Or is Anne Frank’s diary & other WW2 stuff inappropriate for primary school children

[Lellikelly26]

My DD is in year 3 (8 yr olds) and is studying WW2. I don’t know the extent of what they cover at school but my mum brought round some WW2 diaries including a lady who was in Jersey during it’s German occupation and other accounts of women who helped in the war effort and felt responsible for deaths, with one killing herself. I do not think this is appropriate reading for an 8 year old.
My DM used to read me Anne Frank’s diary as bedtime reading when I was a kid and I have refused to engage in anything to do with the wars since I was so disturbed. I avoided history at school and can’t watch films about it etc.
AIBU or are some accounts of the wars not appropriate for primary age children.

DD covered WW2 at school in year 2, it was done brilliantly. Mostly covered the social impacts on those left behind and evacuation and a bit on the blitz. Went on a trip dressed as evacuees on a steam train, ate rationed food, listened to music of the time, practised routine for air raids and going to a shelter, had lots of resources from the local museum.

The WWs were awful but they can be covered in an age appropriate way.

Sorry first line should have been italicised/quoted.

You don't have to pick one of / possibly the most horrific happening of the Holocaust to teach at 8.

They won't learn about that at 8.

Dd did ww2 at the beginning of yr5. They didn’t read the diary but I would have been fine if they had. Yr3 is too young to process the information in there and I owuodnt br happy.

They did show them short clips of piles of dead bodies and emaciated survivors. I thought that was too much for a child of 9.

There is a lot of history. You don't have to pick one of / possibly the most horrific happening of the Holocaust to teach at 8.

All of those things you've listed are also dark and grim and often gruesome. They won't be learning about the Holocaust in primary school.

The sexual content alone is inappropriate for a younger child. I read it for the first time recently and it had a profound effect on me. I think it can't possibly be understood properly by a child, or probably even a teenager. You need to have some maturity and life experience to understand the full impact properly.

The problem isn't the school teaching WW2, the problem is your mother trying to teach WW2.

There's a huge difference between reading Anne Frank in a classroom or in your own time, and having it read to you as a bedtime story.

The books etc. the school will have will be completely age appropriate. The books your mother brought gave are not.

Depends on age of kids and what they are learning.

I was really pissed off when DD1 was in Reception or Year 1, she drew a really weird picture at home of some people in a cage and some people with stick things, I asked her what it was she said "the children are locked up and the men with guns are going to kill them"??!!!!!!

I asked at school and the teacher said they had had a WW2 thing for the older children including a film with some concentration camp images and information, maybe DD1 had "wandered in"!

No lasting harm done but I was completely gobsmacked and the teacher was very unconcerned.

That is very inappropriate.

For older kids in an age appropriate way - yes - with an eye to that fact that as adults and having been so exposed to it, for many of us it has lost the shock I think, if you know what I mean. For children hearing it the first time, the full horror hits IFSWIM.

Actually DD1 (now 10) is slightly obsessed with WW2 novels and info so maybe it did so something after all... I'm not sure whether to be mildly concerned. She read Anne Frank's diary last year I think.

Oh about a previous post, I don't think kids should be learning about how awful humans can be at 8, they have their lives for that, 8 is tiny, let them be in theri secure bubble if that is what they are lucky enough to have. Most will have an idea about the state of the world from charity ads on the TV anyway, with plenty of imagery of starving desperate injured ill dying people including children.

I mean when I saw the pic I asked her what it was and she said it was a tv program they watched at school - I didn't jump to that conclusion.

I was properly gobsmacked. Like, WTAF genuinly baffled as to what was going on.

I never really did get a straight answer - "wandered in" seems unlikely.

My ds has been fascinated by history, especially the world wars since he was 6. We always make sure we are on hand to answer any questions and put things in context for him. We’ve not let him have anything about the holocaust etc ethough.

My girls did Goodnight Mr Tom as a class reader in primary, I think in year 4, they then went on to War Horse, and Private Peaceful, in years 5 and 6, and at home read Carries War, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. These are all childrens books, actually all brilliantly written, but do have strong emotional elements to them. Both girls cried buckets over them, but that's fine, it means they connected with the story, and the realities within them. Anne Frank is perhaps slightly more aimed at an older reader, but no more emotionally disturbing than those mentioned above.

One thing an 8 year old might find interesting is look up some world war two recipes regarding rationing and maybe cook a few together and compare choices today with choices then i read anne franks diary when i was about 12 and didnt really understand it all then, much better when i was older

Lest we forget Anne herself wasn’t much older when they went into captivity. Children live through much worse than learning about WW2 at school...

this sums up my feelings. we can't protect children from the world, they need to feel fear and sadness in order to learn how to deal with and build resilience around those emotions. I think 8/9 is fine to learn about Anne Frank.

I don't think Anne Frank's diary is suitable at that age due to the style of Anne's writing. Her diary amazing but I think that the density of her prose, her burgeoning awareness of the beginning of her sexuality and the general mundanity of life in hiding would be either boring for or go over the heads of most 8 year olds. Watching one of the dramatisations might be better for that age group. The BBC made a 5 part series about 10 years ago, with Tamsin Grieg as Anne's mother, that was excellent.

