Why Your Child Doesn’t Need to Know about Terrorists
The picture above was drawn by a seven-year-old two weeks after 9/11. He was living in Tennessee at the time, and his picture includes bombs being launched back and forth between Tennessee and Iraq. Beside the two pieces of land are coffins listing every member of his family as having died. He’s included himself in a coffin on the top left.
At the time of the drawing, the boy had been watching the coverage of 9/11 nearly every day. He had become obsessed with how the United States would retaliate to the attacks and what that would mean for him and his family. He feared World War III would break out and his home, his neighborhood, and his school would all be destroyed.
The boy had a high level of Interpersonal Intelligence and noticed how, after 9/11, his parents tensed up at the dinner table, how they stayed up late watching the news, and how they stopped talking when he entered the room. He also had a high level of Logical-Mathematical Intelligence and understood that the number of people who had died in the attacks equaled twice the number of the students at his school. As he walked around the hallways, he thought about the victims and was overcome with sadness and fear. He was also a Highly Sensitive Child and felt high amounts of empathy for those children who had lost their parents. He began thinking about what it would be like to lose his own.
This boy was not alone in his fear. Many kids across the country watched the footage of the 9/11 attacks. Whether their parents were allowing it or they just happened to be walking through the living room while the news was on, the majority of kids in the United States at that time saw a plane hit a tower at least once. For many kids, they saw planes hit towers many times, and those were often the kids who struggled the worst.
In many cases, it wasn’t seeing the actual plane hit the tower that was so disturbing for kids; it was that kids really didn’t understand what they were seeing. As adults, we knew we were watching a replay of what happened the morning of 9/11. Young children, however, didn’t understand that. In fact, when many kids saw a plane hit a tower, they thought it was a different plane and a different tower. Thus, if a child saw a replay of a plane hitting a tower fifty times, he may have believed fifty planes had hit fifty towers. And that’s where smart kids took what they were seeing to the next level.
Average Child: Fifty planes hit fifty towers. That’s a lot of towers.
Smart Child: Fifty planes hit fifty towers. We have towers in our city. The towers in our city will be hit next.
The average child in the above example was experiencing concrete thinking. (Fifty planes hit fifty towers.) When children are thinking concretely, what they see is taken literally. Each time they see a plane hit a tower, it is seen as a separate event. It takes higher-level thinking skills (seen in children ages twelve and up) to think critically about what is seen. A critical thinker will look at the replay and think, I recognize that event. It happened last week. Children under eight might not able to do this.
The smart child above was experiencing both concrete thinking (Fifty planes hit fifty towers) and asynchronous development (The towers in our city will be next). Asynchronous development caused the child to take the concrete thought to the next level by thinking his city would be next. So the average child had to deal with just concrete thinking; the smart child had to deal with both. If you take concrete thinking and add asynchronous development, you end up with a terrified child. This is what many smart kids experience when they are exposed to the realities of our world.
How Children Process World Events
If you think of a child’s world in terms of a snow globe, you can see how a child views the world around him. He is in the center of a snow globe, and when it snows on him, he believes it snows on everyone. Children ages three through seven are egocentric and aren’t aware of other people’s perspectives. When they’re having a bad day, they assume everyone else is having a bad day. When they’re having a wonderful day, they assume everyone else’s day is wonderful too. From a child’s perspective, everything that exists, exists inside the snow globe.
For example, if a child sees a starving child on television, they see that child as in their snow globe. From their snow-globe point of view, the starving child is experiencing the same world as they are; thus, there is reason to fear they too might starve. While some kids will not be triggered by the starving child, there are many smart kids who would be. And those kids don’t understand how far away Africa really is and that they have enough food in the pantry to survive for months. What they see in their world becomes part of their reality, whether it is directly related to them or not.
The same thing happens when a child sees a storm warning on television. Even if you point out that the storm is going to bypass your area altogether, a child will see the red and green flashing dots and won’t be able to process the distance between himself and the storm. After all, the storm is inside their snow globe, and they can’t see how it won’t somehow affect them.
After 9/11, many kids assumed the buildings in their own city had been hit. When they later went downtown and saw them still standing, they were in shock. They weren’t able to differentiate the towers on television from the towers in their own city, because in their snow globe, their city is all they can see. This is how their fear becomes magnified.
