Our 10-year-old son thinks certain people look frightening. When he sees one of these supposedly frightening people, he can work himself up to the point where he starts trembling and crying and pleading to be taken home. This just started happening about two months ago. He’s afraid, he says, because he heard on the news about kids being kidnapped. We’ve tried to reassure him that he’s safe with us, but that hasn’t worked. Now he’s started having nightmares about bad guys with guns.

Given the attention the media have devoted to several kidnappings over the past six months, one would think that every child in America is at high risk of being snatched by a stranger. It goes without saying that children are far less capable of putting the facts into proper perspective: to wit, a child has far less chance of being kidnapped by a stranger intent on doing him harm than he has of drowning in the family bathtub.

But when is the last time you read a front page story of a child drowning while taking a bath? Your son’s scary-looking-stranger anxiety underscores the fact that a significant amount of the information available through television, and especially television news, is unhealthy for people who are not at least well into their teens. In this case, the subject itself (kidnapping) is part of the problem. But the dramatic, sensationalistic manner in which television presents material of this sort is yet another. It should surprise no one that exposure to television news can cause an otherwise intelligent 9-year-old to think a kidnapper (terrorist, serial killer, child molester, arsonist, etc.) lurks around every corner.

But enough of my anti-television rant. Let’s get cracking on this problem. First, I strongly advise that you stop reassuring him that he’s safe. You’ve reassured him enough. At this point, these well-intentioned attempts to calm his fears are only adding fuel to the fire of his interior soap opera. It is impossible to talk a child out of a full-blown irrational fear, no matter how rational the talk.

At this point, you need to be clever, not talkative. Sit with him when he’s not in the throes of his anxieties and say something along these lines: “Since you are afraid of people who pose you no harm, and since your fear of these people is obviously the result of watching television, we have decided, after talking with your doctor, that you can’t watch any television until you are no longer afraid.

“This is not punishment. Rather, this is for your own good. If eating chocolate cake was causing you nightmares, we would stop allowing you to eat chocolate cake. When you can go with us into a public place and not get upset at the way some people look, we’ll start letting you watch television again. But we’ve decided that you’re not going to be allowed to watch the news or news programs for quite some time to come, even after you get over being afraid.

“Furthermore, under no circumstances will you be allowed to watch any television for two weeks, even if you tell us tomorrow that you’re no longer afraid.”

I’ll wager your son will be watching television again in two weeks, his anxiety cured, by his choice. At which point, I trust that you will have learned a valuable lesson and will limit his viewing, not only in terms of time, but also in terms of content. For news of what’s happening in the world, let him watch the Discovery Channel.