Helping Young Children Deal with an R-Rated World

I thought that you might enjoy reading a summary of the article, “In a Time of Calamity, What Do Children Need from Us?”
           
In this article in Educational Leadership, Arkansas teacher Justin Minkel says that parents and teachers of young children have a “tough balancing act” between shielding them from the world’s violence and mayhem, and helping them “learn, process, and prepare for that ugliness.” Harder than teaching about historical events like slavery and the Holocaust is confronting deeply disturbing events unfolding in real time – Covid-19, the death of George Floyd, acts of terror around the world. “Pretending they don’t exist isn’t an option,” says Minkel. “Kids have always known more about what’s going on than adults realize, even before a flood of images and information became available to anyone with access to an iPhone.”
           
What can adults do? “We need to tell our young students, through words and actions, that they are loved,” says Minkel. “To make sure they know that while they might have to face some sad and scary parts of the world, they’ll never have to face them alone.” Some specifics:

• Teach them to look for the helpers. This was Mr. Rogers’s advice. Where there is distress and suffering, there will be helpers, like first responders charging into a burning building. Focusing on the helpers is “a powerful reminder that there’s a lot of good in humanity to balance the bad,” says Minkel. It also gives children a middle ground between looking away and succumbing to despair.
• Teach kids to be helpers. Talking to his second graders via Zoom a few weeks after the pandemic began, Minkel explained that scientists all over the world were working on developing treatments and a vaccine. He told students they could be helpers as well – observing community protocols, taking special care not to spread the virus to older people, and “being nice to your brothers and sisters even when they’re driving you crazy.” He also suggested raising money for a food pantry or chalking a kind message on a neighbor’s sidewalk. Kids need to have a sense of agency.
• Listen! Minkel describes talking to his nine-year-old son after the boy accidentally broke a pane of glass and lacerated his arm. There were lots of reassuring words about the injury and the boy’s distress over racial turmoil in the U.S., but mostly, Minkel says, “I listened as he made sense of the world in his own way… What helped him find peace was the chance to process everything he was thinking and feeling with an adult who loved him – and listened to him.”
• Be there. Minkel was teaching fourth graders in New York City when 9/11 happened. At recess soon afterward, a student told him, “I feel sad and scared all the time. Whenever I see a plane, I think it’s going to crash down on my head.” After a pause, Minkel said, “Me too,” and they walked around the playground, talking and being silent together, until the bell rang and they went back inside. “We shouldn’t underestimate how reassuring it can be for a child to know that an adult cares for them,” says Minkel, “ and will continue to be there beside them every single day, whatever those days may bring.”

 
“In a Time of Calamity, What Do Children Need from Us?” by Justin Minkel in Educational Leadership, November 2020 (Vol. 78, #3, pp. 14-18), summarized in The Marshall Memo (​https://marshallmemo.com/).