The same goes for kids’ perception of time. Inside the snow globe, time takes on a new form. A day is like a week to a child. When you talk about what happened last week, a child will remember it like it was a long time ago. That’s why it’s important to address a child’s behavior within the day in which it occurred, especially for children ages four through ten. Once kids get older, they gain a greater perspective of time, but for young children, if you don’t address topics within the day, they will likely be forgotten.
Time also affects kids when it comes to frightening events. When a frightening event occurs, it stays stuck in the brain. If a child witnessed a house fire a year ago, when they see a candle fall off the counter and onto the floor, they will feel the same way they did when they saw the fire a year before. It’s as if the fear stayed stuck in a time capsule, and when it came back, it was just as intense as it had been the first time.
How Smart Kids Fool You
Many parents say, “But my child wants to talk about the war in Iraq. He’s really interested in natural disasters. He’s really not afraid to watch The Dark Knight.” They insist that their kids are smart enough to understand world events, why their marriage ended, and why they don’t have enough money to pay the bills. They believe that exposing kids to adult-level information helps them understand the world more.
That perception is false.
It’s not that smart kids can’t understand the information, it’s that they can’t handle the emotional pieces that go along with it. Kids can look at your budget and see there’s not enough money for dance classes. They can watch a Discovery Channel documentary and understand that polar bears are dying because of climate change. They can understand that cancer kills people and that one day it might kill you. Smart kids can understand a litany of things they emotionally can’t process. As an adult, you have the capacity to understand that while you feel bad for the polar bears, they don’t necessarily affect your daily life. You can go about your day and not let their survival consume you. But children can’t do that. They’re living in a snow globe, with the polar bears. That’s why they’ll spend all day trying to figure out how to help them.
Once I was working with a seven-year-old girl who was afraid of dying. She had spent hours researching information about death and knew what age the average person dies, what her chances were of being diagnosed with cancer, and how many teenagers die in car accidents. She knew all of the statistics, yet she couldn’t emotionally process what death really means. Does it mean you go to heaven? Do you stay in the ground? What happens to your body?
These are questions many adults struggle with, yet in her emotional state (which was five years old), she was trying to comprehend them herself. It didn’t matter how much information she had or how much her parents tried to convince her she wouldn’t die, she was trying to emotionally process what most adults don’t quite understand.
The Draw to Adult-Level Topics
It’s hard for many parents to keep their kids away from adult information. They shield their kids from the news, keep the channel on Disney, and refrain from arguing with their spouse in front of their kids, yet their kids find ways to get adult information anyway. This is very frustrating for a parent, because you are aware of what is kid-friendly and what isn’t, and you have done your best to keep your child away from the adult stuff. Even so, your child is constantly sneaking around you, trying to find access into adult things.
Many smart kids have advanced vocabularies. A few months ago, I was working with an eight-year-old who used the word “arbitrary” in conversation. When I asked him what the word meant, he gave me the correct definition. He told me all about a “Dictionary” iPhone app that sends you a daily word and definition. Learning adult-level words excited him, and he loved having access to information kids his age couldn’t understand.
The adult world is also filled with mysteries: relationships, careers, late-night phone calls, and choices. Kids don’t feel they have many choices and desperately want them. “I can’t wait until I can drive,” an eleven-year-old told me recently. “Then I can go to the mall anytime I want.” In her mind, her age is keeping her from what she really wants—to be an adolescent—so having a car will give her access to what she thinks she wants. Does she really want to deal with the academic and social pressure of being sixteen? I suppose not. However, it all seems good to her at eleven.
Smart kids are drawn to adult-level topics because:
1. They can understand them—The advanced intellect of smart kids gives them an option of what they choose to talk about. Since they understand many adult concepts, they can choose: Do I want to play with the kids or talk to the adults? Most kids don’t have that option. Smart kids can jump right into the adult conversation and understand it! This option opens up a whole new world for them. If they aren’t connecting with the kids at the party, they can go sit with the adults. If they are being left out or are uninterested in their friends’ choice of game, they can opt out and go for the adult conversation. Many smart kids would just as soon play with their peers, but for kids who are having trouble socially, this ability can get them out of uncomfortable social situations. When they should be figuring out how to resolve a conflict or how to find another friend, they can avoid the situation altogether by hanging out with the adults.
