Ep. 78 How to Talk to Your Kids About Scary World Events
Intro
I think most of us continue to feel sad and worried about the people in Ukraine as we watch events unfolding there. In the expat community, we’re often even more sensitive to world events because our feeling of connectedness to the world is strong. Between events in Ukraine and COVID and school shootings and other world events, there are a lot of news stories that can feel scary to kids. As expats we are often more involved in events and it’s important to know how to address this topic with kids in a way that will support their mental health rather than detract from it. On today’s podcast I’d like to address how to talk to kids about them.
As a little girl height of the cold war, constantly hear about Russia and nuclear weapons and had to practice hiding under our desks at school. To me the threat of being bombed by Russia was a daily fear. It wasn’t something talked about a lot at home, and I didn’t have a lot of context. As a high schooler, I took out books from the library about Russia, took Russian culture classes, and learned Russian in college. Looking back I realize it was an unconscious way of managing my childhood anxiety about the cold war.
Interesting quote by Rudolf Dreikurs. “Kids are keen observers but poor interpreters.” As humans we don’t just take in information. We've talked about this idea several times on the podcast—the idea that we take facts and events and make them mean something. When children hear about a scary event, they often tag on the meaning, “That could happen to me,” or “I’m not safe.” This creates anxiety and stress in kids.
With my own children, I have wanted to learn some tools to be able to help them navigate hearing about news events and help them know how to approach them in a healthier way than I did as a little girl. I want to share with you 4 tools you can use to talk to your kids about scary world events.
One-Minute Wisdom
Tool #1: Give Information Intentionally, and In Small Doses
Common sense media study: 42% of household have TV on always or most of the time.
Important news be shared in small doses, and in an age-appropriate way. If it isn’t we risk the mental health of our kids.
Another study showed that 63% of kids said the news makes them afraid, angry or depressed.
It’s a good idea not to listen to the TV or the radio or news podcasts in common areas of the house or in the car where young kids can hear. Consider using headphones or listening out of earshot. Large doses of news—particularly without processing and reflection can significantly increase anxiety in kids.
According to Dr. Kaiser a licensed Child and Family Psychologist, kids who are pre-school and older can handle some information about scary world events—and it’s important as they are likely being exposed to things outside your home that you may not even be aware of.
As parents, it’s important for us to bring it up, kids may not think to or may not feel comfortable doing it.
Young child: A lot of grown-ups have been talking about what’s happening in Ukraine. Do you have any questions?
Older child: Have you heard or read much about the conflict in Ukraine?
Limiting exposure can go too far. In a sincere effort to shield our children from fear, we can actually create more of it. When children sense something is going on but they don’t know, their imagination goes wild.
When I was about 8, there was a man in our area who had raped several girls and women. I had not heard anything about it until a neighbor a year or two older than me said something to my mom like, “Have you heard about the rapist? You probably don’t want to be outside right now.” I had never heard of the word rapist but from the tone and context I knew it was something scary. My mom hurried us inside. I asked my mom “What does rapist mean?” She said, “We’ll talk about it later.” But she didn’t. Over the next few weeks, months and years I worried about it and my imagination went wild. I didn’t want to be outside by myself, I didn’t want to go to the basement alone.
It’s important to address these topics with kids.
Tool #2. Ask Kids What They Know and How Feel About It
As we mentioned, kids are amazing observers and terrible interpreters. They may notice and absorb more than we have realized. And they may also have big feelings and concerns around it—some may be merited but others may be exaggerated. A great place to start the discussion with kids is to find out what they’ve heard and are thinking/feeling.
Asking kids allows us meet a child where they are at. If a child hasn’t heard about the gory details of something, it’s likely not necessary to bring them up. However, if they have and they’re worried about it, it may be important to address.
It also allows kids to reflect and explore any ideas or concerns they are having. Kids are often not even aware of the big feelings they have around something until they are able to think about it, articulate it and connect them. They may just know that they feel sad or stressed or scared. Giving voice to this and connecting it can be really helpful like taking the lid off the pressure cooker.
As a parent, it’s important to validate kid’s emotions and let them know it’s okay to feel those emotions. It’s also important to normalize them and let them know you or others also feel those things. (Emotion Coaching Series 39-42)
When my kids got COVID, my husband and I were disappointed, but we had read a lot about the omicron variant and we were all vaccinated, so we didn’t stress too much about. But when we told our kids they started crying. It occured to me that they hadn’t been reading about all these facts. In fact, what they knew was that there was this scary disease that we had to leave China because of and stay inside for lots of months and even miss school because it was too scary to go to school. You can imagine how scary that would be to get this dreaded illness!
My husband and I said, “Tell us how you’re feeling about this.” They said, “Are we going to die?” “Will we have to go to the hospital?” Asking our kids allowed us to know where they were at and meet them there. We were able to reassure them about their specific concerns.
Tool #3. Calmly Give Facts and Context
The manner and attitude you use when you talk about big issues is important. Kids take their cues about how to feel about things from us. If they see us as their caregiver frazzled and falling apart it creates an additional level of anxiety. And, it sends the message this must be really scary. Of course it’s okay to let your child know that you also are concerned about what’s happening, but doing it in a calm way helps a child feel more secure.
Help kids learn the facts about what happened. For example, in the case of forest fires you could let kids know, there were some forest fires in California right now. It has burned a large amount of land. There are some firefighters working on it, but some people have had to leave their homes. They were told ahead of time that they should leave. So far no one has been hurt.
Or with Ukraine you could say, Ukraine and Russia are countries that are neighbors. The Russian Military came in to take over the country of Ukraine. Many people who lived in the country have left the country and more are leaving. Many of the men stayed to fight.
After sharing the facts, it can help kids to get some context. For example, realizing that the event is far away, helps a child to feel safer. So, you might even get out a map and show the child where you live and where the event is taking place. We live here in VA. This is happening over here in Ukraine. Another way to give context is to help a child know about the likelihood of this happening.
My daughter has had a lot of anxiety about school shootings. They are frequently in the news and it’s easy to feel like they happen all the time and all around us. As we talked through her concerns, I acknowledged that it is possible it could happen. However, we researched the probability of it happening at her school. It was incredibly low. Then we researched the probability of her getting shot if it happened at her school. The result was like .000001. These facts don’t always allay anxiety completely, but they can help a child put it in perspective.
Finally, kids don’t just need the difficult facts, they also need facts about helpers and heroes. Study with kids drawing after 9/11 and other issue. Pointing out helpers heroes is important. It feels like the event is more manageable and helps kids realize that people will help them when difficult things happen.
Tool #4 Help Kids Take and Active Role in Helping
One of the reasons events and news stories feels scary to kids is they feel out of control. Children feel like this could happen to them and they can’t do anything about it. One of the ways to address this feeling of helplessness and vulnerability is to help them take action and feel like THEY are contributing to helping.
There are lots of ways to do this:
Agree to pray for the people affected
Call friends and family in the area if they live there
You might attend a peaceful rally
You might read more about a particular group or issue
You might let kids donate some of their allowance money
You might let kids help with clothing or supply drives
You might have kids write letters to people involved etc.
Recap:
Tool #1: Give Information Intentionally, and In Small Doses
Tool #2: Ask Kids What They Know and How They Feel About It
Tool #3: Calmly Give Facts and Context
Tool #4: Help Kids Take an Active Role in Helping
Expat Exit Strategy:
Think about a particular story your kids might be thinking about, maybe Ukraine. Think through what facts and context you may want to give your kids and how you might want to encourage your kids to take an active role in helping. Then plan a quiet time you can talk with your kids, ask them what they are thinking or feeling about it.