Everyone is horrified by the events of the past two days and that a young child walking home could be abducted and murdered. How do we explain this to our children? How do we help them, and for that matter ourselves, make sense of this?
How to Talk to Your Child About the Recent Tragedy
Everyone is horrified by the events of the past two days and that a young child walking home could be abducted and murdered. How do we explain this to our children? How do we help them, and for that matter ourselves, make sense of this?
It is important to have an age-appropriate conversation with your children. Children may hear information which often is incomplete and even erroneous. Hearing from you, their parents, the people they trust and love, is the best source for information and reassurance.
1) Prepare for your conversation with your children and have a unified message. Be in the right frame of mind and devote your full attention to this discussion. Are you ready to have this important conversation though you may not have answers to some of the questions?
Begin the conversation by asking your child what he or she heard. Listen quietly until he or she finishes talking. Before you say more, summarize to your child what you heard him or her say. Keep your sentences short and simple.
2) Reassure your child that the world is still a basically safe place. Project a sense of confidence in your ability to take care of your children and help them be safe.
3) Explain in words your child will understand that this was a terrible act committed by a sick person.
4) What are the rules of the home that you may or may not want to change, for example, if your child has permission to go to the store alone or walk to school alone? You may want to make some changes in the short term, discussing this with your son or daughter and asking them their opinions as well. They may not understand that an event that happened in another community should affect their daily routine. Give practical examples in an age-appropriate way.
5) Tell your children and reassure them that it is safe to speak to you and important to share what they are thinking and feeling. Most children actually do want to speak and share information with parents, including adolescents.
Every child, at every age, has questions. Even if they are not asking you questions immediately, go back and check in with them later in the day or over the next few days.
Keep the dialogue going. Don’t make them anxious or scared by asking them questions too often. It is not unusual for a child to move on from a story very quickly. Young children may even go back to their routine while adults continue to talk about it.
6) How can you explain to your child that even when they do everything right, a bad thing could happen? For example, asking directions or help crossing the street from a person “in the community”.
We have long emphasized that “stranger danger” is a very small percentage of the people who hurt our children, that it is mainly people that we know and trust that hurt our children. It is important to talk about this story, but not to overemphasize the particulars of this case because thankfully it occurs in such a very small percentage and we want to be sure our children understand how to respond to the more natural reoccurring life events.
While we are acknowledging the horrors of this story, we also want to talk about the more common challenges and dangers that our children face every day.
7) An important lesson that we learn from traumatic events such as 9/11, car accidents, tsunamis, hurricanes, is we tend to create a picture of the worst part of the story, for example, the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. This is natural, but what we want to remember more is the life of the people involved. This is similar to how we are advised to pay a shiva call. We are supposed to talk about the life of the niftar much more than the details of the death.
In this instance, you can also emphasize the extraordinary response by the community and show of support, which provides a positive and reassuring message.
8) When you end your conversation, ask your child to summarize what you spoke about. Don’t push if your child can’t do this, but if he or she can, it is better to hear it in their words and it will give you a good picture of what they understand.
9) Plan a response to “red flags”. It may be innocuous, a young child being scared and getting into your bed at night, bedwetting, or fear of the routine. These can all be normal reactions and with reassurance from you knowing that you are there and supportive, they should return to their normal behavior relatively quickly.
10) Children are strong and resilient and by and large will return to their normal routines. If problems persist, contact your pediatrician or an experienced mental health professional.
We say oy but what do we do
I hate to say this but let me state the obvious:
A few days before this tragedy, there was a letter given out and signed by Shvei and Braun that deals with molestors. The letter was used as political move to insult and marginalize our Rov, Rabbi Osdobo (who would not sign anything with illegitimate so-called rabbonim). Then we see this tragic event – in the context of a molestor.
We MUST stand up for our Rov! Hashem yerachem on a kehillah which fails to honor their Rov – who the Rebbe called abir sh’babirim.
The connection and message is simplt too obvious.
CN
This article totally fails to deal with the more on point issue of how do we explain the tragedy itself to our children. My 9 near old son who also walks home from day camp said to me last night he couldn’t fall asleep because of what had happened – and he was still up well past mid-night. I explained to him that the bad man was caught and wouldn’t hurt anyone else, so he shouldn’t be afraid of him. But my son’s response was that he wasn’t scared – it was just that he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
CHT
My mother called me from upstate regarding the situation and she asked:
“Is it true what people say that the murderer Jewish?” I said Yes. When she asked “But probably not religious” I answered – “Right, not religious” Keep things as simple as possible.