2. Adult information is interesting—Much of what kids talk about is uninteresting to smart kids. The games kids play, the arguments that occur, the way other kids react is often difficult for smart kids to process. The delicate way adults handle things is much more interesting. The way adults talk things out, the conversations they have, and their insights are very appealing to smart kids. The information itself is fascinating, especially when kids their age can’t understand it. Having an edge on your peers is something all kids strive for, and for smart kids, having an edge means having more information.
3. Adults are much better listeners—Smart kids soak up adult conversations where they are listened to, appreciated, and validated. They also like talking about issues kids their age can’t talk about. As we’ve learned from Chapter 1, smart kids are on a different level than their peers, and they are relieved when they can talk to someone who “gets” them. Most kids their age don’t “get” them and, quite frankly, aren’t good listeners. Kids their age have short attention spans and are addicted to the newest fad. If you don’t have something compelling to say, they will run off and play with somebody else. This is why smart kids are drawn to adult-level topics. They finally feel like they can be a part of something, and if it means becoming interested in things adults are interested in, they’ll do it.
Even though smart kids are drawn to adult information, it’s important to keep them away from it when you can. When your child chooses to talk to the adults at a party instead of his peers, encourage him to go back and play with the kids. When he comes downstairs while you are watching CNN or listens outside the door when you are discussing your friend’s wife’s affair, tell him to go back to bed. Just as you would handle it if your child wanted to eat four cupcakes instead of just one, you set a boundary and tell him it’s not allowed.
While you can’t protect your child from every hardship, what you can do is limit the information you allow them to take in. They may be exposed to questionable things when they’re not with you, but while they’re under your care, you can make decisions about what you will and will not allow them to watch, listen to, and participate in. After all, you never know what will trigger your child’s anxiety. Some kids were terrified by the Joplin, Missouri tornado; other kids weren’t. They may have been afraid of Friday’s spelling test, but the footage of the tornado didn’t trigger their anxiety. This is just the way things go for kids. They’re triggered by different things, so it’s best to keep it “kid-friendly.”
“Kid-friendly” means that what your child takes in should be appropriate to his physical age. Just because he wants to research tsunamis on the computer doesn’t mean you should let him. If you Google tsunamis, the search results include pictures of how tsunamis are formed, along with thousands of images of the people who died in Indonesia in 2004. Once a child gets those images in his head, it’s hard to get them out. Instead, screen the information your child takes in. Checking out ten kid-level library books is a much better option than doing ten minutes of internet research. The kid-level books will focus more on science than they do the tragedy of an event.
For example, your seven-year-old may really get into Harry Potter, which can dive into some dark issues appropriate for older children. How can he make it age-appropriate? He can order a wizard wand and go on the Harry Potter website and become a member. He can do internet research on wizardry and find out how to order a cloak for Halloween. They can take that topic to the nth degree and still be within the levels of age-appropriateness.
Kids will try to read your emails. They will try to listen to your conversations, and often times there is very little you can do about it. You can’t stand over them all the time, and you can’t always hide in a closet to talk on the phone. But what you can do is choose not to discuss adult information with them if they ask.
Television/Movies
Tales from the Crypt was a television show that came on late at night when I was a child. I knew better than to watch it, but once, when I had a friend over, she convinced me it wouldn’t be scary. To save face, I sat through the entire episode and was so terrified I didn’t sleep that night. I can still remember an image of an old woman stirring a big pot of stew with a human body inside. That image haunted me for years and, even to this day, I stay away from scary movies. My amygdala doesn’t need any unnecessary triggers. Some people aren’t bothered by scary movies. After watching them they fall right asleep and barely remember them the next day. I have never been that kind of person.
