My Mom is always watching the news and it adds to her depression and bad attitude. Does anyone else have this issue?

Absolutely same with my Mom. I'd like to sue a certain cable channel that is known for exageration and falsehoods for elder abuse. It is like an addiction and I've seen many people talk about it. They keep them obsessed through fear. It's a crazy world we now inhabit.

Mulata88 I am curious, what funny, enlightening spanish Channels List do you have, I really Need one- Mom And dad love to watching Primer impacto Al rojo vivo (very depressing) not to mention casi cerrado (disgusting). Plz share list

Well, get this! Since mom's first language is Spanish, and the news in Spanish are very explicit, and beyond depressing, I have decided that news will not be watched by her. She gets scared and confused with the news. While I am in the kitchen, and she would be watching, she's telling me about this topic, or that, wants me to come to the living room and watch what awful thing is happening in other countries, and I will come running, and the segment is over, and she doesn't know where it was, or what happened, etc. No more news. I watch them on my own in the late evening . I have made a list of what is light, funny and refreshing. ......... VERY HARD TO FIND, but that keeps the mood up, and light. Challenge to find channels, but she's getting better at it. =)

Saw for the first time, a jumbo remote the size of a tablet or larger kindle- this was in a tool store-harbor freight, but it may be elsewhere too.
Big, big buttons. No reading glasses necessary.

Oh, and cannot navigate the remote control for the t.v, so I wrote what three buttons she needs with a silver Sharpie, ... has been a great help! ! ! Mulata88

What about the "please come and watch t.v. with me" for 7 hrs, a day?................I have done it and got such a bad low back pain that I have told her that I cannot watch it with her all that time. I feel guilty for a lot of things that I am going through as I care for her. Quit my job, and I do everything to juggle caring for her. It is a privilege to care for your elderly parents, and I will not have to worry about the care she would be getting elsewhere. My mom is very clingy, and that is my main "complaint". She will be 91 and physically strong. Health issues are minor. She bathes and eats on her own. Been in my house 5 years and very forgetful. Not ALZ, just old age. Cannot remember how to knit, crochet, sew, so no entertaining past times. Forgets t.v. characters between commercials, so she wants me to explain the program .............. frustrating, but I think I have learned to be honest with myself and trying not to be mean to her, just because she is forgetful. If she could, she would not be forgetting. I have no siblings, so I don't have respite time. The state gives me an amazing amount of hours paid to compensate me..........a whopping 7 hrs. per week!!! Well, I tried getting more and instead, I got less, after state worker's assessment. I miss my mom... I miss who she was. Any of you, going through similar to me? Thanks!

My mother-in-law listens to talk radio all day -- she's visually impaired and doesn't watch TV. Same problem with negativity, though. She will often use the dinner table to rant about whatever she's heard during the day. We have a 9 year-old son - he's not at all happy with the negative tone and having the conversation high-jacked. Anyway, we have a "conversation cup" on the table, with questions "What historical even would you go back and change" "What would you change about yourself" etc. When things get too negative, we redirect with a coversation-starter from that cup. It helps.

Get parental tv controls!

How about trying to delete some of the channels from the menu? We have allowed access to only a handful of networks that provide "family" value programming and adjust accordingly as needs arise.

Sorry - I meant to say I agree with Dejavuagain - who points out that it is not about free speech, it's about staying on topic. Answer #99, to be specific. And Dejavuagain took time to count the off-topic posts, which was thoughtful.

I agree with Terry. I'm Canadian, and while I find USA politics fascinating, it is just a very little part of the big picture in terms of global activity and "bad news". Given the attention it garners, though, I can understand the lure. But Terry's right to pull everyone back to being on topic. Collective respect is key here.

As I said right from the outset you have to examine whats happening here. Is it the news itself that she finds depressing, the content of the news, the characters and the way they are portrayed in the news or the focus on foreign affairs perhaps or the visual images. bearing in mind most people who have Alzheimer's at some point lose their ability to distinguish fact from fiction you might find other programmes would have the same effect and be equally if not more depressing if she cannot join the dots and realise that they are NOT happening now, in her room. Mum is actually frightened and therefore distressed by violence and while I guess I am going to be politically lambasted for it, the political focus of news stations can give very different slants on the same issue. It is also why I said that LOCAL news tends to be softer than the country's news which can be highly political. In the run up to elections there will be a lot said that your mother will find depressing for once upon a long time ago politics used to be honest and upright, now not so much and she will find the bitter knife twisting unpleasant and not something she sees as being fair.

