To think that 4/5 year olds should not be learning about d-day deaths?

I’d be more worried about how he’s associated death with scary/coming to get him or about soldiers getting children (not really a cornerstone of D-Day).

Most 4 year olds I know associate death with heaven and angels and living in the stars.

Has he been exposed to inappropriate content that means he’s now struggling to process child appropriate topics?

What help are you getting him for this?

Most of my kids have been fine with discussing this type of thing at 4/5, I had one child who was very sensitive, however it has been my job to help her with that, rather than shield her from things that may upset her.

Your kid is going to hear and see upsetting things, you need to prepare him to deal with them.

It's far better discussed in class than kids picking up snippets of adult conversations and talking about it in the playground.

Having a sensitive child is very tough, so I do sympathise, but it's so easy to make things worse because you feel sorry for them. It's so much better to be factual, and find age appropriate news stories (newsround is quite good for this) or books.

Your child’s reaction is rather extreme and unusual.
Why would the queen dying mean that she coming to get him? Or the soldiers for that matter.
They will NOT have been told that soldiers come and get children (that’s clearly not what happened on Dday).
I’m afraid I’m with your husband. This is an important part of uk history. Totally appropriate for them to have learned a bit about it on this important anniversary.

I do agree about learning about things as long as it’s age appropriate, and with heads up from school. However it seems this isn’t happening.

What isn’t happening? The heads up? They can’t give parents a heads up on everything they intend to cover, but even if they did; what would you have said if they had told you they were going to cover it?

It’s not inappropriate. The curriculum can’t be tailored to individual children, based on their own specific sensitivities.

It's a perfectly normal part of the curriculum which will have been delivered in an age appropriate way. Your son's responses are for you to manage.

This will be something the school has been doing for decades.

I think you need to work on his anxieties, not criticise the school. His behaviour sounds very, very extreme.

This comes up all the time.

They're hardly going to be shown videos of men with shell-shock or being shot. It's absolutely okay for them to start learning about this stuff in an age-appropriate way. Children have been learning this stuff in school for decades.

Are you sure it isn't your anxiety that worries him? Or does anxiety run in the family? It's not typical for kids that age to get such existential angst.

Are you planning on keeping him in cotton wool until he is 16 and having a sit down about death?

Reality is there is loads of death and fighting in materials for children. Just think about the number of books where the lead characters are orphans - so no pesky parents spoiling the adventure. I don't remember anyone being fussed that a guy was nailed to a cross either.

Children understand death differently to adults, they need to learn about these things as children to become successful and resilient adults.

Not this again.

Unfortunately, for many people, life is hard, tough and terrible things happen. In fact, they are happening now on a very concerning and obvious scale. Surely it’s your job as a parent to contextualise this, rather than gloss over it or shield your son?

I think it’s a chance to talk about “big things” like death in an appropriate way / keeping everything taboo probably creates more anxiety for them if they feel they won’t get straight answers when something has upset them. There’s loads coming up on the curriculum as people have said that are not sugar coated so if they’re particularly sensitive it’s probably worth going in to chat to teachers and get a heads up. I mean this past Xmas my son came out of his reception class discussing Jesus being nailed to the cross!

I grew up in a military town . . . we regularly went past the huge war memorials and I have always known that they contained the names of all the servicemen who died during the war. It never affected me adversely

My own grandmother lost her 1st husband during the war after just a few weeks of marriage and I have always known this.

I think it's best that children grow up learning about these things bit by bit in an age appropriate way. Children learn fragments of information from so many sources, family, school, media, visits to museums etc and they gradually put it together to form the bigger picture

as long as they didn't show the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan or similar, it's fine.

YABU

As much as we would like to protect them as long as possible, they need to learn and it's better when it's done slowly instead of hiding truth when they are young.

I think that content like this can potentially be shared with 4 year old so long as it is done in an age appropriate way and in my opinion, the parents should be told in case the child is upset afterwards.
We are in Ireland and there is a charity here called Trocaire. They work with poor children/families in poor parts of the world (Africa etc..) At Lent they send around "Trocaire Boxes" to collect money. I picked up a very upset 4 year old one day from creche because the teacher had told them the story of one of the children whose parents were murdered and she was all alone and had no food etc.. He was crying his eyes out as soon as we got in the car over this poor little girl. 4 year olds are very sensitive and death is a big subject. Should be dealt with properly and with parents knowledge.

You know your son best but my kids learned about stuff like Remembrance Day in Reception, the Fire of London and Florence Nightingale’s work in Year 1.
Does he watch tv content with “battles”? It won’t be unusual for 4 year olds to have watched some Star Wars or Marvel battles with life and death content.

Let the school know if your child suffers with nightmares about this sort of thing

I'm sure it was done appropriately, I think it's great and important to teach it to all ages. YABU

Kids love this stuff. I doubt this will cause night terrors.

It's an important part of history, and it will be delivered in an age appropriate way in school, I don't see a problem with this at all

Sounds like you’ve already decided it’s going to give him nightmares. I’ve forgotten what the word is but try not to inflict your own feelings onto your child.