Anxious kids often aren’t fond of scary movies either. Once they’ve had a bad experience, they usually don’t want anything to do with the movie or television show again. To complicate things, kids’ movies today aren’t what they used to be. They’re very advanced. They have amazing visual effects, thanks to studios like Pixar, and can take a child to another world in an instant. However, along with those visual effects come advanced topics. As we learned from Shrek, if you add adult humor, adults won’t mind taking their kids to the movies. So current “kids’” movies are actually targeting kids, adolescents, and adults all at the same time, and because of that, kids are being exposed to more advanced information than ever before. As a parent, you should preview the content of a movie before you let your child watch it, even if it’s rated G.
If you know your child’s triggers, you’ll have a head start and may be able to avoid the movie if you think it may be upsetting for him. Your child may still want to go, but you should ultimately be the one to make the decision. Advertising can lure kids to see movies they shouldn’t watch. They may not show their fear in the theater, but for some of them, the graphics and imagery will be the first thing they see when they shut their eyes at night.
When communicating with your child, talk about his choice of television and/or movies. If he expresses fear after watching something scary, agree that he should not watch that show anymore. Sometimes kids will do this on their own, and other times they will need you to set boundaries. Some kids think they can handle their fear and continue putting themselves in situations where they become afraid.
What can make it hard is that other kids aren’t bothered by the same things. When anxious kids are at a sleepover, other kids will want to watch scary movies or tell ghost stories, and anxious kids are stuck with having to watch or listen, or leave and face the social consequences. In this case, it’s important for anxious kids to try to get out of the situation by changing the subject, switching to a different movie, or leaving the room. If they can’t, they need to reconsider staying the night at the same place again.
Whether it’s to save face or they’re trying to endure the scary parts in order to get to the good ones, you may need to step in and set boundaries for your child when he can’t set them for himself.
This goes the same for television shows. Keep things kid-friendly by avoiding watching the news, adult mysteries, or shows about world events. Even if you keep the channel on Disney, there are some shows that will still be scary to some kids. Talk about these shows with your child and let him know that at the point he gets scared, he should either change the channel or leave the room. There is no sense in watching it any longer.
Phones/Computers
Most parents enjoy the luxury of having access to email and text messaging on their smartphones. That is, until their child stumbles upon their inbox and finds an email his teacher wrote in confidence, or worse yet, finds a text message about the divorce process his parents are starting.
Smart kids are fascinated with adult information. Whether it’s about the birthday party you’re planning or the fight you had with your spouse, smart kids like to be in the know. That’s why having personal information in a place where kids can access it often leads to trouble. Quite simply, if information is on your phone, computer, or iPad, and a child has access to it, there’s a chance he will read it. I’ve had many parents seek counseling for their child because he read something inappropriate on their phone, iPad, or computer. They are at a loss about what to tell their child because, in his current state, he knows way too much. It’s hard to sugarcoat something once a child already knows the truth.
Discovering inappropriate information is a tough predicament for a child as well. His brain begins trying to process something that emotionally he can’t handle. He went from being intrigued with his parents’ information to being worried about money, his parents’ divorce, or what his teacher had to say about his behavior at school. If he could go back and change it, he would choose not to know the information at all, because now his mind is obsessing over something he has very limited information about.
The general rule of thumb about technology is to keep your personal information away from your kids. Lock your phone. Delete your emails, and make sure anything that could be distressing to your child is put in a place they cannot access. It takes just one undeleted email or text message to change how a child views his world.
Kids and the Right to Know
Many parents fall into the trap of answering every question their child asks. They feel the need to tell their child what they were talking about on the phone, whether they can afford sleepaway camp, and whether they are really thinking about getting a divorce. But I don’t want to lie is the belief many parents have.
The truth is: Your kids don’t need to know the details of your life. It stresses them out. There is an old saying: Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Kids don’t understand how this works. When questions pop into their mind, they ask them without thinking about whether they really want to know the answer.
“Mommy, are you and Daddy getting a divorce?” This is a loaded question many kids ask, especially when they hear their parents arguing. As a parent, you are backed into a corner with this question. You may know for sure you are not getting divorced, or you may be thinking about it. Regardless, your eight-year-old does not need to know about your future plans until you make a final decision.
