I think one of the toughest parts of parenting is trying to explain and talk with our children about really unexplainable things–war, death, suicide bombers, crime, and all those other heavy, unfathomable realities of life. I haven’t figured them all out myself so how can I offer wisdom and explanations to my children?
According to the experts, our children need us to make them feel safe–but how can we do that in a world that can feel extremely un-safe and precarious. Letting our children know that we will be here to look after and protect them is important. We can also try to help them understand that while we don’t always know WHY some of the terrible and scary things happen in the world, we are doing whatever we can to make sure that they don’t happen to them.
I’ve learned that is also okay to let our kids know that we don’t understand why some of the “big things” like war and violent crime happen. Depending on how old our children are, we can have a conversation around things like poverty and oppression–when my children got to be in the upper elementary grades, talking through things with some regard for history and politics seemed to help–looking at how things have been happening throughout history helped give them more of a grasp on the bigger picture. For small and younger children, I think that we need to protect our children as much as possible from “too much” scary information. Small children don’t really need to be worrying about suicide bombers and violent crime–if we can shield them when they are tiny.
Even though we may not know all the “whys” or be able to truly explain the unexplainable, giving our children a chance to express their fears and concerns and providing a safe, caring, supportive place where they can try to work through some of their worries and confusion is the most important role a parent can play in helping to process some of the unfathomable aspects of modern life.
See Also: What Are We Teaching Our Children About Adulthood? and Are We Expecting Our Kids to Be Superhuman?