Because she hears the name “Hillary Clinton” on NPR, my five year-old knows a girl can be president. I’m okay with this TIMES A MILLION.
The other day I casually mentioned in conversation that I had spoken to my children about Syria, and a friend gasped, “Really?” I was genuinely surprised. Is talking to little kids about current events not a thing?
A lot of what happens in the world is scary, I get that. When listening to NPR while prepping breakfast and lunchboxes each morning, I definitely skip ahead a segment when I hear the words “rape,” “murder,” or “atrocity.” Little ears don’t need a side of genocide with their Cheerios.
But natural disasters? Political commentary? Protests? I let those play on, trusting that 1) my kids are probably too busy playing to listen anyway, and 2) if my kids are listening, they’re becoming familiar with people, places, and concepts outside their normal spheres of influence. I’m not just okay with this; it’s the desired result.
When Nepal was struck by that devastating earthquake in 2015, my daughter saw the photographs in my Sunday paper and asked me to read aloud to her. I did (selectively) and then we went online together to make a small donation to UNICEF in her name. She still talks about that day.
This openness has backfired. My kids are terrified of El Chapo and regularly ask me to confirm he’s still in jail. (For now, kids!) Who knows what other random concerns they may harbor that have gone unspoken? My husband and I keep conversations about current events with our children brief, age-appropriate, and free of disturbing details, but it’s still a risk we’re running, to be sure.
Overriding that risk is our ardent desire to raise curious and compassionate citizens of the world. There’s plenty of time for this, of course. They are only three and five. Am I jumping the gun? Maybe. But I also know my kids. They don’t scare easily (except for notorious drug kingpins) and they notice everything. If I don’t talk to them about Donald Trump or Aleppo or Black Lives Matter, who will?
Once the are in school, they will hear so much, you may as well give them your version first! Plus, it only took 5 minutes of the first Republican debate for my 7-year-old to call Trump a bully and compare him to a mean kid at school, so yeah, they get it.
Your kids watched the debate? They are so incredibly cool!
Explaining Donald Trump to my children was…delicate…because I wanted to present them with information objectively, but I didn’t want to lie, either. ?
Impressed and inspired. We recently talked to our girls about Donald Trump when we watched the debate. We said he wasn’t very nice to people. Josie was very curious about his mommy and basically how he got away with being a bully.
As the grow, we’ll have to expose them to more.
Like so many things we do as parents, it’s partly a response to how I was raised. My parents wanted to keep us close — out of love, to be sure — but unwittingly limited our views of the world. I want my kids to be curious about everywhere and everything! If they decide to explore other places, I’ll just have to trust that they’ll come home eventually because California living is the beeeeeeest ?