Paris terror attacks: 5 tips for discussing them with kids
Omnipresent media coverage of last week's terror attacks in Paris has many parents facing difficult questions from children trying to understand what happened and why.
Montreal clinical psychologist and teacher Pierre Faubert says there are a number of key things parents should keep in mind as they try to help their children make sense of the situation.
1. Know what you're feeling
"Parents should know what they're feeling about the issue and why they're feeling that way. They need to realize that what they do feel, even without saying it, is going to have an impact on their kids. Children tap right into the unconscious of their parents. If parents are trying to hide their emotions, kids will figure it out very quickly and feel there's something wrong… Parents can share emotions they may feel about it, though it may not be appropriate to say you're terrified of someone barging into the house and killing everyone."
2. Be proactive and calming
"We have to tell the truth to our kids but it has to be calming — or it will be frightening. Parents have to know what their kids know, what they've heard, what they've seen, and see if they have any questions. Don't take lightly or laugh at what they have to say, but take it very seriously. Don't make jokes out of this."
3. Feeling helpless
"Let them know that this is happening quite far away and that we do have a sense of disempowerment. We don't have anything to do with this and there's nothing we can really do. There's a tendency to try to be inclusive, to try to feel like we're doing something, to feel like we're almost doing something by watching it. But what we're really doing is cultivating our lack of power."
4. Talk about values
"It's a good opportunity to talk about values that are really important to us. What are the important values in our society that are not being respected by this? It's an opportunity to de-dramatize what's going on, even though it is very dramatic and awful and terrible — what's going on in this house, at school, in our country, in our society? France is pushing the military option in all of this, while Canada is reducing its military involvement. We're trying to work on peace."
5. What not to say
"Don't stay at the emotional level, that this is awful and horrible and start accusing groups of people and religions. Now what's happening is there's an identification of this act to the Islamic people and to their faith. This is not right because we don't know very much about their faith. The Qur'an is interpreted by the extremists in a way that is not respectful of the Qur'an. The Qur'an encourages empathy and caring for each other, and love. Muhammad, the Prophet, wrote 600 years after Jesus Christ and borrowed a lot from the Scriptures. There's a lot in there that is common to all of us. That's what we should work on, and not to insist on the differences and the divisions and the violence."