Difficult conversations with kids

It's so important as a parent to be a filter and sounding board for your child.

Less than a hundred fifty years ago, it was pretty easy to absolutely screen your child from scary or confusing information and stories until they were ready to handle them with the necessary skills they had learned at home from their parents' model and guidance.

But the industrial revolution changed that forever. Compulsory schooling, radio, TV, and now internet and wifi are bound to expose our child to stuff at times that are not ideal for their individual development schedule or their particular mood at the time.

So we need to engage in difficult conversations with our children . And we need to have done our homework for ourselves so that we can listen, hear, and reflect and guide their responses to difficult stories.

The current news about the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 events is an excellent opportunity to think about how we as parents can help our child interpret difficult information and scenarios.

And we need to transmit to them our tools for dealing with fear, anger, confusion, and stress., in the context of our own values and philosophy of life.

Here is an article on this topic which I particularly liked.

https://wapo.st/3tAlSFx