Christie: Excessive Ebola Press Coverage Scaring Children

Explaining how he handled talking to his daughter about Ebola, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said today:

"I mean I just said to her, Bridget, you know, it’s not something that you need to be concerned about and she seemed to buy that from me because we are generally authority figures with our children and if we take time to just listen and what I did mostly in that conversation was listen to her. You know she had these concerns that obviously, most parents know these concerns usually come out at bed time and sometimes you wonder whether they’re real concerns or whether they’re just an excuse not to go to bed. But you sit there and you listen. I listened to her for a long time about what her concerns were for a few minutes. And then I said to her, listen it’s not going to happen. You’re not going to get it. That’s not the way this works. It’s not like getting a cold which is what she was really worrying about. And I said you’re going to be fine and go to sleep. If the questions had gotten any more complex, I would have gotten her on the phone with Mary. But I was able to deal with it relatively quickly and when Mary’s son, Patrick, has concerns about other issues of government, they call me. So it’s a very good relationship in that way and we were able to handle it. But I encourage parents out there because I’m sure I’m not the only parent having this experience. Listen to your children, then talk to them and calm them because the hysteria that’s going on in terms of the coverage, just the volume of coverage. Put aside the content. Just the volume of coverage is leading a lot of children to be concerned about this in a way that just isn’t proportional to the risk."