She may even be watching a station variant from her views although I wish you well in trying to find a programme that clearly interests her but doesn't depress her. Don't we all think it's about time there was a news slot called good news that recognised the worth of our black youth, that recognised the good things poor people do, that recognised that Muslims do fantastic things too. Now wouldn't that be a station she would love to see? And actually so would I

My dad most definitely watches waaayyyy to much news and focuses waaayyyy too heavily on the upcoming presidential elections. I hear the same stuff over and over. Lately I've been telling him what my pastor said recently in church---I think the pastor was tired of hearing it from the parishioners---he said "God knew who the last president was going to be before the election ever happened and he was okay with it or it wouldn't have happened. He also knows who the next president will be and He's also okay with that or it won't happen" My dad is a Christian man so this puts a stop to it, at least for a while! (Disclaimer---my personal thought, NOT starting a religious debate)

Terry, it's not about free speech. It's about staying on topic. If people want to discuss politics here, please open a thread on the topic. I am very active in local governmental issues, but when I come to this site I expect to focus on our concerns for our elders, not be subjected to endless palaver about the Presidential Reality Show and the mindless pap the MSM spoon feeds the rapt masses. I don't have a problem with the occasional parenthetical political comment but this thread has been hijacked, and casual reference to the original question does not make the commentary relevant. Hope I haven't been too harsh, but 98 posts into the topic with most of them gossiping about Trump and Palin has become quite wearisome.

Politics is usually a big part of major changes within any country and/or population group. I think the old folks are trying to reconcile experience in which politics often led to constructive outcomes, like the development of Social Security, Medicare, education, civil rights, and our interstate transportation systems to name a few.
I almost want to revise my will and specify if my eldercare people sense my distress with trashy media when I'm old, I would like it minimized. Not banned, but minimized so as to allow me to age away peacefully.
We all need protection when we arrive in this world and when we leave this world. deleteaccount's mom needs protection and deserves to have the topic explored so she and her family may have some peace in their lifetimes.

Ah, Jeanniepo, a Trump admirer sounds like. Well, it may not be a political forum but it is a column that asks for comments from people who can help and deleteaccount was asking if anyone had any ideas of how to get her mother away from the TV. They have the right to speak their mind especially when it comes to a Nazi trying to be a president of our country. Most of them were funny and meant to be comical just because of the content. Don't be so serious and if you don't enjoy reading about your favorite candidate, just don't read it. And, your mom has her opinion about our younger generation and no one is attacking you for saying your opinion and hers about our kids. I hope they don't delete the comments either. This is still America and we still have freedom of speech as long as a republican isn't our president but who knows? The next one will probably try to take that away from us too! Keep it cool, Jeannie.

Aren't the trump and palin bashers just the same? Or even the comrade Bernie lover? I imagine if I wanted to take the time I could couch my comments in a more covertly hostile manner as they do. Would you feel better then? I have cared for my mother with cancer and Alzheimers. I currently care for my mil who has a number of ailments. I also run a home care agency. The only place politics has come up in my professional dealings has been the unfair, petty bashings that have occurred on this question.

Careinhome, step up and reveal yourself TROLL! You have no right speaking of others like that! Keep it respectful on this forum, we are All here to help one another! You even fail to fill out your account bio, or even state who your caring for! There is no reason to bash people who you don't even know, and will get no support here, when You really need it! Are you a TROLL, Just out to cause trouble? Hmmm!

Comments are essential at the grass roots level, which gives leaders a little breathing room. (They can better stifle themselves since the people are poking fun and asking questions). Laughter is good therapy - and it usually doesn't cost much do a skit or play around those who deserve such attention. I'm glad the rest of the world is pointing out Trump's and Palin's behaviors.
Trump should be paying attention to what men are saying. When men laugh and criticize him, it bumps it to another level - especially if those men are in positions of power. He just doesn't get it.
I think the much much older American women don't process the Clilnton situation as well as the younger women. She's a younger female and therefore unworthy of respect according to Trump. I heard one man say he's been a devout Republican but believes Trump is making Hillary the next president. Trump attacks Rubio and the children of politicians. He attacks female news reporters. The elderly haven't been attacked so much because they've not stood up to him. The fact that he has no empathy for anybody means he is available to be criticized by everybody, here and abroad. The elders are too worried to fight the good fight, so the younger must step in to get us going in a better direction. Trump is maybe too old to be president. Not in terms of numerical age, but mindset. My parents and their elderly friends all had more sense than Trump did at the time of their deaths. And they were older than Trump. My mom used to say people get what they deserve in old age. In the case of Donald it may just be a dump.

