to be uncomfortable with young children learning about war?

[CleanTheFeckingMicrowave]

I have a Masters degree in History and I am a bit of a history buff, so I'll put that out to start with.

DC's school has been doing a lot of work on WW1, including the Reception and Y1 children. On one hand, I think it is a big cultural moment, but I don't find the slaughter of millions of people is appropriate for such young children.

This was glossed over in school, to be fair, but the result has been a very Disney-fied version of war. We shouldn't forget or dismiss the horrendous human cost of it.

Does that rambling make sense to anyone else?

Plenty of young children around the world learn about war first hand. I'm okay with others being taught about it in school. I think you can do it in a way that is age-appropriate without glorifying anything.

@CleanTheFeckingMicrowave, yes there are many children who don't know their fathers. But how many of the children are in that position because their country told that man he had to go away. Prison and death excepted, there is little reason for a father to be absent for such a prolonged period.

Knowing they exist, never knowing whether they will come home or not. Then dealing with the effects growing up of a parent suffering from likely undiagnosed ptsd.

There are very few periods of history I remember leading about in school which didn't involve battles, wars or fighting of some kind.

YABU. I assume you don't live in area with military bases nearby, where the risk of parents being sent to deal with conflict or disaster is a daily hazard. I doubt if the school has glorified it, but small children do have a tendency to run around pretending to shoot each other regardless, whether they are being aliens or copying a computer game someone's older sibling gas.

I think it is very difficult to teach children about war without glamourizing it.

I think it is much better for children to be exposed to such things in an age appropriate way from a young age than to sanitize the world until they reach an age it’s deemed acceptable for them to realise what really goes on and then tell them!

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

It has to be taught as soon as it can be comprehended to some degree; and for that to happen, it has to be taught in an age-appropriate way and built upon by parents as children get older. That won't happen for every child - but at least they have an understanding of the basics.

I teach Reception and have always been honest (in an age-appropriate way) with my own DC so have no problem teaching children in my class about history.

This week we've watched a couple of child-friendly programmes, we've read some child-friendly stories and done some child-friendly activities including making our own poppies and walking to our local church for a remembrance service during which the Vicar read out the names of the men from our village who lost their lives during the war. None of the children in my class were overwhelmed or worried by their learning - we don't throw them in with a viewing of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and finish with a few chapters of Anne Frank.

If it's done carefully and with kindness there's no reason children shouldn't learn what Remembrance is about.

Military family (and history graduate here) we have to tread carefully with the topic mindful of not scaring them baring in mind my husband's job, but I don't think it's too young to learn why we have the freedoms we have, it naturally comes up talking about voting etc. As with anything there is a way of doing it, it's not in the curriculum at this age, it'll be the teachers giving the children some context to the anniversary they are witnessing I imagine. I've taken my children to remembrance services since they were born, their school takes them to the village memorial every year. It's the teaching of religion as fact that irritates me beyond belief, Happy Easter! Now let's talk the crucifixion...that's more barbaric to me, personally.

*Look round the world this year. Look at the wars, the child soldiers, the displaced people, the dead civilians.

And start by being fucking grateful that your DC isn't living one of those lives*

^ This.

How utterly distasteful.

My kids go to an infant school very close to an army base. They have classmates who have parents in the military. I'm glad school don't try to gloss over that fact and do deal with it in an age appropriate manner - the school do a lot for remembrance linked with the poppy appeal, and also do a week of activities later in the year where they look at things like camouflage linked with animals in the wild as well as the military use and look at some different types of military vehicles etc... it's part of the reality for a sector of the school community and I'm glad school acknowledge that. DD1's best friend always looks totally bemused at how un-worldly travelled our family are compared to hers though because they've moved around with their father's postings over the years!

Of course it means what children learn about war when very young is a sanitised version, but it is an age appropriate one. But they get some basic knowledge that is built on as they get older. I think this is a more sensitive way of teaching difficult issues than suddenly deciding at a later age that they need to learn about something difficult for the first time.
I remember learning about famine at 4. There was a big famine in the news and in reception I took part in a school fundraising event for it. Of course I didn't really understand it. But it began to introduce the idea of not everyone having enough to eat and that they could die as a result.

But Iwouldobject to that list being on the curriculum for any class under Y5. That's what I'm trying to get at.

So what history would you like children to be taught? Only events that are entirely kind and nice with no war or conflict or upset at all?

I suppose they shouldn't read books that have more.depth than a puddle too. Booms about going to the park and having an ice cream? Fine. Books with heroes and villains? Nope because they might have conflict that will destroy a child's view that the world is magical and harmonious.

I think YABVU

dementedma such a shame that DD will be in bed long before They Shall Not Grow Old is on.

DD didn't have the graphic details, she did WW2 last year. They did the Blitz and rationing.

I think I know what you mean..by teaching them in an age appropriate way, it gives a much more glamourised way, but for it to be taught in a real meaningful way, children need to be older to understand the real horrors? Is that what you mean?

you can record it if you want dd to watch it philomena

Cheeeeislifenow
Age appropriate is different to airbrushed.

To tell children remembrance day marks the end of ww1 where lots of people died, and on remembrance day we remember all those people who have fought in wars isn't to glorify it.
As they get older and have questions more information can be given.

I always find it odd that people (general) can be so touchy about history and war because it's going to ruin children's innocence but then they happily let them have unfiltered internet access and give them violent video games at 13.

I have been reading this thread in bits throughout the day. I'm afraid I can't agree with you, OP.

My parents were children during WWII. My mother was just 11 when it ended, so she was at primary school for most of it. She remembers air raids, and spending night after night in the Anderson shelter in their garden with bombs dropping on their town, do that much she experienced first hand rather than in a controlled, sanitised, age appropriate manner. There was just no way round it as it happened right in front of them, like it or not. Her father was away for most of the time during those years fighting in the war.

Today's children are fortunate that they are far enough removed from the war that they can learn about it in safety and in an age appropriate way. They should absolutely learn about it. If those brave men had not gone to war and laid down their lives then we would be living in a very different country to the free one we have today.

Yesterday French President Emanuel Macron told French school children "remember your history". He was right. We must not forget. But if children don't learn about it from an early age,, both from their families and in school, then there is a tray danger of history repeating itself.

Much of history is full of war and conflict. You can hardly just pretend it didn't happen.

YANBU. War is too abstract for young children to understand. Like Topseyt my parents were children during the war and they had to learn to deal with it. They also had to deal with pre-NHS medical care which if you were poor (they were) was close to zero. Luckily, me and my children have never had to de with either.

I do agree that children should learn about war, after all, they're hardly going to understand how the world got to be as it is, or how to work for peace, if they don't. But I can't see any value in children of four or five being told about WW1 when they're not sufficiently developed to make any sense of it. Start from about age seven, I think, and in age-appropriate ways thereafter. And above all, avoid glamorising, romanticisng and glorifying war. It's not some sort of video game which I think was the way it came across to my DDs when they were in primary school.