Why is Gaza attacking Israel? Are people dying? Why doesn’t Israel have technology good enough to block all of the missiles? How did this all start in the first place?
These are just a handful of questions that we’ve heard from kids in the past few days as Israel has faced regular rocket attacks from Gaza. And just who is “we,” you ask? We are a parent and child who have teamed up to help you understand how you can talk about these and other timely questions with your own child.
Sivan，除了成为三个小学年龄儿童的父母外，指导了孩子的李rning About Israel Project, a longitudinal study tracing how Jewish children in the U.S. think and feel about Israel. Ilan, in addition to being a third grader, is a curious question-asker and writer.
作为定期谈论当前事件中复杂和挑战性问题的父母和儿童 - 包括最近的Israeli elections,鲍犹太教堂攻击，现在，最新Israel-Gazaconflagration — here are our three best tips for healthy parent-child dialogue about current events in Israel:
1. Don’t try to control or hide information.
Adult’s reason：孩子们学会阅读之前，他们依靠成年人，了解他们达到世界的大多数信息。但是，当孩子们都是流体读者 - 通常在二年级左右 - 他们开始从各种来源搭档。我有孩子向我解释他们已经了解了暴力current eventsby overhearing a whispered conversation among adults, reading the ticker tape on a television newscast that was on at a restaurant, or stumbling upon it during an online search — all without the knowledge of their parents. In this digital age, when information flows freely and even young children have access to it, it is a futile endeavor to keep children protected from violent news from across the globe. Attempting to do so will only mean that kids will go to other sources — and not to you — for their information.
Kid’s reason: Not talking straight or trying to avoid a conversation with your kid triggers even greater curiosity. Kids may try to find out about something from the Internet if we don’t hear about it from you. We’d rather learn what’s happening from you because it can be in a way that is easier for us to process and understand.
2.专注于消息传递。
Adult’s reason：虽然您可能无法控制信息流，但您可以控制其周围的消息传递。例如，在谈论鲍威和匹兹堡的犹太教堂的袭击方面，您希望它是一个关于白色至上的危险和/或resilienceof the Jewish people? Do you want the story of the most deadly flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the last five years (an entire lifetime for a kindergartner!) to be about the safety and danger found in military might, and/or about theprofound differencesbetween Jewish life inside and outside of Israel? If you talk about these issues with your children, you get to choose what the moral of the story will be. That is the blessing and the responsibility of being a parent.
Kid’s reason: When speaking with grownups, I want to talk about values, and not just information. Information has no purpose itself, but values help make character. When we talk about current events and talk about values, it helps me learn good values as opposed to bad ones.
3. It’s OK if you don’t know all the answers. It’s still important to talk.
Adult’s reason：除非你是以色列 - 巴勒斯坦冲突的专家和an expert on child development, chances are your kids’ questions will highlight what you don’t know. Especially because they gather information from so many different sources and are left to piece together the bigger picture, kids often ask questions about technical details beyond any layperson’s grasp, as well as moral questions about the role of good and evil in the world. In order to have a meaningful conversation with your child, you don’t actually need to know the answers to all the questions. For questions that do have an answer, just one beyond your own knowledge, try saying, “I don’t know, but we could research that together.” For questions that likely don’t have any answer, try saying, “I’m not sure there is a clear answer to that question, but we could discuss it together and come up with some possibilities.” When kids ask difficult questions, they’re often asking more for a good conversation partner than a good technical answer.
Kid’s reason: I’m happy hearing about what you do know. If I ask a question that even adults don’t know the answer to, like, “Why do some people die in war while others survive?” I want adults to discuss it with me. Together we could think about why there is no known answer.
作为父母的团队，我们希望您知道即使是一个rocket可能会打破一个房子（甚至，悲惨，一个人），谈论火箭不会打破孩子。它只加强父母债券，以及在不确定的世界中的孩子的复原力。
