Kids are scared (men, problems, people, everything)
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Try telling them this: "Kids, in elections as in life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But life goes on, and being a good loser is as important as being a gracious winner. Losing is no fun, but the experience of losing will give you resilience that you can draw on when you have to face other challenges in life, and help you to overcome those challenges."
Quote:
Originally Posted by LiaLia
But is there anything we can say to them when they ask specific questions? That's the help I'm looking for.
There are no specific answers. I would rather you invite them to get involved if they want change.
Join ACLU. Get involved with your local government.
It is easy to sit around, talk about worry, speak of concerns of "what might happen".
What we need to teach our children is to get involved. Not to show them to sit around and worry. How many Americans actually get involved? How many went out and campaigned for their candidate? We can teach by example. We can teach them to sit around and *itch at the water fountain--or we can show by example and get out there and get involved. People do have the power to change things. I always use the examples of Rosa Parks and Madalyn Murray. They were two regular women who had a passion to make a change.
To quote John F. Kennedy: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
My kids aren't bringing home any indication of fear from school. My oldest (10) had made comments that most of the people there wanted Clinton to win because Trump is a racist. (most of the kids are non-white) Honestly, if my daughter said people were afraid at school, I'd ask about what, and probably say kids should be more afraid of some 'parent' playing on their cellphone while driving and accidentally hitting somebody over any near term policy the government is going to put into place.
My 9th grader is scared. It's not because of anything I've said. She knew who I voted for and that I was disappointed in the result of the election, but I talked to her about how we can't always win and that we need to support Trump now that he's been elected, because we want the best for our country, so we have to want Trump to succeed now because his success is our country's success.
My daughter follows the news and talks about politics and history with her peers. Her theory is that our country is vulnerable right now because of the recent recession and people feeling dissatisfied and looking for someone to blame. She says that sets the stage for a charismatic leader to come into power, and she gives the examples of Hitler and Mussolini after the Great Depression. She says the oppressed religion back then was Judaism and that now it's Muslims, and that if we start requiring people of a particular religious faith to register, we're starting down a very dark path.
It's hard to tell the kid that she's just being a drama queen when she's been doing her research and can give specific examples of the things that cause her to be afraid. Why do we study history, if not to look at mistakes and keep them from happening again?
My daughter is not undocumented and neither are any of the friends she's been talking politics with. So it's not that either.
Have you tried explaining to your daughter that we're not in a depression or even a recession, that Muslims are among the most successful people in America with all the rights and privileges afforded to any other citizens and are treated with kid gloves compared to Jews in most of Europe in the 1930s, that current the president-elect has a very precarious mandate at best, and that our institutions have withstood the test of over two centuries and crises much more severe than anything we're dealing with today and are much stronger than any one man is?
I work with people ages 11 through 18. At this point about 70% of those I come in contact with are afraid of what they imagine might happen to them and their families after the inauguration in January. Their concerns go from random events perpetrated by individuals to possible government ordered unpleasantness of all sorts. We're expected to say something to them but at this point I'm at a loss.
When we faced something similar in the 1990's (prop 187 in California) and in 2001 (9/11) the kids' concerns were specific and compact. Now it's a kind of broad, general, engulfing, fear.
Admin says
a) Don't bring up the subject. But if a student brings it up, listen, and answer in terms of what they can actually do -- e.g. continue to follow their dreams, continue to come to school and do their best everyday. Help their parents and in general be the kind of person they want other people to be.
b) Refer anyone who seems to need it to the school counselors. (This week we hired two additional, we hope only on a temporary basis). Keep in regular touch with the parents/guardians.
***But these are the same things we were told to say during 9/11. 2016 - 2017 is not the same environment.***
No this is not the first time adults have had to have conversations with children during very uncertain times. Civil War, WWI, WWII, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, the 1980's (banking institutions failing right and left and parents losing their livelihoods and their homes), 9/11, and the recession from 2008 (more loss that kids could see in their own middle class and lower class families).
But this is the first time young 21st century kids are affected and I think they're a different breed altogether compared to who came before them. They're more aware, more discerning, more critical. And yet everyday they still look to us with questions or guidance or something. Not sure what's the right thing to say to them, or how to say it.
WOW the bold is right out of the Obama playbook. Take control of the children's minds and have THEM lecture parents.
I'd say: "How dare you" if I were the parent.
Work with how?
Asking WHAT specific questions?
I can see from your post you feel it's JUSTIFIED to perpetrate fear not facts. LOL we have adult students in UMich LAW SCHOOL being given coloring books, Playdough and other juvenile materials in their safe spaces.
I have NO IDEA what the educational system and parents have done to this generation but it's pathetic. Seventeen year olds stormed the beaches at Normandy, for goodness sakes.
This thread belongs in politics with all the other anti-Trump threads.
You grown ups are. I am so tired of this whininess about something that hasn't even affected us yet. Grow a backbone and quit scaring the kids with your behavior.
Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom View Post
My 9th grader is scared. It's not because of anything I've said. She knew who I voted for and that I was disappointed in the result of the election, but I talked to her about how we can't always win and that we need to support Trump now that he's been elected, because we want the best for our country, so we have to want Trump to succeed now because his success is our country's success.
My daughter follows the news and talks about politics and history with her peers. Her theory is that our country is vulnerable right now because of the recent recession and people feeling dissatisfied and looking for someone to blame. She says that sets the stage for a charismatic leader to come into power, and she gives the examples of Hitler and Mussolini after the Great Depression. She says the oppressed religion back then was Judaism and that now it's Muslims, and that if we start requiring people of a particular religious faith to register, we're starting down a very dark path.
