iVillage

I'm wondering how to handle it if the attacks come up in Sunday School...

Better they should have a few straightforward facts...

WHAT?

There's no reason to pre-chew the information into unrecognisable pap, or to withhold it to be replaced by schoolyard rumours. Like it or not, these events will be formative to these childrens lives; for many of them their awareness of the world starts with this. (My first memories of the world outside home and school are of Kennedy's assassination, with all the shock and horror that followed that).

Children can often handle brutal information well, because they don't draw the connection between the stark facts, and the suffering those facts imply. Give them the bare W-5, without too much of the human interest embellishment.

I restated the events for my part-time children as follows:

This week, some people flew three planes into big buildings on purpose. The buildings fell down. Many of the people in those buildings died or were badly hurt, including some of the firemen and policemen who tried to rescue them.

The buildings were in a city in the eastern United States. The United States is the country next to ours. The part of the United States where this happened is about 3000km away.

Nobody knows who the people were that made the planes crash. Some people *think* they know: they think the people were Muslims (like Natasha and her mom), and some people think that's a reason to try to hurt Muslim people back.

That would be wrong. The people who crashed the planed did it because they let their hearts fill with hatred. Jesus told us to fill our hearts with love. The best way we can help is to fill *our* hearts with love; and not let hatred have any place in our hearts. --------------------------------------

You can never predict what questions children will ask (or what answers they'll give! -- witness PTD) but you should be prepared with background information for such questions as:

 - How many people got hurt? -- lots, more than all the
   people at (name some large gathering the child might 
   recognise, but *not* his school or church that might 
   cause him to feel insecure).

 - What are Muslims? -- people who worship God in a 
   different way than we do. They don't believe that Jesus
   is the Son of God. But they do believe that God wants
   people to love one another; and they believe God forbids
   killing people (who aren't doing any harm). 

 - Why were those people so mad? -- no-one knows why someone
   else has the feelings they do. But what they did because
   of their feelings was terribly wrong. We are responsible
   for *our* feelings; we must try to fill our hearts with
   loving thoughts, so that our feelings lead us to do good
   and not evil.

Some of my words are a bit sophisticated, but they work for children who are already acquainted with the ideas. You may have to adjust the phrasing depending on the words and ideas in common use in your Sunday School.

Of course I agree with Pamela. (m)

But other than preventing them passing on outright falsehoods, I think you should expect that some responses may be odd. If you've read or heard any *adults* lately, you know that they, too, are having trouble feeling their way through their reactions. It makes sense that children have to process this too. So I would just listen, and comment gently, as you find appropriate. I really think it would be better for you to let the kids voice their concerns, even if they are sort of strange, than to say "we aren't going to talk about that here" or something.

Here's a summary of how the chaplain at my kids' Episcopal school addressed it on Thursday:

"She reassured us that she believed, after watching the news and hearing the reports, that everything that could be done was being done. She emphasized that God didn't "let" this happen, but that God did give humans "free choice" ­ and that some people in this world use that freedom to make BAD choices. She went on to say that the Light of God is brighter than the darkness of evil and, with the younger children, assured them that their teachers would look after their safety at St. _____ and their parents would keep them safe at home. And she reminded all of us that there was strength in our power of prayer."

As far as my experience, my 5.25 yo seems largely unconcerned. My 7.75 yo is interested, but doesn't seem worried. The oddest comment he's made is that "the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, but since these people were smart enough to use someone else's planes, they probably know that, and so they can't be caught that easily." Strange, but not really *wrong*, you know?

So we just listen.

And give each other lots of hugs.

I knew that I would get some help here...

Cynthia