Please note that I am not a psychologist, but I do speak from similar experience. When I was a child, nuclear proliferation was a very real, very terrible threat. It was on the news constantly. Even a child could not escape exposure to the big talk of certain presidential candidates, and various pundits, all predicting destruction or pounding their chests at the other side. Being a very observant child, and more sophisticated than most, I too clearly understood the ramifications, and, also being sensitive, I fell into a long depression. There were days between ages eight and eleven when I would cry for days at a time, telling my mother that "it's all going to end anyway," and asking why life was worth living and why we should bother going on. Sound familiar?

But what I am trying to get at here might not be what you think. It is this: Like the girl mentioned above, I was a child largely being taken care of by relatives, whose actual parents were not very much in the picture. Though my fears were justified (nuclear weapons are indeed real), and though the media played a part (the media has always been the media, by the way, nothing new there except more ways to scare you into watching than before), something deeper was going on. I did not have a sense of security backing me up like the little hardheads I went to school with. What I am saying is that the doomsayers are easy to blame, but a child in this must distress is displaying behavior that reveals a much deeper, more underlying issue. From what was written, I would advise more mom time and less aunt time (though the aunt seems incredibly capable). Not because the aunt is not doing a great job - you are - but because the girl is obviously aware on some level that her mother is not providing enough of what she needs, and it is hurting her.

Now, as to Ramspolstilskein (who I suspect spelled his name exactly as he wanted, since it sounds quite dirty when spoken phonetically - very mature, by the way), you obviously have never had a child, or had to watch one. There is no level of constant monitoring a parent or guardian can provide that would stop the media from getting through without actually chaining the child in the basement. If the child had not been exposed to the sham that the History Channel has become, she would very well have run into this at school, or even on some otherwise legitimate news program, etc.

Personal responsibility with the TV and the First Amendment are both great, but neither excuses the media, movie makers or bloggers from their responsibilities. People who propagate BS to make a quick buck aren't only hurting children with it, they are also harming gullible adults. There are people around who believe that if an old man's money is taken by a con artist, it is somehow the old man's fault for being gullible. But gullibility is not a crime. Fraud and theft are.

Well duh!

GOD BLESS 2012HOAX.ORG!!!

Oh, in case you were trying to spell Rumpelstiltskin, this is how it's spelled.

But… If you think that Reality Shows and other TV Crap are healthier than this documentaries… Than it's you that need a therapist… Not the child, with it's innocence, WORRIED about itself and all the world…

We would be a lot happier if we worried a little about ourselves and our brothers of our the world… Instead of onl looking to our bellys…