It's hard to tell the kid that she's just being a drama queen when she's been doing her research and can give specific examples of the things that cause her to be afraid. Why do we study history, if not to look at mistakes and keep them from happening again?
My daughter is not undocumented and neither are any of the friends she's been talking politics with. So it's not that either.
So in other words you let her listen to Glenn Beck?
It doesn't even make sense since according to Obama everything is GREAT!
So which is it?
THAT is the problem HILLARY had. She had NO PLATFORM to run on, and couldn't admit that anything was wrong since she was tied to Obama's failures. All she could do is run to Democrat play book calling everyone a Nazi Dictator Racist Mysogonyst Homophobe .
Think I'm WRONG? Google it you'll find Nazi memes of Republicans going back to the 1960s. In WHAT UNIVERSE was Romney a fascist Nazi for carrying womens' resumes in BINDERS?
Here, I'll do it for you.
It's a DICTATOR'S fault Obamacare is collapsing under it's own weight? Oh please...
Seems to me you don't have a concrete foundation for your voting choices if you can't dispute and clarify the nonsense she's being brainwashed with from OTHER people.
You grown ups are. I am so tired of this whininess about something that hasn't even affected us yet. Grow a backbone and quit scaring the kids with your behavior.
My 9th grader is scared. It's not because of anything I've said. She knew who I voted for and that I was disappointed in the result of the election, but I talked to her about how we can't always win and that we need to support Trump now that he's been elected, because we want the best for our country, so we have to want Trump to succeed now because his success is our country's success.
My daughter follows the news and talks about politics and history with her peers. Her theory is that our country is vulnerable right now because of the recent recession and people feeling dissatisfied and looking for someone to blame. She says that sets the stage for a charismatic leader to come into power, and she gives the examples of Hitler and Mussolini after the Great Depression. She says the oppressed religion back then was Judaism and that now it's Muslims, and that if we start requiring people of a particular religious faith to register, we're starting down a very dark path.
It's hard to tell the kid that she's just being a drama queen when she's been doing her research and can give specific examples of the things that cause her to be afraid. Why do we study history, if not to look at mistakes and keep them from happening again?
My daughter is not undocumented and neither are any of the friends she's been talking politics with. So it's not that either.
Do you also talk to her about how the media lies? Do you set her straight that this is nothing like Hitler? I'm guessing not. So you're letting the propaganda win, and doing a horrible disservice in the meantime.
Yes, it's hard to tell them they're being drama queens, but that's what good parents do. Unless of course you sort of agree with her, and your silence is your affirmation that her wild views are correct.
You haven't provided much information on the ages of your children, or the socio-political orientation of the school(s) they attend.
I was a Junior High-schooler at the time of the Kennedy assasination, in a community that was pretty evenly split between a conservative mainstream Protestant professional / merchant class, and mostly white-ethnic former New Deal Democrats. On the morning after the funeral, my ninth-grade "Civics" teacher (a Democrat) lectured us on the price of a free society (see the link below):
With the outgoing Administration clearly partnered with the NEA, I strongly doubt that any such an impartial observation would be offered in the public schools today; too much drum-beating by the Obama-nation.
The United States of Americais one of only about fifteen nations on this globe (all industrialized and all Western, BTW) where political power has passed between major parties exclusively via free elections for 100 years or more. This happens because the framers of our Constitution deliberately made it difficult for all power ro pass from one end of a polarized society (such as ours is, right now) within a short time -- so that the new majority could not settle old scores with those they displaced via ex post facto legislation and similar measures.
And you have to go all the way back to the Civil War and Reconstruction to find abuses of the Constitution on a parallel with what has happened in America over the past few years.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 11-17-2016 at 10:38 AM..
Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom View Post
My 9th grader is scared. It's not because of anything I've said. She knew who I voted for and that I was disappointed in the result of the election, but I talked to her about how we can't always win and that we need to support Trump now that he's been elected, because we want the best for our country, so we have to want Trump to succeed now because his success is our country's success.
My daughter follows the news and talks about politics and history with her peers. Her theory is that our country is vulnerable right now because of the recent recession and people feeling dissatisfied and looking for someone to blame. She says that sets the stage for a charismatic leader to come into power, and she gives the examples of Hitler and Mussolini after the Great Depression. She says the oppressed religion back then was Judaism and that now it's Muslims, and that if we start requiring people of a particular religious faith to register, we're starting down a very dark path.
It's hard to tell the kid that she's just being a drama queen when she's been doing her research and can give specific examples of the things that cause her to be afraid. Why do we study history, if not to look at mistakes and keep them from happening again?
My daughter is not undocumented and neither are any of the friends she's been talking politics with. So it's not that either.
I forgot to say you may want to factcheck the non-facts your daughter is getting from her Progressive sources.
There IS no "Muslim Registry"; there never was.
There WAS a National Security Entry-Exit Registration System data base from 2000 Bush through 2011 Obama until the US-VISIT program was instituted as its replacement.
Who knew? We ACTUALLY DO HAVE A REGISTRATION DATA BASE.
I knew. I guess my question is why don't you?
See, you're NOT really supposed to just casually sashay across the border and decide you're going to live here and then invite your many family members to do the same.
Never was.
I have family members deported 17 times and had to return LEGALLY.
OH and you MAY want to tell her, Obama brags about having the MOST DEPORTATIONS of any president. (of course he's redefining the term deportations but she wont' know that)
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