Raising Children in an Unsafe World
by Dr. Mike Davis,
Head of School
The terrorist attacks in Paris, threats of violence in New York City, and police chasing violent crime suspects here in Denver give all of us pause; these graphic and frightening events beg the question of how to raise children in what we perceive as an increasingly violent and scary world.
As a society and especially as parents, we crave safety and security. We long to believe that our work to better the world somehow moves each generation a bit closer to a life free of suffering. It might seem contradictory, but on one hand, the world is not now, and never has been safe, and that said, the world is actually safer than it ever has been.
Head of School
The terrorist attacks in Paris, threats of violence in New York City, and police chasing violent crime suspects here in Denver give all of us pause; these graphic and frightening events beg the question of how to raise children in what we perceive as an increasingly violent and scary world.
As a society and especially as parents, we crave safety and security. We long to believe that our work to better the world somehow moves each generation a bit closer to a life free of suffering. It might seem contradictory, but on one hand, the world is not now, and never has been safe, and that said, the world is actually safer than it ever has been.
Let me try to reconcile these contradictory statements.
We live in a time when the entire world can be singularly focused, “zoomed in” if you will, on one horrific event, like last Friday’s attacks in Paris. Our reaction ought to be and must be one of horror and resolve. Yet it is also important to divorce oneself from the daily onslaught of terrible news for a moment and look at trends over time.
About a year ago, Max Roser, an economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford University created a web publication, ourworldindata.org, with a look at how life around the world is changing. When Roser was interviewed last year he said, “You have to zoom out from the current events to understand in which direction the world is changing….We live in a much more peaceful and inclusive world than our ancestors of the past.” When looking at data since World War II, war deaths and deaths from disease are actually declining, homicide rates are falling around the world, there is declining poverty and increasing prosperity, and the world is more democratic.
How, then, do we answer tough questions that our children ask when, over and over again, it seems and appears that violence is at our doorstep? We must both acknowledge the fear and horror, but also provide perspective.
As a teacher who teaches about tough material in my War on Terror or Vietnam War courses, I believe in taking on the complexity of history and challenging students to think about the issues. Of course, I teach older students, and I am more willing to show material and read sources that are for mature audiences (I would not do this with young children).
The key is processing terrible events in ways that promote student understanding and empathy. While we can expect there are humans who have been forever changed in negative ways, there are also remarkable stories of human growth, forgiveness, and redemption.
In communicating about the Paris attacks last weekend, I shared a couple of resources, including a link from Time Magazine and the National Association of School Psychologists with information about managing tough conversations with children. I also found a very interesting video clip of a daily children’s newspaper in Paris that discussed how they approached coverage aimed young people by gathering children together, allowing them to ask questions and providing answers – no sugar coating, just direct answers.
In tough times, a common retreat for me is the writing of Viktor Frankl, a neurologist, psychiatrist, and World War II Holocaust survivor. His book, Man’s Search For Meaning, chronicles his experiences as a Nazi concentration camp prisoner. This book had a powerful impact on me when I first read it in ninth grade.
Frankl eloquently explains that our ability to endure difficulties in life lies entirely in how we choose to approach them, what responsibility we choose to take, and how we decide to move forward: He says, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
As we approach Thanksgiving, I hope that we can hold the victims in Paris and elsewhere around the world in our thoughts, that we can express the gratitude and compassion that we know this world needs, that we can have honest conversations with one another, and that we can find meaning and purpose in all that we do.
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