Today I am sitting in my office listening to the giggling of a group of 4 year old girls in the hallway waiting to go out to recess. I can hear their happy chatter about who is going to be the “baby” in the play house when they get outside and I am appreciating their innocence and their ability to
work out problems with words and compromise. At the same time an email pops up announcing more information on the terrorist attacks in Brussels. My mind is spinning as I am trying to comprehend how anyone can do what they did and then just as quickly a 3 year old calls to me “I love you Miss Barb”. Our world is so very confusing and as an adult I know I am struggling to understand the pure evilness and balance it with the good.
I think about our children and their ability to process happy, sad and scary events and realize of course that developmentally they also do not have the ability to fully understand what is happening in the world around us. This is where our children need their parents to step in and TURN IT OFF! When disasters such as Brussels, Paris, 9/11, school shootings etc. happen we all seem to thirst for more information, we want to understand what is happening and of course we get that info from the news. I think about 911 and watching as the planes hit the tower. As adults we understand that two planes hit the towers and that the news media showed it over and over from different angles. Unfortunately for many children at that time they thought the towers had been hit by 20 or more planes because it continued to happen for hours on end.
With the development of technology we are no longer just getting access to the news at 5 or 6 p.m. as we did in the old days. We 
now have 24/7 access to the news on our phones, ipads, t.v.’s, computers, etc. and for our children this becomes overwhelming and very distorted. Our children are more aware than we at times give them credit for and though they may not be staring at the screen, they are taking in the sounds, intensity and many of the words. At times I question if I am old enough to handle all of this but I am certain that a preschool/ Kindergarten age child is not.
My suggestion to parents is simply to turn off the technology when your child is around. Yes, catch up on what is happening, pray for the victims, pray for those in power to have wisdom in the decision of how to move forward but let’s protect the innocence of our children for as long as we can.
