With Osama bin Laden’s death maintaining its place in the headlines, parents have had to walk a fine balance. We’re excited that he’s dead, but we teach our children it’s not okay to kill. And even bigger issues, such as terrorism and hatred, their root causes and their disastrous effects are hard to explain to children. These are concepts even adults have difficulty grappling with.
Julia Romano, 20, was in 6th grade when the September 11 attacks took place in New York City. She lived on Long Island, just outside of Queens. Her parents worked in the city. The horror of the day was not something her family or community could shelter her from.
She and her classmates were not initially told of the attacks – something she still says was a poor decision on the part of her teachers.
Today, as a senior about the graduate from Wellesley College outside of Boston, Romano says honest and frank discussion would have helped her process the event. Although she remembers discussions of the attack in class in the years that followed, the big issues were never addressed. She says her classes never discussed terrorism and conflict in the Middle East. Again, she says this would have helped.
Of course, different children require different approaches.
Kristen Lambert, a Chicago parent of a 6- and 3-year-old, told the Chicago Tribune that she decided to speak in code to her husband about bin Laden rather than break the news to her children.
“It is hard to explain, or try to explain, to a first-grader,” she said.
BrainPOP, a website with animated videos on various educational topics, responded to the news of bin Laden’s death quickly by updating their existing video on 9/11 to include the updated information.
In the video, Tim and Moby, a human and a robot (the characters through which BrainPOP videos explore all of its topics), visit Ground Zero. They give a brief synopsis of what happened and straightforwardly state that many died. The video doesn’t shy away from the truth of the matter, explaining how and why the attack occurred; but it also spares the viewer some of the day’s gruesome images.
Najira Ahmed, a Wellesley sophomore from New York City, says “ sheltering kids from the truth is a much greater harm than providing them with sufficient information to know the circumstances they are in.”
As a Muslim, a New Yorker and a child, says 9/11and the reaction her community had to it shaped her own identity. She says in discussing bin Laden’s death and actions, it’s key to make sure children understand the full scope of the issue insomuch as it affects them.
In the Tribune story, a family therapist says, “these are deep moral discussions” that children need to have.
Both Ahmed and Romano say parents’ and teachers’ glossing over of details led to a lot of intolerance in their community. Both recall adults acting with prejudice against Muslims but say it’s key for children to be aware one bad person does not mean an entire community should be seen that way.
Big news events and political nuance doesn’t necessarily affect a child’s day-to-day, says Ahmed, but the social rhetoric surrounding them does.
Therefore, it’s best that parents and teachers are there to help them understand and shift through bias, politics and unnecessary details.
