Difficult Conversations with our Children
And the reason they are opportunities
As we discuss the coronavirus over our family meal, I can’t help but wonder if we are doing it right. Among other things, the dinner table is a place to teach. Historically for us, this has been defined by social instruction: basic etiquette, eating, conversation, maintaining eye contact. But as my children age, a new responsibility is taking shape. At the dinner table, we are beginning to form the narrative of their world. Conversation by conversation, we are laying a foundation, and though they may rebel against and destroy it later, this is the wisdom from which they will draw for the foreseeable future.
So how do we navigate tough discussions like the coronavirus?
These talks are solemn affairs in many ways. They require the introduction of a child to suffering and ergo stealing a bit of the innocence that makes him or her a child. How does one begin?
“There is this thing, this tiny monster, so infinitesimal that it cannot be seen with the naked eye, and nevertheless, the threat it poses is a behemoth.”
My oldest would not find such a conversation outside her frame of reference, in fact, we had a similar such discussion about a year ago. Microscopic threat to life? She can fill in that blank, though it isn’t with the term virus. It’s with cancer. And she does confuse the two. This is the scope through which she views the world, and I can’t help but acknowledge the tragedy in that fact. But the tragedy is not novel to us. Everyone at some point has adversity introduced into his or her world view.
We try to discuss these things thoughtfully. I underscore the fact that cancer is when part of the body grows wrong, and it isn’t contagious. A virus is an infection that makes one ill and can be transmitted from person to person. Now I suppose if I’m being precise, I could offer the notion that some viruses, like HPV or hepatitis, can cause cancer, but for now, it’s a nuanced enough detail to which we can all agree would only serve to confuse the conversationalist in question. Even so, I’m not always certain she understands the difference.
Whatever the case, it occurs to me that these discussions might foster fear. Fear of the unseen and unknown. Fear that there really are monsters lurking everywhere. I suppose in point of fact there are, but where does an acknowledgment of this begin to border on a neurosis? I don’t want her to live in fear of her environment, but I do want her to respect it.
So where does one tread when discussing scary things with children?
I did learn a few salient things last year when trying to pirouette around the cancer conversation. The first is that children are wise. They understand far more than we think, and even if it’s not the difference between a virus and cancer, they can see honesty, or dishonesty, a mile away. Their bullshit meter is finely calibrated. Give them respect at the outset and you will gain far more leverage in the long run.
While there is an element of horror to the discussion of suffering, there also exists an inherent opportunity.
The second thing I found was that while there is an element of horror to the discussion of suffering, there also exists an inherent opportunity. You see, you get to provide the frame of reference for your child to understand misfortune or calamity. This is a power that tends to be wielded by newscasters, teachers, or friends on the play yard, but when you as a parent have the hard conversations, you seize that power. The infrastructure you provide to the narrative will define it completely, so what will be your building blocks?
Will there be a state of angst or sense of being overwhelmed? Or will you construct in the picture some sense of agency for fixing these problems of humanity? Will you underscore grit. Determination? Honesty? Will you give your child the idea that we are powerless to surmount behemoths, seen and unseen, or will you teach them that everything they do has an effect. Every act matters.
In this way, it is you who gets to teach them how to face monsters. Hopefully along the way, despite our own fears, we will embody these teachings ourselves and learn to be better.
Perhaps in this way, there is no tragedy to difficult conversations after all.
Originally published at https://facingmonsters.com on April 15, 2020.
