oldest daughter kept coming in to try and listen to the show. She was hooked.

When I decided to write this post I held a mini interview with my daughter and asked her why she loves to watch Dateline. She said “I like mysteries and trying to figure out who did it.” A few years ago she was absolutely in love with Scooby Doo, so that response made perfect sense! 

Your opinion might be that Dateline is too inappropriate for a 7 year old and in some cases it might be. We don't let her watch an episode if it starts to gets too graphic, but I’d like to share our reasoning for letting her watch most of the time.

Recognizing suspicious behaviors

Watching Dateline helps our daughter learn that not everyone in this world is a good person. That’s one of the main things we wanted her to learn. In the interview I held with her I wanted to see what she would say about Dateline being educational.

After telling me a story about a man who killed his wife and set the house on fire to cover his tracks, she told me, “It helps me learn that some people in life are not nice.” 

That’s pretty deep for a 7 year old, right? Children are so innocent and have to learn that some people are bad. Depending on your child’s age and development level they should learn this fact as soon as possible. Kidnapping is a great example to put this into perspective. One time we watched a hidden camera show with both of our daughters where parents watched actors as “strangers” lure their children away from a playground. They offered candy or playing with puppies "just around the corner". Before the experiment each parent was absolutely certain that their children would not go with the "stranger". They were all wrong. Each parent went thru a shocking revelation and knew they had to make their child more aware of the dangerous things that can happen to them.

My wife and I are definitely overprotective of our children because it’s better to be safe than sorry. But we are not afraid to talk to our children about kidnapping and other criminal acts. If you fear those conversations with your children, then you are making a mistake. Watching Dateline makes our daughter aware of suspicious behaviors. It's important to talk to her about what happens in each episode too, and that brings me to my next point.

Close Relationships

My wife and oldest daughter are cut from the same cloth. They both have kind hearts and worry about others more than themselves. They are bonded together by so many things and Dateline is one of them. It’s something they both look forward to and enjoy talking about it. Having open communication about what happens on Dateline is a learning opportunity for our daughter. We have developed close relationships with all of our children and they will be more open with us through out their childhood and even into adulthood. We instill an open relationship and always tell our kids they can talk to us about anything. Or if it’s a matter of telling the truth, we ask them to tell the truth the first time and then they won’t get in trouble. And we follow thru on that promise. We do not break promises in our family and we remind them of that consistently. The close relationships that we are developing will only grow exponentially. It’s a proven fact that close parent-child relationships can prevent dangerous behaviors. When our daughters grow up and become more independent we're confident that they will not put themselves into risky situations. We want them to learn at a young age how to avoid bad situations and that it is okay to talk to us if something bad happens to them or someone they know.

As parents we have to protect our children. If you ask our daughters what Mom and Dad’s #1 job is they will answer in chorus “To keep me safe!!” Our #1 job is to keep them safe; they are our responsibility. Sometimes keeping them safe means holding their hand while crossing a busy parking lot or an extra cuddle at night to ward off the boogeyman, but sometimes it means a Friday night episode of Dateline. The future will bring unknown instances where will have to keep our children safe, and it will always be our #1 job.

Now it's your turn! Do you agree that Dateline can be appropriate for children? Please comment below.