Explaining Tragedy- April 9, 2015
When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986 I was about 4 1/2 years old. I was a preschooler in Cary, NC preparing for kindergarten. I don’t remember much of it. I know the story well, as it has been retold to us through videos in science and history classes through the years. That image of the sudden white cloud over Cape Canaveral is haunting and awful. I hate watching it like I hate watching video of the planes go into the World Trade Center towers in 2001. I get that knot in my gut. I have to look away.
What I remember very vividly is the sadness, even as a little kid. I remember standing under my mom as she watched the funeral for the astronauts on TV and crying. I asked her why she was crying and asked what had happened that would make her so sad. She explained how 7 astronauts died when something went terribly wrong. It was an accident.
That’s when I learned that bad things happen sometimes.
Tuesday evening after dinner my 4-year-old daughter was playing with her little brother in the living room. The top of the CBS Evening News came on. Scott Pelly announced with all his white-haired seriousness that they would lead the newscast with breaking news out of N. Charleston, SC. That’s when I saw that awful video that we’ve all seen now. A police officer, Michael Slager, shot and killed Walter Scott as he was running away. I got that gut knot. I gasped. But quietly, so as not to startle my children or draw their attention to such graphic video. They were busy playing and not watching. This incident in South Carolina was not an accident.
Just a couple of weeks earlier my husband was watching coverage of the Germanwings plane crash. Video showed crews combing the French mountainside for remains. This was also not an accident. My daughter looked at the screen and asked, “Daddy, what happened to that airplane?” He said “Nothing sweetie,” and diverted her attention. Later he told me, “We need to be careful about what we have on TV around the kids. She doesn’t need to know that planes crash.”
This gave me pause. I don’t disagree with my husband, but it’s a difficult issue to address. When I was that age I learned the brutal reality that space shuttles explode, why shouldn’t she learn that planes crash?
There are differences. In 1986, my parents knew the odds of me ever going on a space shuttle were pretty much nil. Those odds remain to this day. My child has already been on an airplane multiple times. She will probably travel by plane many more times in her life.
The biggest difference is that someone purposely crashed that plane. We couldn’t excuse or explain this tragedy through the veil of an accident. There is no way anyone, especially a child, watching that cell phone camera footage of Walter Scott dying could say “Well, it was an accident. Bad things happen sometimes.”
Then I started thinking about children the same age as mine who are dealing with the realization that not only do bad things happen, but PEOPLE do bad things too. I thought of the young black children participating in protests in Ferguson, MO with t-shirts reading “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and carrying signs with #BlackLivesMatter. For these kids, the deaths of Michael Brown and Walter Scott are clear examples of people hurting someone the same race as them and sending their communities into turmoil.
What do those parents tell their children about these tragedies? How do I, as a white parent raising white children, address this issue? When does any parent of any race explain that a supposedly mentally ill person killed dozens of people by crashing an airplane?
I’m not saying I’m going to sit my kid down for Anderson Cooper 360 and make her watch CNN’s coverage of the N. Charleston shooting, but I’m going to be honest when she asks me about the tragedies shown by the news and mass media. I will be selective and cautious with my words, no doubt. But, I don’t think I can wait for the “perfect tragedy” to explain that bad things happen or that bad people exist. I fear that will become very real very fast for this generation.
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Kudos to you Amy. Kids have to learn about reality sometime.
Thank you. Within reason. Age appropriate. It’s so tough.
Age appropriate honesty is definitely the best approach. When my mom died from cancer almost a year ago, the boys were about to turn 4 and 6. I was terrified of how they were going to react. My husband was the one to tell them she died, as I could not keep enough composure. Their reactions were refreshingly naive and sweet. They were sad, of course. But they accepted it very matter-of-factly. Over time they started asking (and continue to ask) some really hard questions. Death, cancer, accidents, bad people, bad things, are unfortunately a part of life.
That’s gotta be so tough, Heather. I hope their innocence brings you some peace, you know?
I’ll add a little to this. I don’t want Charlotte to know about plane crashes, because Daddy spends a lot of time on planes….usually long international flights.
I don’t want her to worry about Daddy, as news coverage tends to focus on what happened and leaves out the context that planes are one of the safest places you can be.
I want her to pray for my safety….but not worry about it.
But this legitimately has me stumped….how and when to address these issues.
There is definitely a very delicate balance in telling them (some version of) the truth but not burdening them with worry. I panicked when the questions starting coming about cancer and death (Can kids get cancer? Are you going to die, too?) Thankfully they didn’t get too hung up on it and accepted my simple answers. The airplane one is tough. If/when she gets over worried about plane crashes, just keep telling her that thousands of planes make safe flights every day.
Well said. There’s no one I’d rather be stumped with than you. Love you.
We’ve been slowly having discussions with our kindergartener about “bad things” in general especially now that he can read the headlines in the newspaper. I think it’s a matter of letting kids know but not going too deep or detailed. While I’d love to shelter my kids forever, it’s not a reality. I was in the 2nd grade when the Challenger exploded and sitting in my school with my classmates watching it happen live. I don’t fully remember how the teachers explained it, but I can clearly recall sitting there seeing it happen on the big box TV on top of a wheeled stand and how quickly the entire thing was shut off when the teachers realized what happened.
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