How much information should we share with the kids?
El 3atal and I have been having conversations, in the light of the people's demonstrations in Egypt about how much we should share on the topic with the kids. He is of the mind that we maybe should let them watch some on TV and talk about it. I'm not really sure. Although this is a historic time, will it worry them that this is going on where Baba was last week? Is it too old for them? I'm generally in favor of mind-broadening conversations, but... Any thoughts, dear three readers?
Happy conundrums!
posted by MommaBean @ 10:03 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Kids the Beans age probably don't need to know too much, and I would use words rather than images.
We've down-played it with our kids, but with the older ones on facebook, friends in the US are asking the same kind of questions their parents are askin us. :S So they ask the difficult questions.
We're using Egypt as a starting point to discuss change in Jordan... in case something happens that our boy can't ignore. And with all TV's in the house stuck on news channels, pre-empting all cartoons, it's hard for a little guy not to notice what is going on.
So we have talked about Egypt's President and Jordan's PM (whichever one it is that we have today), and that people want to have a choice who is going to be in charge of their country.
Kinz, yeah. I figure the less shown the better. Emi, good idea. Maybe that's something we should approach.
Thanks for this post. It so reminds me that the world is far beyond the winter storm that News Channel 8 blasts into our home as we stuff the kids with dinner.
I'm on board with kinzi's approach to keeping it simple and with words. Sometimes too, a good conversation is more about listening than speaking.
k.
PicklePits, indeed we've been sterring our course through. As soon as the demonstrations resulted in ugliness, dh decided that we'd talk about it and go on from there...
Always a good question. I struggle with this esp re the Palestinian Israeli conflict. I want them to know the facts so that they can refute what I know they will hear among friends, school, etc in the US if they want, but more than that I want them to know the facts so that no one can make them feel bad about who they are. At the same time I don't want them to hate anyone (Israelis, Jews). It's hard to balance the facts (such as they are-dispossession and injustice) with other values we have- love and respect for others. I hope I haven't messed up too much! They aren't really old enough to ask a ton of questions about the news, so at this point I can control their exposure but the time is fast approaching when that will not be possible...
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