When do you think is an appropriate time to teach your child to make a stand for justice, peace, equality etc, etc?
I’ve been quite distraught hearing/reading the reports of a teen’s interaction with the local police force. Ultimately the encounter took the teen’s life and there has been much commotion about unjust lethal force being applied by the police. While many details have yet to come to light, at first blush it appears that the matter could have been resolved without the cost of a life.
As per normal a make-shift memorial of candles, cards and flowers has developed at the site of the incident.
I’ve discussed the news item with my ten year old daughter and have been planning to take her to the memorial and perhaps place some flowers there to pay our respects and to show support.
I want to show my daughter that in order to have expectations from a governing body you need to be willing to take a stand when necessary; albeit in a peaceful way.
I don’t want her to grow up to be an armchair critic but to walk the walk. I want her to know that this sort of “taking responsibility” entitles you to an opinion/voice and that this is the way to bring change.
Rimsh, lol. With all due respect, you took your two yrs old daughter cause you keep her with you as a good mother, not because you wanted to expose her to a just protest.
^ Granted. I figured that much as well. But the fact that she toted a 2 year-old to a protest shows her own determination to be a part of something. Perhaps she will continue this sort of activity and it will eventually have in impact on the child when it’s old enough to understand.
this is a vast topic but I am going to stick to the incident that you mentioned.
I am very protective towards my kids brain and what they should be exposed to. I understand your point of views but I will not expose my kids to the harsh and sad realities of the world, yet. To me, this is going to create a lot of negativities in their mind and I think they are too young for that.
hehe TLK, I had the option of leaving her with her grand parents but I chose not to. I agree she is too young to understand what’s going on but I think you need to start young. We volunteer regularly as well and we always take her with us.
I won’t mind bringing up the topic when my child is in per school. When I was working, we witnessed few incidents of vandelizm outside our school, we had to talk to children in a child friendly manner.
You’d be surprised how many things kids are “exposed” to outside of the controlled environment we call “home”.
I know that kids are often more aware than we give them credit for and they also know when they have come upon information that they already know is beyond their years or “scope”. They keep much of this “exposure” to themselves and never bring it up.
There are always going to be differences of opinion, I accept that. But when something is being splashed around in the news and media, I’d rather take a proactive approach and expose my child in my own way.
I completely agree with your intention here. I’m probably more of a “tough love” kind of person anyway and I’m also sure that your soft-hearted nature and the fact that you’re a father create additional differences in how we see things and act.
My neeyat here is not to show my child the “negativities” or the “harshness” of life. I want to show her that you don’t just roll over and tolerate injustice when it happens to someone. You have to do something…whether that means you speak out, you write, you vote, you go and lay flowers, whatever. You do something to impact the world around you. I see this as a very positive thing to teach her.
I want to teach her that justice, strength and courage should prevail in times of adversity. I don’t see a negative aspect in there.
One of my relatives is very socially aware and if there is a cause he believes in, he attends rallies and vigils and will take his children with him. He’s taken his children since they were infants in strollers, and no he doesn’t do it because he can’t find a babysitter - he does it as an act of solidarity with the cause and to help his children grow a social conscience. Children learn by example and by exposure and he’s keen that they learn how to be responsible citizens with a conscience who are unafraid to speak out against something wrong.
Frankly speaking, since I myself was a child not many moons ago, I see the development of an early social conscious or activism if you like, as loss of innocence which in many respects, I find it quite tragic. I’d never expose my young child to tabloid material and newspaper headlines, that’s too much negativity and despair for me to handle sometimes. However if your child is naturally super curious and quite ahead of the time then that’s a different issue.
^ Society as a whole is changing and access and exposure to information isn’t what it used to be, it is quicker and very, very difficult to filter. Throw away your tvs, radios, computer/internet - but a child who interacts with his peers (and yes even in pre-school), may learn of information that you’re trying to protect them from.
I agree, wanting to keep your child innocent is noble, but unfortunately it is not necessarily practical anymore unless you live in a coccoon. The best thing is to manage information and to convey our own message in what the child is hearing.
One of the things I’ve heard a lot of parents tell their children when they’re eating a meal is - finish your meal, you don’t know how fortunate you are to have food on the table when so many other children in the world are going hungry ← I don’t think of that as a terribly scary message, in fact its to get a child to appreciate his/her blessings. Going to a rally or collecting donations for children a in war-torn area is just a step further and I personally don’t see any harm.
I wish the world was a brighter, happier place and our children lived in a peaceful world and didn’t know any ugliness. Maybe by teaching our children early, they can be the ones to change this world and make it better for those who come after them.