What was the question? Oh yeah, how wean people off saddening news because they think it's real and so become distressed.

They are a clown show just like the last 8 years of Obama.

Careinhome: Garden Artist, Countrymouse, Jude, and Veronica have all commented on this page and are actually adults. Some of the best AC has. That's the best we've got, our A-team, or part of them at least.

Any adults actually want to answer the question?

Sarah Palin is at least good for selling shimmering jackets.
Trump not even for hair restoration.

I gather Mr Putin admires Mr Trump's undoubtedly successful track record. Don't know if that will alter anyone's mind..?

Angela Merkel has already had to deal with Yannis Varoufakis - the Finance Minister with the motor bike and the leather jacket and the red hot looks and hot red politics - and Silvio Berlusconi, who actually, on reflection, makes Donald Trump's personality look positively priest-like. So I feel sure she will cope.

If only the good were clever,
And if only the clever were good,
The world would be better than ever
We possibly thought it could.

OHMYGOD Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn on the phone about Da'esh..!!!! Oh all right I give in - I am now cackling hysterically. Jude will know what I mean, though she may not be laughing much - for American readers, Jeremy Corbyn is the newly(ish) elected Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal(ish, in his case) Opposition, and therefore to be taken seriously as the UK's potential next Prime Minister. Trust me, that's all you want to know.

What a shame that Hugo Chavez is no longer with us. International diplomacy could have had a real purple patch.

I can see why an elder who can possibly no longer link all the dots together would become worried.

While we may have made fun of Palin and Trump as 'outsiders' I think perhaps you need to know what WE see over here in the UK. We aren't talking politics either this is about the people themselves and what they have said not about their parties. When Sarah Palin announces things that are simply untrue like the space race bankrupting Russia, or that the US should base its laws on the founding fathers notions of the biblical and Christian values when there is no mention of Christian Jesus or even God in the original documents shows a fundamental flaws in the person. When she doesn't know that pledge of allegiance came 100 years after the founding fathers then there is an issue. What is more if you put yourself out there you will get criticised.

When Trump inflates racial hatred by calling Mexican immigrants rapists, drug runners and criminals that is really worrying for foreign nationals. When he denigrates gay rights and same sex marriage yet he himself was married three times, when he says he will be the 'jobs' president yet has owned 4 bankrupt companies I as a brit have to say ....erm really this man is suitable as a candidate for ANY party? Not in my book he isn't. Anyone who is thoughtless enough to criticise the black poor on the very day 9 African Americans were shot to death probably by a white supremacist in a church has no understanding of appropriate comments to make in his own country let alone on a world stage. Even a Saudi prince has stood up and said he is a disgrace following his comments on Muslims.

And that is why I feel I had the right to comment - not political but personal not the party, but the man (and the woman)

And you're right - I stand corrected. It's not comical any more; it's an embarrassment.

I would politely disagree and feel that "outsiders" taking positions on candidates is critical. Can you imagine if Angela Merkel had to work with Palin or Trump? (I almost couldn't type this - my fingers rebelled!)

Remember the great relationship that Thatcher and Reagan had (not that I necessarily agreed with their politics)? Bush and Blair? Bush Sr. when he put together the coalition to challenge Iraq for Kuwait's "liberation?"

Can you imagine either of the two comic candidates attempting to create such a coalition?

The US government, for better or worse, does still believe it has the right to take the superpower role, and as such, needs to have a leader who understands diplomacy, international politics, foreign relations....something lacking by many of the candidates.

I think all the countries with which we have relationships have an interest in our elections, as do the Chinese, for their own reasons.

Comical? If only. I've stopped waiting agog to hear the latest and am now averting my eyes.

Hey! - this is your election, it's not for outsiders to back a candidate. But it is also the world's business, it does matter to everyone, and in that sense there is an additional responsibility for American voters. That's what comes of being the last superpower standing.