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World Media

The internet and satellite haveprovided excellent benefits and a wealth of information to this generation of kids, but sometimes it can be too much. When traffic world events happen, like the tsunami disaster and the World Trade towers, it is nearly impossible to keep your child from hearing about it.
Whether or not children should hear about these types of disasters is debatable, but whether or not they will is a given. There is no way around it anymore. If your child flips through the channels on television, they will hear about it. If they get on the internet, they will hear about it. If they go to school, it is likely that they will hear about it through the school or other kids talking.

Unfortunately, a lot of times, this takes away a parent’s option of whether or not they want their children to know this information. Instead, the only option parents have is how they will discuss these types of events with their kids. The following are some thoughts that parents may want to consider before discussing tragic world events with their children:

• Tell them first—
This is often the best way to go with children, since you will give them the real information (as opposed to what some kid on the bus tells them). This also allows you to tell them in your way to make it seem a little easier to cope with.

• Explain its rarity—
While this won’t always apply, many situations will allow for it. Just as with the tsunami disaster, disasters that large rarely happen, and if you can explain this to your children it may help to ease their mind about the situation. It may also help to give your child actual facts about the last time that type of thing happened, so that they will see how rare it is.

• Talk about why it happened—
If it was a natural disaster, explain the science to them so that they can understand it better. Hurricanes and tornadoes are excellent examples of this. Understanding how they work, how they are detected, etc. can not only ease your child’s mind about why it happens, it can help prepare them if they were ever in one.

In the case that it wasn’t a natural disaster, the only thing you can do is explain the parts of it that you do understand, and tell them the truth about not understanding the rest. Unfortunately, kids learn at a very young age that not everything makes sense, and not everything can be explained away. Even if this is the case, just talking about it with your child can help ease their mind.

• Be willing to listen—
Although this may have not directly affected your child, he may be very concerned. You should not judge what he is feeling, no matter what those feelings are. Let him see that it upsets you, too, and that it’s okay—even good—for him to be sad.

• Shift focus—
While it’s not always possible, you can try to shift your child’s focus from the disaster to other parts of the information. For example, if you are talking about the tsunami, instead of focusing on how many people were killed, you can talk to your child about how there were no animals that were found dead because the animals knew to get away. This can lead to an interesting discussion and take your child’s mind off the tragedy at least temporarily.

In the case that there is nothing like this that you can think of, you can simply switch focus to the good people are doing trying to help those in need. This is always a good thing to focus on, and it teaches your child that it is good to help others when they are in need.

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