Parents Share Strategies for Discussing War with Kids

Raising kids in the middle of wars they didn't start, are we teaching them to speak up? Today I'm writing content for Big Life Journal and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since 💛 Children right now are growing up watching the news. Watching wars. Watching people in power make decisions that affect millions of lives. And a lot of them are asking questions we don't have clean answers to. The hardest thing we can do, as the adults, and the most important, is resist the urge to say "you're too young to understand." Because here's what the science actually says: moral courage isn't something that switches on at 18. Dr. Bruce Perry's research on brain development shows that the neural pathways for empathy and justice are being wired right now, in childhood, through stories, through the adults who model what it looks like to speak up even when it's uncomfortable. We often teach kids to be good. Good usually means quiet. Compliant. Not making a fuss. But what happens when the thing in front of them is wrong? What happens when a classmate is being excluded, when a rule is unfair, when someone smaller than them needs a voice? We want them to know what to do in that moment. Our audience love book recommendations, and I thought people in this subreddit might be interested to. These 5 books teach exactly that, not just standing up for yourself, but standing up period: ✨ Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type: the power of working together ✨ The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet!: the courage to stay yourself when the world tells you to shrink ✨ Separate Is Never Equal: justice is something every generation has to fight for ✨ The Youngest Marcher: Audrey was nine years old and she showed up anyway ✨ Malala's Magic Pencil: a girl who wasn't allowed to go to school changed the entire world with her voice I grew up being told to be quiet in rooms where I felt small, as a girl, and even as a woman. I think a lot of us did. But the children growing up right now are watching people suffer in real time. They already know the world isn't fair. What they need from us is permission, and the language, to say something about it. How are you talking to your kids about what's happening in the world right now? I'd really love to know how other parents are navigating this, there's no perfect answer here and I think we all need each other's strategies.