How to talk about war with your child? This is a question worth thinking about for parents

Now the Internet is full of reports of the "Russian-Ukrainian conflict", and many children are also concerned about this international hot spot, so should parents talk to their children about this topic in depth?

I wanted to use the war to guide my children to understand the importance of guarding peace and cherishing the present, but I was worried that my children had received too much dark international political insider information and brought them negative energy. And he is also half-aware, afraid of not telling the child clearly, affecting his value judgment...

In fact, reflecting on war is also an ability to give children important value education. Let children try to understand the pain of others, think about the changes of history, and understand the meaning of peace.

Why talk to your kids about war?

Writer Mike Mopper put it this way: "Don't think that the understanding of sadness suddenly begins one day after you grow up, and before that you can only be amused." In fact, every child growing up today must think about the conflicts of the world around him. ”

Only if the child understands:

War means destruction for individuals, it is not bloody, and once it happens, the daily life we yearn for will be wiped out;

War is no different from the human tribes and the jungle animals thousands of years ago; war means the loss of life one by one, whether it is the person who wins the war or the defeated party;

Our land has also been devastated and starved, some people have paid for peace, some people are still silently protecting us, and the stability and happiness of life now are the peace brought about by the victory of civilization over barbarism...

Facing the truth, maintaining a keen sense of people and things, and thorough analysis can make children more deeply understand the meaning given to us by life, and those characters that shine with the brilliance of human nature will naturally sprout and take root steadily.

Help your child understand the war by reading

Reading can help children understand war, so that children can better understand the meaning of strength and kindness, and cherish peace more.

Children aged 3-8 are recommended to read some picture books:

The Enemy

"Mr. Oh's Cello"

Grandpa's Wall

"Little Flowers on the Barbed Wire"

Star of David

Fire City 1938

Anna's New Coat

Can You Hear Me? 》

Guardians of the Children

"Not My Fault"

"Cage's Parcel"

"Six People"

The Battle

What is Peace? 》

"The Cow That Loves Flowers"

"The Day the War Comes"

War

"When the Wind Blows"

The Man Who Ate Fire

"I can see the sea from my house"

"I'm Walking with My Brother"

"My brother and I keep going"

* Swipe up or down to see the full book list

Children over the age of 8 can read some related books:

"No War on the Western Front"

War Horse

The Kite Chaser

The War of Alain

Citrus and Lemon

"I Am Malala"

The Diary of Anne Frank

[Italian] David Cali

It's a picture book for all ages, children are reading a funny story, and growing up is reading funny war, funny philosophy.

The content of the picture book is that two young people who originally did not know each other and had no grievances and no revenge went to the battlefield and became enemies who did not share the sky. The background of the story is pulled away, there is no state, no nation, and a brutal war is condensed into a personal battle of two soldiers.

The story does not account for who is the righteous party and who is the unjust party, and the whole story is a soldier talking. Through his voice, we not only see a person's mental journey from participating in war, war weariness to anti-war, but also from a very special perspective, we see the absurdity of a war, the distortion and destruction of human nature by war, and the nature of human beings who hate war and desire peace. This book is suitable for discussing with children what war is, discussing who is the enemy in war, who is the victim of war, discussing what is being fought for... In a word, discuss the nature of war.

[Italian] Glets

"Little Flowers on the Barbed Wire" is also a picture book, which takes place in a small German town during World War II, when a little girl named Ross Blanche stumbles upon a row of skinny men in a barbed wire fence on the outskirts of the country—Jews imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, innocent and kind girls who risk their lives to bring them bread, only to fall one day at the muzzle of a crime.

It is a history so cruel that even people's hearts will freeze, but the little girl in the story refuses to be a bystander, and with her innocent and kind heart and unrequited kindness, she melts the ice and brings light.

Michael Mopperg

"War Horse" is a famous children's literature by Michael Mopper, the protagonist Joey was forced to participate in the First World War from the time he was a "small" horse, and he endured hardships and tribulations until he returned home at the end of the war. The story leads the children to follow Joey's perspective, growing up and fighting with Joey, hope and loss, happiness and pain.

