DS 7 has been asked to pretend he is in the battle fields and about to go into war and write a letter home to his family for homework

[Lemith]

This terms topic is ww1, but this piece of work really takes the

I don't want my ds to be thinking about what it is like to go into war. This topic is not suitable for someone so young, war is a terrible thing and the people that survived it were mentally and physically scarred for life.

Aibu?

My grandpa was in the trenches aged 16 (lied about his age). He was there for 4 years - never talked about it afterwards except to other soldiers. If you'd suggested to him that children should learn about it aged 7 he'd have got really, really angry with you.

Personally I think the idea of doing 'World War I lite is pretty disrespectful, if not actually harmful. Why not wait a few years and talk about what it was actually like - the mud, rotting feet, rotting corpses in no mans land, endless shelling, the lice, the terror of gas, screaming on barbed wire, going over the top, capturing something then being pulled back and having to go capture it again 2 weeks later. That's how you honor the sacrifice, talking about the reality, not some sanitized version.

What about all the other reasons wars are fought? Should they learn about those, too?

When one of my kids did this exercise DH, and half the classes' fathers, were deployed.

Brilliant post BarbarianMum, I totally agree.

Great post also limited, I also feel this gives no real insight to war and is at best pointless.

I nearly asked about that before fairy. How did/Did the school accommodate that? Did it make the DC worry (more than they already would have been)?

Teach them from a young age how terrible War is then maybe the next generation won't repeat.

When I was 7 the gulf war was happening and we had a soldier come in to tell us about it (not too gorey and we were mostly worried how they managed in the desert without toilets). Dd is now 7 - I imagine she'd write an amazing letter. Fab homework getting a real understanding of the history.yabu and a bit nuts.

Teach them from a young age how terrible War is then maybe the next generation won't repeat.

So do you also teach them to stand by while people take over your country and murder your neighbours as long as they promise to leave you alone?

I always liked this better than Culture Club, but I still think it's a little bit more complex.

Good choon though and it was in the context of Vietnam. But you have to be a bit older than seven to grasp geopolitics.

Some people never get it.

TheFairyCaravan Exactly.

tldr The school (in our case) did what it always did, talked openly to all and carried on with normal jogging in school. Kids miss their Dad, you miss DH and everyone watches the news. WW1 trenches are the very least of your worries.

To be honest I was more worried about the biters when all the Forces kids were sent home early to avoid the disgusting, disrespectful media that swarmed the whole area like the cockroaches they are after a tragic incident.

There's a lot of glamorisation of war through films and games, even if you don't let them play or see these things, there's still the strong chance that their friends will show them or talk about it, or they will see adverts for them on TV, billboards, see the box in shops etc.

I would think its better to get them thinking about the fact that really being a soldier is scary and cold and unpleasant before they start getting all the media messages telling them otherwise.

being a soldier is scary and cold and unpleasant

Is it? I thought it could be a good career.

It's not one I'd choose, even without people shooting at me, but that doesn't happen all the time.

A good career, who are you Uncle Sam.

Can't get too excited about this really. At 10 I wrote fourteen pages about my heroin addiction and my mum helping me through withdrawal. School contacted social services. Pesky libraries. There was nothing age appropriate about the research I did and the level of detail included.

Anyhoo, the kids will complete the work to their own ability, using the background supplied in class.

Dh and I have now retired from the military (it was a reasonable career, thanks for your concern, Vulcan ) but we have never shied away from talking to the dcs about current deployment or more historical conflicts and wars. Most of us do tend to shelter our kids from a level of information that we perceive could be harmful though. The reality is that kids are often far more resilient than we assume - but it is natural to want to protect them from atrocity.