I-m reminded
I’m reminded, for whatever reason, of the story about the Baal Shem Tov and the Werewolf. May HaKodesh Baruch Hu give each of us the insight and strength to face such evil in the world and overcome it.
Are we INDIRECTLY blaming the parents?
In this terrible tragedy, there is a psychological game at play.
Of course all advise is great and appreciated but indirectly we are playing a psychological game on ourselves and on others.
When people get scared, whenever anything terrible happens, the gut reaction is a psychological game, where we have this psychological need to feell empowered that we have “done something” to make ourselves feel more secure, even if it’s not effective but it gives us a good (false) sense of security to feell better.
Whenever a crime happens in NY standard procedure is (even after the perpetrator is apprehended and arrested and long gone) to station 1000 cops on every corner (and issue tickets) for the next 5 days and then they all go home. It’s done for psychological reasons because everyone is scared after a crime and putting a lot of police for 3 or 5 days gives us a very excellent sense of (false) security, until 3 to 5 days later when our memories fade.
It basically accomplishes absolute zero except to calm our nerves until a few days later when forget the entire thing.
We seek closure in our brain because we are pained and scared so we seek answers – real or not – just to satisfy ourselves that “now we are smarter” and “now we feel safer”, “it can never happen again???” because we now are empowered by the “expert advise” of Mr so and so.
Indirectly however it not only not true but outright disgusting to offer all this “expert advise how to prevent it”, while the Kletzky family morns.
Because indirectly all these experts are indirectly blaming the parents of the murderer of this child.
Aren’t they?
Ask yourself:
Is the advise valid or is it a myth?
If the advise is true and could possibly, have prevented this murder, it indirectly implies that had the Kletzky parents applies this advise, they could have prevented this tragedy.
If we say that the truth is that this advise could not have prevented the child’s killing anyway, then isn’t it pointless to give other people, false advise, “a false sense of security”, when it couldn’t have even prevented THIS murder, and so how could it be expected to prevent another tragedy.
You can’t have it both ways.
If the expert “knows what he is talking about” he implies blaming the parents of this boy and if his advise couldn’t have helped in the past, how is anyone to believe that his advise could help anyone else in the future???
Of course we need to do everything bederech hateva to prevent such murders but to be real, we must point out that this murder, was by a total stranger (99.99% of all molestations and murders are by family members and adults known and close to the victim).
It’s far more likely to get hit by lightning than to have any such murder by a total stranger.
Bitochon which is key is not mentioned once in their speeches.
The only way we can alleviate our fears is with Bitochon and that is NOT to say we should not do Bederech Hateva but a frum “expert’s speech” devoid of Bitochon even being mentioned, all, whatsoever, has my eyes rolling.
To #1
Are you saying that whatever happens in Crown Heights effects the world??? Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?!
To #5
Can’t you find a way to write your nonsensical thoughts briefly? I wasted 2 minutes of my life trying to make sense of your sporadic, half-baked ideas!
To respond to the part of your “argument” I could make sense of: No, the expert’s advice is sound, important, and applicable for parents of children from toddler to teen. No, we aren’t blaming the Kletzky family for not knowing the advice this psychologist gives.
Camper
Webby you once posted an clip which included a great example of a shliach talking to his son about a sad thing.
http://www.crownheights.inf…
go to 1:52
Tzivos hashem boy
That video title self defense ain’t no self defense,
Now THIS is kids self defense: “Menachem Keller Defends against multiple Attackers”
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Just tell Menachem to put on his kipa
Bocher
There is a story of the Baal Shem Tov when he was 5 years old his father told him that he should never be afraid of anything, no matter what, besides Hashem.
That was the beginning, but does anybody know what happens next? please remind me
Trust Hashem, end of story
I’m not telling my kids to be careful. I’m telling them the story of the baal shem tov how he was not afraid of nobody except Hasham.
Instead of telling them to trust or not to trust, I’m telling them just to trust Hashem and that’s it. End of story.
Trust Hashem, end of story
I’m not telling my kids to be careful. I’m telling them the story of the baal shem tov how he was not afraid of nobody except Hasham.
Instead of telling them to trust or not to trust, I’m telling them just to trust Hashem and that’s it. End of story.