The big question here is: Does your child really want to know if you are getting divorced? Answer: Of course not. Divorce is an adult word kids are terrified of, but since the question popped into his brain, it’s coming out and landing in your lap. Do you have to answer this question? No. Should you acknowledge that your child is scared? Yes. We will discuss this topic more in the next chapter. For now, let’s look at the difference between Adult-Level and Kid-Level topics.
| Kid-Level Topics | Adult-Level Topics |
| School | College |
| Friends | Marriage |
| Conflicts on the playground | War |
| Allowance | Finances |
| Report Cards | SAT |
As you can see, Kid-Level topics are often the age-appropriate counterpart to the Adult-Level topics. Kids need to talk about school; adults (or adolescents), about college. Kids need to talk about friends; adults, about marriage, and so on. When your child starts going to an Adult Level, it’s time to bring them back down to the Kid Level. After all, his interest is created only out of his intellectual ability. Since smart kids are always going to the next level, it is natural for them to take the next step in going from a child conversation to an adult conversation.
When Kids Should Go to the Adult Level
Allow your child to go to an Adult Level with academics or activities. Academic topics include math, chemistry, physics, and so on. Activities include chess, karate, sports, making jewelry to sell on Etsy, etc. Allowing smart kids to completely indulge in an activity allows them to go to the next level in a healthy way. If they can play chess with older kids (or adults) or play up on the soccer team, they feel the sense of accomplishment they often need.
I worked with an extremely bright seven-year-old boy whose mother had bought a physics book and had begun teaching him the basic concepts. In fact, learning physics actually helped his anxiety, because his mind was being engaged instead of having nothing to focus on. Late at night when he couldn’t sleep, he brought out a physics book and began trying to understand a new concept. Learning physics not only helped engage his mind but also helped him feel confident. He was learning something that wasn’t taught in school and felt empowered.
Other parents have allowed their kids to sell their jewelry on Etsy, design clothing for dolls, and go to arts-and-crafts trade shows to check out the competition. With smart kids, everything’s about the next level, so giving kids opportunities to experience the next level in healthy ways is of the utmost importance. Especially when kids have spinning mental energy, having a way to channel it will allow them to feel less anxious and to be successful as well.
When to Tell the Kids the Hard Stuff
When it comes to Adult-Level conversation, tell children only the information that will directly affect them. For example, if Dad has a drinking problem, kids need to know, so they can call the other parent before he drives them around after he’s been drinking. The fact that he had several extramarital affairs is not important for them to know, unless that somehow affects the kids’ emotional or physical safety. Ultimately, you don’t want to lie to your kids; you just want to keep them protected.
When I was fourteen years old, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Standing at her bedside on Christmas Eve, I thought, My mom is going to die. This is going to be the last Christmas with my mother. Despite what the doctors said, and despite what my mother even told me herself, I believed: cancer = death. During that time, I jumped to thinking like an adult. I started working out in my mind who would do the laundry, who would cook the meals, and who would help my sister with her homework. I wasn’t old enough to drive, so I planned for my brother to take us grocery shopping and that we’d have to be sure to get plenty of green beans and 2% milk at the store. Since my dad had to work, we’d have to take care of the house, and it was my job to make sure everyone had what they needed. It wasn’t until my mother fully recovered that I let go of my ideas of how things had to be with her gone.
Many kids younger than fourteen have to deal with the death of a parent. They may also have to deal with an illness of their own or a death of a sibling. Life does not spare children great trauma, and many kids, anxious or not, have to deal with things they aren’t emotionally equipped for. Life for these kids will forever be changed.
Still, when a parent is terminally ill or a child faces an illness himself, the truth is always better than a made-up story. When these tragedies exist, it’s important to be honest with kids about what has happened or might happen. For example, if a child has cancer, it’s important to let siblings know he is seriously ill and doesn’t just have the flu. In cases such as death or illness, hospitals are often equipped with child-life specialists to help children process what is happening to themselves or within their family.
But if kids don’t have to deal with traumatic events, why should they be exposed to them? If they are lucky enough to avoid losing a parent, why should they be exposed to death? If they are lucky enough not to lose their home in a tsunami, why should they be exposed to the devastation? Quite frankly, they shouldn’t.
