I was in a classroom during a recent consulting visit and read A Chair for My Mother to a group of children. In this book, a family loses everything in a fire. They miss their comfy chair and work together to replace it. This book is an award winning classic that is often eliminated from early childhood classroom libraries because it addresses a tough topic.
I was in another classroom watching a lively discussion with 3 and 4 year olds about the book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. In it, the story is told from the perspective of the wolf. The children were having an impressive discussion about how different people can see things different ways. They were learning an important social-emotional lesson based on a classic story. This book has also been banned in many settings.
You can hide children from books but you cannot hide them from life.
Children know that scary things happen. They hear adults talking about things that scare them. They themselves are afraid of many things. The world is a big and scary place. They need to learn to process that emotion and to learn how to think through it.
Children know death. They have killed insects, seen dead plants, know of or have had pets who died, know of or have had family deaths. They need to explore the concept with people who know how to tell them simple truths.
Children know the world can be violent. They see that on television and video games. Sadly, violence in the news is part of the environment. They do lockdown drills and practice evacuations. They need to talk about it in a developmentally appropriate way.
They need trusted adults to open the scary doors and provide places where they can talk about all of this. A child’s safest places – the people they trust the most – are at home and school. If we sterilize their environment, when are they given the open door to explore fear, the unknown and to know the comfort of those they can trust?
Many adults are very uncomfortable with these topics so they eliminate them or change the stories so they don’t have to answer questions and open up tough conversations. Perhaps adults are uncomfortable because these topics were not openly discussed with them as children. It is not okay to perpetuate that.
- To learn about how to address these sort of conversations with Young Children, listen to this 15 minute podcast episode: Talking To Children about Hard Topics
- To learn about talking to children about death, start with this blog article: Talking to Young Children About Death
- To learn about helping children with violence in the news, start with this blog article: Talking to Children About Violent Acts
- Seek advice from people who are expert in the emotional intelligence of young children, children’s development and professionals such as guidance counselors.
Do what you need to do to feel ready for these conversations because ignoring them or avoiding them does not serve the children well.
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This post first appeared on Helping Kids And Families Achieve With Cynthia Ter, please read the originial post: here
