With the 24/7 news cycle today, it’s impossible to escape challenging events happening all over the world. They’re in living rooms every night, on our phones when we try to go to sleep. Children should live free of fear, but it’s hard to keep fear-provoking information from them sometimes—whether’s that’s the frightening reality of schools today, natural disasters, or more.
We talked to three members of the Pacific Oaks College & Children’s School community to discover how to talk to our children, from helping them process distressing news, to supporting them through a crisis that may hit close to home.
Carlene O. Fider, Ph.D., is a core faculty member in Pacific Oaks School of Human Development. The Jamaican native is also a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) with a B.S. in Psychology from Northern Caribbean University, an M.S. in Marital and Family Therapy, and a Ph.D. in Family Studies, both from Loma Linda University.
Deanna Ochoa, M.A., has worked in the field of early childhood education for 25 years. She works as an adjunct professor at Pacific Oaks School of Education and at Moorpark College. She completed her master’s in Early Childhood Education and her Designated Subjects Credential and Director Permit from Concordia University Saint Paul.
Todd Hioki, M.A., is an early childhood education college instructor and has been a master teacher at Pacific Oaks Children’s School for the past 18 years. He is an adjunct professor at Pacific Oaks, Los Angeles Mission College, UCLA Extension, and Santa Monica College where he specializes in early childhood education. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College.
Q: Children can learn about tough topics from friends, in school, or from television. If something big happens, do you broach the subject or wait for children to approach you about it?
Todd Hioki: For children under the age of five, there’s no need to bring it up until it’s brought up. That’s the first rule, because they don’t need to know about these things. If they do find out about it, we need to process what happened with them in a developmentally appropriate way. Other than that, we don’t need to do anything other than assure children. Children just need to maintain a feeling of safety and trust in the world.
Deanna Ochoa: I agree, because why would we bring it to the forefront if it’s not really something that children are concerned about or would truly understand? It can do more harm than good.
Q: National crises are especially pertinent to this conversation because everyone is impacted. Events like Hurricane Katrina, the shooting at Newtown, and 9/11 take over the country’s consciousness. If children ask about a crisis, how do you explain what happened?
Hioki: 9/11 is a good example of how to model this. One thing that’s important to understand is how meaning is coded into our words. There are at least two different channels we need to address: what we say and how we say it.
With 9/11, you can say there were some people that were upset and ended up hurting a building. But then there were these other people, these heroes, that came in and made everybody safe again. Now all of that to a certain degree is true. You need to use the most basic cognitive terms that any three- to five-year-old can understand.
The other part of the message is the affect. How do we say what we say? And sometimes this requires parents to buy time if they’re having difficulty processing the event themselves. Chances are no matter how complex or terrible the problem is, if the parent projects that confidence and if they can organize it in a simple narrative, then the child’s curiosity will be quenched and their need for security will be satiated.
Q: How does this change when you deal with older kids?
Hioki: Well, things get complex quickly. Up to the age of five, children are pre-operational. A good way to illustrate the cognitive difference between children under five years old and over five is thinking about how they’d explain why a ball rolled down a slide. Under five, a child would say that the ball wanted to be next to the ground. However, if you ask a child who is six or seven years old, they’d say it was because of gravity. When you turn six or seven, you kind of land in the world, your thinking is less magical.
Dr. Carlene Fider: I also think you need to be more aware with older kids because at certain stages in development, children tend to be more behavioral than verbal—so if something is bugging them or they are dealing with stress or trauma, they may act out versus talking about it. Giving children time to process, telling them you understand that they’re frustrated and that may be why they’re acting out, and ensuring you’ll be there to talk if they need it can be helpful for them. Through this, they can learn how to regulate their own emotions, think about potential ways to handle the situation, and then decide if they want to talk about it. Ultimately, we don’t want pent up emotions because those can only fester. At some point, children can act out in ways that we didn’t expect only because we didn’t give them opportunities to talk about it.
Q: This may be exacerbated when children live through crisis. How do we help children who have been through traumatic experiences?
Ochoa: Play is very natural for young children; it’s how they cope until they make sense of things. So if we can get back to that normal routine of allowing children to play and getting their schedules back on track, that’s the best thing for them.
There was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in 1994 in Los Angeles when my son was little. After it, I remember he was trembling, shaking really badly. Our power was out and when it came back on the TV was blaring. My son was traumatized. Every time he heard that noise, he started screaming or would run away.
I used play experiences to help my son. We used blocks and would shake the tray to make them fall down. Then we’d talk about it.
Dr. Fider: That’s a good example of how to process it in a way they can understand. If it gets to the point where children are talking about the actual crisis, and if they’re frustrated or angry or upset, give them reassurance that whatever it is they’re feeling is perfectly fine. Allow them an opportunity to cry. They may feel alone. Let them know that you understand. Empathize with them. Find what makes them feel safe, and use it to make them feel safe in other places. Communication is key for further development of any relationship. Children recognize when your attention is torn, which can close them up. You need to be mindful of the way you speak to them. If and when you talk to your children, or they’re ready to speak with you, it’s important to show genuine concern and carve out intentional time to listen to what they have to say.
Ochoa: And of course, if it gets to where the child is not responding to the things that you have done, it may be time to reach out for professional support.
Q: Those are all really good points. At the end of the day, we want to keep our children safe. But what is the balance in letting children have normal childhoods, while also helping them feel prepared for a crisis that may or may not happen?
Dr. Fider: That’s a big one because it’s a delicate line between wanting to prepare them for all this information, but instead creating anxiety for them. That’s why it’s helpful if we share information in doses. A parent would have to determine the length between the conversations based on the child and their developmental level. Parents know their children best and know the kind of language that works best with them, and what analogies to tap into. That may be the most effective communication strategy they have.
Parents can start with one situation in a conversation, then maybe talk about something else the next time, and find ways to connect former conversations with current conversations. It may feel less overwhelming when parents are doing it incrementally and building on these conversations. So even though it’s a lot of information over time, they’re still connecting the dots for children in a way that’s age and developmentally appropriate.
Ochoa: We also have a tendency to believe children are fragile, but we don’t need to treat them as such. They’re not fragile—they often answer some of the biggest questions in life that even adults have difficulty grappling with.
For children older than five, we can’t treat them as if they shouldn’t know things. We have to treat them as we are preparing them for the world that they live in.
Dr. Fider: Exactly. We need to recognize that children are people: They have their own sets of emotions and ways of processing information and engaging with the world. We have to remember that they are their own individual, not the extension of an adult. They need to be given opportunities to express who they are in the context of what is happening. It’s talking to them where they are.
Read articles from the Summer 2019 issue of Voices:
Under the microscope: Education in America
Out with the new, in with the old
Per-spec-tive: A word from President Dr. Jack Paduntin
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