It is a Saturday morning in January, 2010. The weather is surprisingly mild for the middle of winter, but despite the bright sunshine, I am aware of the horrors that prevail elsewhere in the world. It is about a week since Haiti was ravaged by a devastating earthquake, and I cannot sleep because my mind is filled with the terrible images that I am seeing on the news.
I am sipping coffee and sitting at my laptop checking emails. Nearby, my younger son James, who has just turned four, is playing with a giant pile of Lego and some little plastic people and animals. He appears to be making some kind of village.
I tune out of James’ play, open my Internet browser, and within moments I am in a Facebook-induced trance. It doesn’t last for long: something about the way James is playing makes me snap back to reality and pay closer attention to what he’s doing. What I see makes my heart stand still.
James is using his Lego and his little plastic people to re-enact the Haiti earthquake. He is constructing buildings, and then making them collapse on top of the people. In a scene that is eerily similar to one of yesterday’s news stories, he is sending in the little plastic dogs to rescue the little plastic people.
As a general rule, we do not watch the news when the kids are around. We don’t think their still-too-young souls need to know about things like gang violence, air crashes, and natural disasters. It’s not forbidden territory, not by any means, but we protect them from the darker side of life whenever possible. And so, after the kids have gone to bed, my husband and I companionably watch the news together, away from childhood eyes.
When I saw James using play to recreate the Haiti disaster, the realization hit home for me: kids take in a lot more than we sometimes give them credit for. It was clear that James knew some pretty intense detail about what had happened, and that he was afraid of it.
Of course he was afraid. The idea that buildings can simply fall down on top of people must be very frightening to someone so young.
Armed with the belief that we are most afraid of things we don’t understand, I taught James about earthquakes in terms that he could comprehend. To appease his fears, I explained to him that some parts of the world are more prone to this phenomenon than others, and that it is not likely that it would ever happen where we live. He asked questions, and I answered them as best I could. If I didn’t know the answer, I looked it up.
My mini-education session, which stretched over several days as new questions and thoughts occurred to James, seemed to have had the desired effect. James still re-enacted the events for a while, but he seemed to be doing it to reinforce his new understanding. The fear that I had detected initially appeared to have gone.
Eighteen months on, I once again find myself in the position of having to explain tragedy to James, and this time, it is far different, far more sinister.
When a man named Anders Behring Breivik recently went on the rampage in Norway and killed 76 people, I watched the news coverage in horror, along with the rest of the world. Throughout that weekend, James did not indicate that he knew anything about it. There were no re-enactments, no questions, no signs that he was afraid of anything.
It all changed on the Monday after the tragedy, when James came home from daycare talking about “the guy who shot all the people on the island.”
Clearly, James had heard something from one of the other kids at the daycare, and the message he had received was confusing and inaccurate. It was up to me as the parent to try and make sense of it all for him. I was at a loss as to how to do this: I couldn’t even make sense of it all for myself.
By comparison, explaining the Haiti earthquake and subsequently, the Japanese tsunami, had been a piece of cake.
Teaching a child about geologically explainable shifts within the earth is very different to explaining why someone would deliberately kill dozens of innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I opted for a simple and honest approach with James. I told him the basics of what had happened, and then allowed him to drive the discussion by asking whatever questions he wanted. And, there were plenty, many of which I did not have adequate answers to.
Somehow, I managed to convey to James that from time to time, there are people who do bad things for no good reason, and that innocent people can get hurt just because they are in the way. I assured him that it hardly ever happens, and that he shouldn’t worry because he is safe, he is perfectly safe.
I wonder if he noticed me pulling him closer to me and holding him tighter as I said that.
I feel as if this tragedy has resulted in my son losing a touch of his childhood innocence. And that makes me feel unspeakably sad.
Have you ever had cause to explain tragedy to a young child? How have you handled it, and do you agree with me that honesty with our kids is the best policy?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Kirsten Doyle of Toronto, Canada.  Kirsten can also be found on her blog, Running for Autism, or on Twitter @Running4autism.
