Ukraine has been in my heart and on my mind. The war is affecting many people and imprinting on this generation and the world. Because it has been on our minds, my daughter has overheard us talking about it. This is a really difficult thing to explain to a child, so a couple nights ago, I decided to use Storytime to help explain what’s happening in a child friendly way. As a mom, I want to be sure she hears about these challenging topics from me so she can learn lessons that apply to her and shape her understanding. I want to avoid her hearing about it from other kids who may mention it based on their own filter of understanding. By choosing to have these difficult conversations, I can help her understand things as best as possible so she can be an influence for good when interacting with her peers.
Using Storytelling to Explain Difficult Topics
To explain the situation, I decided to tell a story of two kingdoms. One kingdom is big with a greedy king, while the other kingdom is small with a generous king. Based on how the kings ruled and treated people, they created very different environments for their people. One day, the king of the larger kingdom decided that he didn’t have enough, and he always wanted what the smaller kingdom had. So instead of forming a friendship where they could respect each other and share fairly, he decided to take. Even though not all of the people in his kingdom agreed, he still decided to take from the smaller kingdom and in the process, ended up harming many of the people that lived there, kind of like a larger kid bullying and harming a smaller kid to take away their toys because they want them.
Answering Difficult Questions
In listening, my daughter asked, “Why would he do that?”, “Why hurt other people to take what they have?”, “Why not make friends and ask them to share?” Answering these questions was really hard, and so I answered honestly, “I don’t know.” I explained that we don’t always know why people harm others, but that when that happens, we have a choice to either stand by and watch or to help. I explained that I always want to be a helper, sometimes that is by using my voice or words, and other times that is by physically helping someone else in need. We always have a choice, and every day in every situation we are in we get the opportunity to choose. Sometimes we choose things we are proud of and sometimes we don’t, but through making choices we are always learning.
Changing the World…It Boils Down to Choice
“If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.” What is history? His-story. It’s a story about an event that someone wrote down one day, a lens in which we look at a past set of choices someone made. If we aren’t telling these stories and finding the lessons that we can learn from this event, we will never make things better as a society and we will repeat them. To learn, we must choose, reflect, heal, and choose again…hopefully making better choices than the last.
War is a complex and challenging thing to explain to children because the lucky ones have no such experience and don’t even understand the concept. But even the most complex scenarios can often be boiled down to choice, and when we think about it in this way, it shows me just how important stories, empathy, self-reflection, and our own inner work really is. The more each of us can learn, make better choices than the last scenario/generation, display kindness, reinforce the importance of acceptance, love, valuing differences, and sharing – the more we can hopefully help our kids’ hearts be bigger than ours to create positive change in this world. Kids are the future and are often so much smarter than us adults. It is up to adults to set an example and listen as much as we teach to mold our kids into kind, compassionate people who will help us make this world a better place.