How to Help Children Navigate Hard Realities

Originally posted in August 2017

When I was a kid, school was lockstep-simple. I had no idea that the economy was tanking, that the Vietnam War had left an indelible scar on society, that the Cold War was simmering and creating fear all around me. That racial strife and social injustice were alive and well, despite how I was taught that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King had fixed all of that.

Things are different today. News is inescapable. It’s delivered in a flow that is constant, ugly, and sound-bitten, and in social media venues that didn’t exist in the late ‘70s. All but our youngest kids (hopefully) are exposed to the realities of the world. Our instinct is to protect them, just as we were protected, but we really can’t. And even if we could, would that be the right way to raise them today—in blissful ignorance?

The answer is yes…and no.

5-year-olds need reassurance and comfort--they should be shielded from terrible facts they cannot possibly understand. They can learn to be compassionate, responsible, and active global citizens by creating and maintaining strong friendships. They can learn that there is a place called “the world,” where there are people just like them who are looking for the same things in life that they are. They can be empowered to be kind to everyone at all times, no matter what.

9-year-olds are entering the age of reason, and parents and teachers know that their children’s questions cannot be brushed aside. Though adults might not initiate a conversation about events such as the horrors in Charlottesville, they should be prepared to field a child’s questions honestly. They should invite children to reflect on why people hate and guide them to create ideas about how hate can be eliminated in this world. They should empower children to take action on those ideas with the promise that their action can really make a difference.

The adults in the lives of 13-year-olds should be truthful and direct with them. It’s reasonable to be open, even provocative. It is right to initiate a conversation about facts and morality. About what white supremacists believe, what they did in places like Charlottesville, and why they are wrong. To distinguish between empty rhetoric and words that inspire moral action. Most importantly, adults can help activate their innate propensity to be compassionate, responsible global citizens by encouraging them to take action to ensure that the evils of bigotry and hatred don’t take root in their own world.

Children of all ages today feel and know much more than we think, certainly more than we did in our day. We need to honor where they are developmentally and to take them seriously. Most importantly, we need to model for them—in our words and actions--what it means to be good and just.