The Shortened Childhood
Many parents are shocked by how advanced their children are. Even if they try to keep things “kid-friendly,” their kids are developing teenage interests and behaviors as young as seven and eight years old. Their kids are acting like teenagers, arguing like teenagers, and manipulating their parents like teenagers.
Why is this happening?
Many of the behavior changes in kids can be attributed to the media. Today’s television programs encourage children to talk back to their parents by making it seem funny. Even cartoons now include sassy behavior and words such as “whatever,” “yeah, right,” and “duh” and are being viewed over and over again by kids across America. Kids are seeing these behaviors as funny and cute and are trying them out on their parents because they seem to work so well on television.
What kids don’t learn from the media or from their older siblings, they will learn from other kids on the playground. Even if you keep your kids from watching SpongeBob, another child’s parents will allow their kids to watch it, and their child will tell your child about it on the playground. You can’t avoid this, and even if you try, kids love to talk about teenage things to have access to what the older kids are doing.
Recent research has proven that instead of kids just talking about adolescent things at a younger age, today’s kids are actually physically developing earlier than kids have in the past.
In 2010, Pediatrics journal published a study that 15 percent of girls are now beginning puberty by age seven. They also found that one in ten girls began developing breasts by age seven, twice the rate seen in a 1997 study. Sandra Steingraber, author of a 2007 report on early puberty for the Breast Cancer Fund said, “Over the last thirty years, we’ve shortened the childhood of girls by a year and a half.” It’s not clear what is causing this change, but regardless, it is a biological fact.
So what parents are seeing is not made up or false. Going by the above study alone, if you have a daughter at age thirty, she will develop a year and a half sooner than you did. A year and a half is a long time when you consider how short childhood is anyway. When you add the advancement of technology and the media, you can see why today’s kids look like little adults. An important part of childhood is believing the world is safe and you are protected. Today’s kids are feeling less and less protected and, because of their rapid development, are thrown into a world they aren’t ready for.
Being a kid is tough. No longer are kids sheltered from the tragedies of the world; they can find them all with a click of a button. Here are some ideas on how to prevent technology from tainting your child’s good, old-fashioned childhood.
4 Ways to Preserve Childhood
1. Get a parental block on your computer. Even if you have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old at home, you never know when a sleepover will lead to late-night computer searching. You never know when your child will hear the word “death” or “sex” at school and come home and do a Google search. Parental blocks will shield your children from the vast amount of information they have no business accessing and can be put on with a simple call to your internet company.
2. Censor what you watch in front of your kids. This seems obvious, but many parents spend their evenings watching the news or movies their kids shouldn’t see. Even if your child says, “It’s okay. I’m not scared,” don’t believe it. The G rating is there for a reason. Stick to it. Some kids will even get scared watching G-rated movies, and if this is the case, give your child an out. Tell your child it’s okay to be scared, and he can leave the room at any point, no questions asked.
3. Watch what you say in front of your child. This not only includes arguing with your spouse but also talking about Adult-Level things in front of your child. Talking about money is a prime example of how simple conversations can cause kids to worry. While you want your child to understand the value of a dollar, there is no need to explain your issues with money. Explaining that the family can’t go to the beach because Dad lost his job is not productive. Saying you’re choosing to go on a camping trip instead is a much better scenario. Kids will have the rest of their lives to worry about money. Childhood is not the time.
4. Let your kids be kids. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard kids say they don’t play. “You don’t play?!?” I ask, looking around my room filled with toys. I am a play therapist, after all, and know that kids largely work out their issues by playing. “I’m not really into it,” they say before I introduce them to a tray of Moon Sand. By the second session, the kid is making castles, laughing, and creating his own world in the sand tray. By nature, kids are designed to play. They’re also designed to create and imagine. If your child would rather sit in the kitchen and talk with you while you cook, encourage him to go outside and play with friends. Encourage play dates and sleepovers, even if they’re with older or younger kids. Connecting with other kids is important for social development, even if it’s hard at first. As a parent, you can’t control when your child goes through puberty. You can’t control what they hear on the playground or when they develop teenage behaviors. What you can do, however, is try to protect them to the best of your ability. Control what they watch when they’re in your house, control what you talk about in front of them, and don’t allow them to pull adult information out of you without taking time to think about your response.