to be annoyed the school showed a video about the Paris attacks?

[DancingLady]

DD is 5, and in assembly today the children were shown a short video about the Paris attacks. Might have been the Newsround one - from what I've read, it sounds similar. I asked her for context (did the HM talk about the attacks before or after the clip?) and she said she didn't know. I'm a bit baffled as to why a school would feel it was their place to show a load of 4, 5 and 6-year-olds (it's a new school with only reception-year 2) this.

We've talked to DD about what happened - she saw we were upset on Saturday and while we didn't have the TV on DH and I discussed it a bit and answered her questions. Tonight at bedtime she was scared and worried.

Would you mention this to the HM or your child's teacher? I don't think it's a school's place to show this to children - not such small ones, anyway.

We watched the Newsround video and talked about it on Saturday I prefer Dd to have age appropriate facts and preempted the school assembly and she was fine.

However, what I hadn't expected to happen today was 3 Chinook helicopters to fly right over both my (secondary) and DDs Primary school at lunchtime. Dd told me that she thought they were going to get attacked because they had army colours and that there was a red light on the bottom that she thought was a bomb . I was in a lesson with several Autistic children at the time and they had similar thoughts. We are on the East Coast and military aircraft flying about were a regular occurrence when I was growing up until they shut most of the local bases down.

Beyond angry today as DS's PRESCHOOL have been learning about it (one of the nursery workers told me, she seemed really proud they'd tackled it. I said nothing at the time, don't know how to raise it with them but feel like I have to...). He's THREE for god's sake. Because he can't yet really tell me what was discussed I can't talk to him about it easily and 'put right' what they've said iyswim, as in couch in terms he could understand. He only goes twice a week so they don't know him like I do, he doesn't understand death yet but is very very sensitive. They were talking about families 'losing' people which I think is bewildering for a child his age. Any advice on how to handle this would be appreciated.

I agree with OP. For goodness sake, little kids should not be burdened with the horror of something like this. I actually think that by filling their heads with this sort of information you are robbing them of something very precious, those innocent years where nasty stuff like that simply shouldn't exist in their world - once they are exposed to it then you can't take it back. I wish I was 6 and oblivious to all the horror that goes on out there, it's depressing and worrying and they will be exposed to the goings on of the world at large eventually, but 6 is too young. And actually it should be up to the parents if they wish to discuss things like this with their children, not the school. If a child has worries then the parents could talk to them about it. I don't think the school should be making children aware of terrorism without parents consent.

Sky1010 that sounds like a good way to explain it to her. The basic facts and a lot of reassurance.

I'm sure the children in Paris were more afraid than our little darlings. Some children live in war zones. It's good that children are aware of what's happening around the world. You do them no favours in learning to cope with the world by pretending tragedy doesn't exist.

I was teaching a class of 7 yr olds on 9/11 and we had to discuss it- a lot of children were very distressed and you can't just brush it under the carpet and pretend they don't know about it.

magicpaintbrush

the point is that they WILL hear about it from others, whether you like it or not. The school isn't teaching them about terrorism, they are learning about terrorism from other kids. School steps in to make sure that they have a child appropriate explanation.

I don't understand why you want your 6 yr old to be upset all day and wait until they see you- much better to be reassured at school at the actual time they are upset.

You are quite right steppemum people have very little understanding of children if they think their 5 yr old can go to school and not hear about it from other children- something like that spreads very quickly.
( no need to do it the nursery- they are too little ) .

It's a tricky one, as many kids will be aware and in that case it's better to tackle it head on.

I'm not generally of the opinion that children should be excessively shielded but some kids are just so sensitive about this kind of topic, however well handled.

Last year I went to see the HM at DS's school (he's 5 now, but was 4 then) as he was too frightened to go to bed as the Taliban massacre of school children had been discussed in an assembly. He was not the only reception year child to wake screaming in the night for weeks afterwards. It turns out that an older child had brought the subject up and they'd had to discuss it - fair enough.

But DS is still terrified of terrorists, burglars and arsonists, and still gets scared of going to bed. We managed to get over the Taliban thing by explaining it was far away and it wouldn't happen here. He knows where Paris is and that it's close to us and if we hadn't protected him from the news he'd be scared beyond shitless. What's the point in frightening a small child like that?

DancingLady I think you'd be very surprised at what gets mentioned in the playground. It only takes one child to have watched or heard something and before you know it wrong information is spreading like wildfire.

I know of one assembly that was sparked by a very young pupil asking if the Muslims in their school were the same or different to the Muslims shooting people on the tv. It had to be addressed by the school.

Some children also seemed to be aware of it from the incidents at the football, if it was live on Sky Sports here some of them might have heard it.

You'd be amazed what the kids know about from just hearing things around them and from other children. it's better they get a proper explanation of things in an age appropriate way than it just be left.

You have a whole cross section in a class of 30. Many will have older siblings- some with teenage siblings. Some will have TVs that are just on all the time. Some will have parents who have discussed it. Some will have been completely shielded. They all mix together in the playground.

YNBU. Something very very sad has happened in Paris, so let's say a prayer for God to look after them. And to keep us all safe, should have sufficed it.
As for showing reports on TV, any of that is AFAIAC, at the parents discretion, not the school's.