There are some great books, movies and series that are good for a "soft" introduction to WW2. My 5 year old is very interested in history so when doing WW2 with him I focussed on resistance movements as they are where some of the best of humanity was found in those dark times. Almost anything involving the Danish evacuation of nearly their entire Jewish population is excellent for young kids as it is an amazing example of people coming together to protect the vulnerable among them. We read The Whispering Town and plan on doing Sandy Toksvig's book and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry when he is a bit older. The Disney movie, A Miracle at Midnight is also great.

And I highly, highly recommend the animated mini series A Long, Long Holiday (Les Grandes, Grandes Vacances) on Netflix. It's a French series about a Parisian brother and sister who spend the war with their grandparents in Normandy. It does have awful and tragic moments but shows them through the eyes of children so they are presented with an innocence that softens what's happening for a young audience. It is based on the writings and drawings of real children who lived in occupied France, most notably those in the book, The Orphans of Normandy, which we borrowed from the library after watching the series. One of the really amazing things about the series is that it also features both French collaborators and a sympathetic German soldier, so the shades of grey on both sides are seen. Which is probably the best lesson for young children. I really can't stress enough what a thoroughly amazing series this one is.

DD did WW1 (poppy day) in year 2 and was petrified of war, but my lovely DM spoke to her about being a child in WW2 and that help her a lot, but she is the over imaginative type and lots of things scared her ie at 9 wouldnt go on the Yorvik ride, was scared stiff of the bomb shelter at the Imperial War Museum, petrified of theatre curtains (now her favorite place in the world is a West End theatre

They then did a lot of WW2 and Anne Frank in year 5/6. I think they only did an edited version of the book as the teacher came and asked me if it was okay for DD to borrow the full version and read that.

Whenever I comment on anything on the Holocaust I always mention that I lost members of the family in the Nazi camps, so I do not think I am impartial, not that many people are on this subject.

I don't think the Holocaust and Anne Frank's diary are suitable for 8 year olds.

I think there's a difference in learning about the the WWs and what your DM brought around OP.

I was in the Girls Brigade from age 4 and we always attended Remembrance Parade etc. Had a high level understanding that wars happened. Did a War Time School Trip in Year 3 where we had to dress up as evacuees and looked at WWII on the Home Front. Read Anne Franks Diary for the first time when I was about 10/11 and more in-depth/harrowing reading throughout Grammar School in History/English Lit.

About 10 years ago I interpreted for some occupation and concentration camp survivors and/or their families telling their stories and reading from their diaries - conveying their words had a profound effect on me and it has stayed with me - not something I would want my DC if they were as young as yours to access, know about or expect to be able to understand fully.

After reading the posts this morning I'd like to add one thing. When I was reading the books I mentioned up thread I saw WW2 as a sort of adventure.

In my mind these people were like the famous five, only real people having a real adventure.

I'm sure I would read them differently as an adult.

I took my DD to Anne's house at 7 and she expressed an interest in reading the diary. In the bookshop we found an abridged version that is suitable for young readers.

That visit stimulated a strong interest in 20th century history that is a large part of the GCSE curriculum her school follows and has lead to her choosing history as an option.

I doubt that the school is teaching them about people who killed themselves because they felt responsible. More likely which countries were involved and basic details. Maybe find out from the teacher exactly what they are studying and it will probably put your mind at ease. I know in high school they didn't even really discuss the deaths, just went more in depth into why it happened. Same for other wars too.

Can understand why you are traumatised about it, being read a story like that as a bed time story is a bit creepy. It's not exactly bed time story material. Fine to read it, but how many parents here would say that they would use that story as a bed time story?

When I taught KS2 in London, I had children in my classes who had been through some awful experiences themselves. One girl's mother had 'disappeared' in a dodgy country. Another had spent 2 years in a refugee camp. These two were in the same class, and I could go on for each class I had.

We are talking about sheltering children from harsh realities and maybe forgetting that other children their own age, maybe even their classmates, haven't just heard about this stuff. They have actually lived it. We are lucky that for our children, this is just theoretical.

Goodnight Mr Tom is pretty disturbing in itself.

Our school teaches the holocaust in the last year of primary. They do a lot of work around these huge themes partly as preparation for high school. (We are in Scotland).

Growing up , the aftermath of ww2 was all around as all my grandparents had been through it, from being torpedoed in the Azores, to driving ambulances to working in Whitehall through The Blitz.
It’s ancient history fir our kids

I wouldn’t describe reading Anne Franks diary at bedtime as creepy

My DS did WWII in year 2, but only the basics. The stories from your mum sound unsuitable but they won’t do anything like that in primary. I remember doing it in year 7 but even then I don’t think we did much on the Holocaust etc. I knew a fair bit because I like history but I didn’t get the full picture of how horrific it actually was until I visited Auschwitz a few years ago.