Reassuring children about the world's end

The BBC website, on the 13th of September 2008, talks about how some child have been fearful about the world ending because of the Large Hadron Collider experiment creating black holes. It says,

"What is this experiment about, Daddy, and is it going to blow up the Earth?"That was the question many parents collided with as scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

In the run-up to the switch-on on Wednesday, doomsayers predicted the £5bn machine could create a world-ending black hole. One teenager was so terrified, she committed suicide in India.

Educational psychologist Alex Griffiths says hearing that the world might end can be "devastating" for a child of a certain age.

"Their brains are not as well developed and they have little experience of scaremongering to draw from. It also appeals to their imagination."

This experiment has played on children's fears, just as the prospect of nuclear annihilation did during the Cold War, and the swirling rumours about the new millennium.

Mr Griffiths says such scaremongering is unlikely to have any long-term effect on children's mental health.

So to talk about the world ending because of black holes is scaremongering, but talking about the world ending because of man made climate change is not? Children have more to fear from people than from the world ending.