The difficulty and amount of text in the novel are probably suitable for middle and high school students in elementary school. If your child has asked you war-related questions, if you want to develop a strong, patient character, this story is a good entry point. Through this story, we hope to help children build positive pursuits – to be a complete person with empathy and mobility.

Help children understand humanity and peace through movies

These are several war-themed films, the protagonists are children, through the children's stories, with the child's perspective to see the war.

Villain Ball on the Battlefield

At the beginning of World War II, Finland fought against Russia, and about 70,000 children were sent to neutral Sweden to await peace and return home. The film tells the story of a young boy who is sent to another country and develops a series of joys and sorrows.

"Good Night, Mr. Tom"

The film tells a story about love and redemption. London was bombed by air raids during World War II, and William, an eleven-year-old boy, took refuge in the town to escape the war. The two fragile souls of the asylum boy and the reclusive old man Mr. Tom warm each other and give each other comfort to each other's hearts.

New Button Wars

This is a children's film that strikes at the heart, showing the cruelty of reality between laughter and emotion. The film does not have any war scenes or elements, the hearts of the children in the occupied areas are completely different from the peaceful life on the surface, "Wait until the battle is over..." has become their common phrase, and the seemingly young minds are sometimes stronger than the adults.

Where is the war between children, even if it is fought today, it can still fight in the same trench tomorrow. That's how we finally faced the Nazis. This is the child's world, and only the child's world can be so natural and so innocent. In the eyes of children, world-class war is just a child's play.

Oak Boy

The film tells the story of the growth of two boys in the environment of Nazi Germany and the whole picture of the life of two families: Simon from a working family and Isa, the son of a wealthy businessman, become friends at school, one loves carpenter, one loves music, and the two families are linked.

The story deliberately avoids the bloody images of World War II. The war is ostensibly far from these two families, but the effects of the war still change everyone's destiny. The migration in the war and the search for roots after the war are the portrayal of the large number of Nordics and Jews during World War II. The misplaced intertwining of fate and identity, and the entanglement and struggle of nature in the heart, are ultimately the helplessness of the times.

Four days in May

It's a German-Russian World War II film, absurd but derived from reality, and there's no attempt to persuade audiences to turn in one direction.

In the last four days of the war, in the German town on the Baltic coast, everyone was tired of the war, and peter, an orphan of only thirteen years old, wanted to prove himself as a hero and incite two troops to fight...

The film contrasts the children's heroic dreams with the adults' understanding of war, and does not deliberately portray the cruelty of war, but chooses to tell the cold-blooded and cruel process of war with a gentle and just thing when everyone thinks that the nightmare is over. The real end of the war is not the victory of one side, but the only remaining goodwill of human nature.

Goodbye, kids

The film tells the story of the friendship between Julian, a French boy, and Poney, a Jewish boy from Germany, during World War II, and the Jewish boy is accused of being captured by the Gestapo, leaving Julian with eternal psychological trauma.

The death of his partner forces Julian to confront the cruelty of the adult world and affects his life, while the director narrates his experience in a calm to frightening tone, without adding any deliberate sensational elements.

At the end of the film, the priest and the children say goodbye affectionately, Julian and Poca silently say goodbye, and director Mahler also makes a final farewell to his childhood that has never returned.

Teach children to identify and think about information through discussion

The Internet is full of news and discussions about the Russo-Ukrainian War, and children receive a huge amount of information about the war every day. There are objective and reliable reports in this information, but they are also mixed with rumors and disinformation. We can discuss with our children, try to distinguish between the truth and falsity of the information, and try to distinguish between the information in the news, which is the truth and which is the opinion.

The ability to identify information and de-falsify and store truth is a core ability of future generations.

Behind the identification and induction of information is actually critical thinking, that is, the scientific spirit of rationally considering things, maintaining a skeptical attitude according to the real situation, constantly testing, correcting and supplementing, and finally putting forward their own views and arguments through analyzing the views of all parties.

Let children understand the real world in war, the real heart, cultivate children's perception and imagination, children can embrace compassion and respect for life, and can accumulate inner strength to get along with a beautiful but complex and difficult world.

This, I am afraid, is what we can teach our children through a war.

【Copyright Note】The source network of the article, the copyright belongs to the original author; we respect the original, if it involves copyright issues, please contact us to deal with it.