Photo credit to  Anosmia
Kirsten Doyle (Canada)
Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny). Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels. When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum. Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!
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Living in Israel, our kids are exposed to way more than I was ever exposed to at their age.
Bombings, terrorists, war, conflict…. and that’s without natural disasters. And here, the coverage is quite graphic.
I am honest with my kids and explain to the best of my ability.
I think you did exactly what was called for. i also do hope you said something to the daycare workers and the fact that they should be more careful with that they discuss around the kids.
From the way James was talking, the snippets he was hearing came not from the daycare workers, but from the other kids.
And yes, I guess in Israel you have a more graphic view of these things. I lived there for a time in the early 90’s, right before things started getting really bad. Even back then, the kids seemed to be wiser than their years where it came to violence against society.
I think you handled this wonderfully. It is not easy to address these types of things with young ones, especially when we are caught off guard as parents. But as you said, they hear and see things, and we can’t always stop that. I have had to talk with my son about natural disasters and death as well, but we thankfully haven’t yet had to discuss terrorism. I am not too sure yet how I will adress that, but your post gives me food for thought. Thanks.
Thanks, Tara. The trouble with kids is that they have no filters, and they seem to take in everything. I really empathize with parents who had to explain 9/11 to their kids.
What a well written, thoughtful piece Kirsten. I envy that you find time for the news and miss that fragment of adulthood so often overlooked at 6:30 each evening. Having spent many years in Japan, I watched images of the Tsunami all that week with my kids and talked about it the best I could. They haven’t seen many more major events but tonight I tuned in and shushed them to hear details about the US economic crisis (the Dow Jones dropping 500 points in one day). They are both aware (at 5 and 2) that this is BIG news and that I am DEEPLY interested in learning more (ergo so are they), the only problem is, I have ABSOLUTELY no foundation in economics to explain this doozer to them. The best I could do is tell them to imagine their piggy banks and how they added new coins each week when Mommy and Daddy shared our change with them…then to imagine that suddenly Mommy and Daddy changed our minds and took ALL the coins away. Whaddya think?
You know, until I read this comment, I gave no thought to explaining the economic situation to my kids. But you are right – they will be hearing and seeing stuff related to that as well. They will be seeing their parents worrying about money and job security and the like. I like your explanation – I might just try it out!
Kirsten – I too agree that they see and understand more than we can ever imagine. As you have done, the best way is too discuss and allow them to ask questions. My youngest is 14 and this is when it gets really difficult because they understand so much more and are exposed to so much more through friends and school.
I talk to my children about everything that happens in the news. My youngest was extremely concerned about the ‘end of the world’ prophecies that were meant to happen in May and it made me angry that my child even had to be worried about things like this.
Openness and honesty is all we can give our children and as parents we better than anyone know what level of understanding our children have and how best to explain things.
No child should have to be worrying about things like terrorism and mass killings but the reality is it’s our world and they need an understanding to help remove some of the inaccurate interpretations they get through friends and the media.
Excellent post, thank you for sharing
Oh, 14 must be such a tough age for this kind of thing. Kids that age understand so much, and they’re going through a confusing enough time in their lives as it is. Unfortunately, this is the reality we live in, and we owe it to our kids to help them reduce the confusion and mixed messages.
Kirsten,
I haven’t been in a similar situation yet. But, I think when I am, that I’m just going to try to answer those questions as honestly as I can. But, I’ve definitely noticed my daughter acting out events that are important to her in pretend play. I think that is a really good way for kids to deal with and understand their experiences.
Thanks for writing this thought-provoking piece!
Jen 🙂
Pretend play is a means frequently used on child victims and witnesses to crime. It is therapeutic for the kids, and it helps them work out the events in their own minds.
As a postscript to this piece, I have become a lot more relaxed about watching the news when my kids are around. I would rather have an open dialogue with them about things that are happening as quickly as possible instead of having them exposed to confusing messages from their peers.
Tragedies are horrific and hard for all of us to understand, let alone our children. Playing out the event is a healthy way to deal with it though. It helps them make sense of the situation – in their own way.