'Something very sad has happened in Paris' is along the same lines as 'the stork came in the night and left you a baby brother' and about as honest. Any child would ask 'what sad thing' -or if not ask, wonder, ask friends, worry etc. We do children no favours by not explaining things (in an age-appropriate way of course).

I can't believe that there aren't any French schools that haven't discussed this. Are French children so much tougher than our sensitive little flowers?

I think schools HAVE to do this, the alternative is some kids whose parents don't monitor their screen time will be playing 'Paris attack' in the play ground (pretend) machine gunning other kids.

Then you get kids who have seen something telling other kids, possibly with added child imagined gore.

This explains what happened in an age appropriate way and means all kids have the facts.

You can shield your kids at home but they will be at school with kids whose parents don't. And depending where you live mixing with kids who have first hand experience of bombing / killing.

Spoke to the HT this morning and he said lots of parents had brought it up with him.

He explained that he took the preemptive measure of showing a Newsround clip to avoid kids hearing rumours and gossip in the playground, and getting misinformation from other children.

I'm OK with this, but I did tell him that my DD was really upset at bedtime and woke at 3am crying because she'd had a nightmare about it. There was no discussion in class (e.g. at circle time), so they might do that today. My DD brought in a book about Paris today so the class can look at it together and see some of the good stuff there is...

And no I don't think my DD is a precious snowflake to be shielded from all life's ills, but she is 5, and I think the school could have handled this in a more thought-out way - e.g, follow-up discussions, seeing if anyone had any questions, reassuring the children etc.

niminypiminy I agree it's not a good idea to use euphemisms or vague descriptions. I also reluctantly agree schools probably have to deal with it to avoid playground rumours. But 'sensitive little flowers' - really?

However age-appropriate you make it, this boils down to a lot of people in Paris being killed. That's frightening to me, let alone a five-year-old. Is it really so mollycoddling to wish you could protect your child from that information, even if you accept you can't?

My DS is also five and knows about murder, theft, arson and war, and that people die in war, and that all of this happens every day. He understands how babies are made and how they develop and are born. So he's not overly protected from the world but some of this stuff is difficult for him - of course it is, he's only five.

So things like massacres absolutely scare him shitless, because he cannot understand how slim the chances are that it would happen to him or his little brother or his mum and dad - he just hasn't got the maturity to understand probability and the factors that are involved. If it gets discussed at school this week then I will look forward to more nights of him waking screaming in terror - if that makes him a sensitive little flower then I'm not sure what I can do about it, frankly.

X-post OP - I'm sorry your DD was scared. I agree it really needs to be thought about carefully - children do need a lot of reassurance about this sort of stuff.

I had a child come up to me in the playground yesterday asking me if there was going to be a ww3. I am only a midday. I would prefer it as a staff member and a parent if the school handled it sensitively. There are plenty of children with parents who will have not handled it adequately or shielded their children. The children know and they deserve some kind of explanation.

My dc primary school did an assembly and minute's silence yesterday. I am a bit uncomfortable about it tbh. Whether you think children should be shielded or not is a parental decision and I feel the school have overstepped into 'parenting' territory.

As was said upthread, these children still believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I don't think they need to know about isis just yet. I get that the dc in Paris are in a position of having to know about this, but I don't feel that children need to know about everything bad that happens in the world, where it 8s possible to protect them from it.

Generally it is a good school and I am sure they handled it sensitively, but I still think it was inappropriate.

The comparison was between French children who I am sure must have had all this talked about and had to cope with it (let alone children growing up in war zones- my mother was only 7 when WWII ended and remembers asking her mother 'what will the news be about after the war?). Are our children less able to cope with things than they are?

As for nightmares, my children have never reported a nightmare about a news event. Perhaps they're just insensitive clods. IME children will have nightmares about all sorts of odd things - fish and butterflies are two examples I remember. I don't think I can shield them against wildlife.

I had a child come up to me in the playground yesterday asking me if there was going to be a ww3

Kids always say that when they hear something in the news. I remember that being said when I was at school, and again when my kids were at primary in the 90s.

I don't think the WW3 thing alone is a sign of it being handled poorly. Its more a sign of good history education about the other WWs, and over active imaginations - which kids are allowed to have!

Maybe not, but I still believe school is a good place to talk about this kind of issue, probably the best place.

I have deliberately chosen not to tell my 6 year old about the Paris attacks. He knows about death as we've had a couple of family funerals this year, but in the context of when you're most likely to come across it - with an older / elderly prson. School have been looking at WW2 and DS got really upset about that, and I got asked for reassurance that we won't have another war. Telling him, however reasuringly, that idiots are randomly shooting people in France's capital city will have him in bits, and worried for the members of his family who he knows live in our capital city.

I would be really cross if DS' school had done something like this, there are circumstances for DS around our most recent bereavement which would have meant he'd be in bits over this and terrified to go to London, something he's always seen as a treat. As he gets older I'll tell him, but he doesn't yet need to know that there are people out there who do deliberate nasty things to people, whether that's bombers or child murderers.

Hope this link works.

It takes you to a public FB page where someone has published a subtitled news interview with a French child who looks about 4 to me. The discussion between the child, the interviewer and the child's father is at just about the right level. I admire its honesty and calm reassurance. I recommend a quick look. It's only short.