The recent attacks in Egypt, Lebanon, and Paris not only left us in shock, but they also presented the dilemma of how best to discuss difficult current events with our kids. My daughters are 9 and 12 and their schools did a great job tackling some of the issues. But there were still many questions left unanswered:
- What are terrorists?
- Why are people fleeing Syria and other parts of the world?
- Who are refugees and how can we help them?
I turned to two resources: the German children’s news channel Kika (my kids are bilingual) and the book 33 Things to Talk to Kids About Global Challenges by Constanze Niedermaier.
Why do I love the German news channel? It helps my kids understand very complex situations in the Middle East by animating characters and maps and keeping news segments short and digestible. Their reporters are in their early 20s and can relate to kids. All news pieces focus on children—giving a very different spin to the story. The news always ends with something uplifting like rescued animals or a fun sports story, so my kids actually LOVE to watch the news. Surprisingly no US channel has picked up this format so far. I wish they would!
33 Things dug deeper and gave us conversation starters at dinner. The book is divided into the chapters People, Planet, and One Earth. The explanation for the term “refugees” starts with a question to the kids. “How many people live in our town?” It took us a while to get to the right answer: 25,000. Then we learned that the largest refugee camp in Africa has 400,000 refugees and that globally an estimated number of 50 million (!) people are refugees. This number leads us to the current refugee wave in Europe. In Germany, 750,000 Syrian refugees are expected to arrive this year alone. The book doesn’t stop with numbers but explains what refugees need to start a new life in a new country. Best of all, it answers questions and gives resources where parents and children can help.
The final chapter of the book tells “Stories of Hope,” providing examples of how global citizens have stepped up to help. One example was how a single boy started to collect teddy bears to send to Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010. He and his initiative “Teddy Bears for Hope” have sent 50,000 teddy bears to Haiti.
The book is targeted at us, parents. There is no need to read the book entirely—single one-page write-ups can easily start a conversation like ours.
We loved the focus on building a smarter and more sustainable planet and the many examples for kids on how they can change their own behavior. From initiating “low carbon days” in schools to tips on saving energy, this book is completely aligned with GoKid’s mission to drastically reduce emissions and traffic. We hope you’ll be as inspired as we were.
