shameless it is that we have to tell kids about the bad nature of mankind and how to look at cars, killing and mass scale violence
some of the links will have implicit or explicit targeting of Islam and Muslims, attributing terror acts to muslims and Islam.
Others will have scholarly reading lists for developing a sense of the world history, political and faith based context of cross-national wars and how wars affect societies and families.
Share your perspectives on how you would handle a situation in which a child asked you about violence.
Re: answering childrens' questions on death, killing and violence
Dush, I have gone through this situation with my older one lately as she's been asking questions about dying, jannah, old age, bloodshed, etc. Some of these terms she's learned at her Islamic studies class where the concept of jannah has been introduced to them and naturally she wants to know all about death.
It was very hard to explain it to her because the first time I tried, she burst out crying and then she cried at night again saying that she didn't want her parents to die and her sister to die, and that she didn't want to grow old and die, and that her grandma was old and would die and all that stuff.
Finally we calmed her down and tried to distract her but you know this is something you cannot avoid. She hasn't come accross terrorism issues as of yet.
Personally, I would like to hear from others who have older kids on how they've handled these questions.
Re: answering childrens' questions on death, killing and violence
My 6 years old has just started questioning the "Death". We had to take him to one Janaza. Although I did not take him to graveyard but he saw people crying at home.
His first question was quite simple
My Son: "baba what happen to people when they die?"
Me: "beta when they die, they go to Allah Miaan"
My Son: "Is Allah Miaan underground?"
and I was shocked. He knew more than I thought he know.
and next one was "baba old people die? or young people die too? "
We try to explain him the Islamic side of it. He normally take more interest when we tell him the theory with Islamic spin on it.
Re: answering childrens' questions on death, killing and violence
i never hav any prob talking to my kids abt these topics.they r lifes reality n with age they need to b given info.u don't always hav to go in details.just straight forward answers.eg i tell my 4 yrs old abt kidnapping alot wiithout going into unnecessary details.(she loves leaving me in stores) also she know if u ran on roads a car can hit her n she can get hurt or b dead. she understands wat an accident is.wht is shootng,blood etc they see so much on tv these days that sometimes they amaze u.funny thing my daughter saw this show on discovery health abt The pregnant man n commented "see mom i told u dads can hav babies too.i saw on tv"