I embrace lengthy discussions about today’s election craziness with high school students and mature younger brothers and sisters in middle school. Young adults are mostly following events anyway. There’s little choice.
Politics has stolen the front pages. In a sobering recap of how badly things are going, a new record was set yesterday: 4,400 people died from COVID-19, as the virus runs almost unchecked, ravaging our nation’s economy and psyche; yet you have to scroll down to the 21st story on the Washington Post website to find it that latest COVID information. Current events have pushed a full-blown plague off the front page.
A better time to flesh out the civics curriculum has hardly been seen in my lifetime. The only event of comparable magnitude that comes to mind is the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon. I was a teen-age girl in Mexico at that time and I remember people asking me, “But why did he resign?” I would explain Watergate while they continued to stare blankly at me, before saying, “They all do that!” But in my country at that time, people thought more highly of their nation’s leaders. We did not believe they all did that.
Bill Clinton’s little hallway romp with the cute, young Monica hardly hits the meter today. Instead we look at pictures of National Guard members sleeping on the marble floors of the capitol building as we prepare for an inauguration like no other. I have personally tweeted that I’d like the inauguration to be conducted remotely. One advantage to a Zoom inauguration: The President-elect could be in Uruguay or on Mars for all any angry mob would know.
But this post is about our little kids — our incredibly confused little kids on some cases. I’d like to suggest we back away from sharing too much information with elementary school age children. In middle school, a conservative approach should be taken with this topic. I know from my teaching years that the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old can be utterly unpredictable. Some are wise far beyond their years. Others go home to watch SpongeBob SquarePants while clinging to toy trucks and well-worn dolls.
As an elementary school-age child, I spent years living in fear after viewing a rather innocuous Outer Limits episode, “The Man with the Power.” During the day, I was fine, but in the dark as I lay waiting for sleep, I kept waiting for that lightening to pop up in the corner of the room. What if the room was destroyed? If I was killed by the falling ceiling? Or if I just disappeared, never to be found?
Children truly do believe in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. They may reach the realization that Santa is just dad or mom when they are five or when they are seven. Perhaps a few will hang on past seven years simply because Santa is such a great idea and their family keeps backing up the Santa story. Why was the Tim Allen movie The Santa Clause such a success? I suspect part of that movie’s longevity is the fact that many of us would like to live in a universe with a real Santa.
But kids truly believe. They believe in heroes and, unfortunately, they also believe in monsters. They can be scared of the lightening in the corner for years. I read a post last year about how to teach 9/11 in first grade. My gut response was NOBODY should teach 9/11 in first grade. It’s too soon. Some ideas should not be taught until children can put them in an at least semi-realistic context that will make sense to them.
Timing is everything. I had to be at least eight when I saw “The Man with the Power,” an episode filled with adult themes that all flew right over my head. But I was an imaginative child and that lightening remained after all the mysterious conversation faded away. Our kids right now can’t understand this talk of insurrection and the “end of democracy” or “end of our country.” But they get the word “END.” And they can tell something scary must be happening, especially in those homes that have been watching news they never watched before. They understand what “five people were KILLED,” means, if hazily, and they understand that “DARK, PANDEMIC WINTER” is a bad, bad thing. I hope not too many have been watching the TV from the stairs as that policeman stuck in the doorway screams.
PANDEMIC has already upended our children’s lives. Some have lost family members. More commonly, children have been running in fear of endangering family members, listening to explanations of why they can’t go to play with friends or visit grandma and grandpa.
“We can’t go this year. We have to protect grandma and grandpa.”
Protect them from what? Depending on their ages, the answer to that question will be more or less complete — but on some level, all our children understand that their grandparents are in danger. A scary new kind of death walks the world.
I don’t know what we will call this generation when it comes of age. I know that these kids will be a new generation like no other in memory. They will be the kids who grew up in the times of masks and the drive-thru. Some will be kids who knew dad’s job clerking at Walmart or driving a city bus just might get him killed. Others will be kids trying to recover from holes in their educations, despite best efforts by educators and families.
But we can rescue our elementary school children and their more-sensitive older brothers and sisters by NOT teaching them topics that are too scary for them to process. No one who believes in Santa Claus should be trying to understand what is happening right now to our democracy and the United States of America. Young children know America is where they live. DESTROYING America then becomes an absolutely terrifying idea. Donald Trump can become a terrifying idea — either TRUMP the EVIL MASTERMIND WHO IS DESTROYING AMERICA or TRUMP the HOPE FOR AMERICA WHO IS BEING DESTROYED by the EVIL SOCIALISTS. Kids know what DESTROY means, or its synonyms like wreck and trash. But Santa fans don’t know that lightening can’t come out of nowhere and destroy their bedroom or take their parents away. They don’t know that America will not simply disappear out from under them, sweeping their lives away somehow, probably with dead grandparents thrown into the bargain.
I keep seeing articles on how to teach what is happening. For adolescents, that teaching is wholly appropriate and I’d say vital right now. This is unfortunately the civics opportunity of a lifetime — a chance to help young people understand our government, contracts and law.
But I’d like to plead with teachers, parents and other adults watching this mess — to the extent possible, let’s keep the wee ones out of this mess. Let’s turn off the news. Don’t share the harsher, nitty gritty details. Let’s offer reassurance when complex topics arise.
“Everything in Washington, D.C. will be fine. Things don’t always happen the way we want them to happen, but this country is a great country and we will make things work out right. People are working right now to get it to come out right.”
That’s what our little kids need to hear. The adults have it in control. The adults will keep them safe. They live in a great country. Sometimes people have to work to get that country right, but when they do the work, they can fix the problems.
Hugs to my readers from the blue room!
