Thunder - what do you tell your children?

[dilemma456]

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I tell my youngest (aged 5 but I have always said this to children of any age up to about 8-10) that it is clouds bumping together and, more crucially, that the noise is just noise and cannot hurt him, it is the lightning that could be dangerous but isn't while he is safe indoors.

Bit prosaic, I know!

It is god stomping on th clouds.

Then we turnteh music up so we can't here it.

Its the clouds banging together. When my daughter was really little, I explained that it was like clapping your hands (and we clapped hands), looked at the noise of two hands banging together, and then listened out for the clouds... and when thunder hit, turned it into a game of clapping our hands loudly and going 'bang'. She was younger than 2.9 when I explained that... and she got it! (She is 4 now).

I say it is the pounding of ghostly howitzers fired by the spirits of all those who died in the stinking mud and gore of the Ypres salient and if you don't go to bed immediately some shrapnel may whizz through the roof of the house SO MOVE IT OUT KIDS HUP TWO THREE FOUR HUP TWO THREE FOUR.

I tell them that thunder is the sound made when lightning heats up the air. It makes it really hot - about 30 000ºC, and the air expands really fast. Thunder is a rumble rather than a bang as the sound travels through the different layers of the atmosphere at different speeds. I expect it'd scare my 2.9yo witless if he thought that there were people in the sky randomly dropping furniture

ooh, how do you explain lightening Wulfstan?

ROFL liz!!!

Lightning is the ferocious expansion of negatively charged ions discharging at a minimum of 3000ohms per meter per second squared.

oh I am crap... I say that it is God;s tummy that is rumbly and he wants a snack.

I've never mentioned anything other than it's just the weather, that the lightening makes the thunder noise, that's why you get them together, and that I absolutely love a good thunderstorm.

I remember being in 2nd year juniors and saying it was the clouds bumping into each other. Very confusing for a small child to then have to listen to a different explanation.

like wulfstan, more or less, for DS (5). For DD (21mths) it's just "ooh, listen to the rumbly thunder, isn't it fun?"

The science!

they even undetsand why you see th flash before you hear the thunder.

but then I have kids who ask a question and then sigh and say 'I didn't want to know that much stuff, Mum'

I tell them it is Thor and he is angry.

See, I do come unstuck with trying to explain properly though cos I don't always have accurate explanations. DS makes the mistake of listending to me and remembering, so will repeat things back to me several months later, and when I say "erm well I'm not sure that's true" he says "but you told it me"

well, you'd be angry if you were thor! (boom, boom)

LOL yes, there's an angry man up in the sky throwing electric around. Now sleep well dearest.

with ds who just say its either god ina bad mood[catholics] or the clouds are bumping and then we make a big thing about counting how long it lasts between thunder and lightening

We're having a lovely thunder & lightning storm too - and all the DCs are fast asleep. I tell them the science stuff, they like it.

But I may go with lizs' ghostly howitzers in future.

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dh likes to explain the science behind everything, poor dd has been heard to say 'stop talking now daddy'

I just say "Ohhhhh listen, its thunder, lets go upstairs and watch it"

and we all try and see where teh lightening strikes.

My sister has HUGE phobia of thunder and lightening. Has been known to drive to my brothers house in floods of tears in a storm because shes too scared to drive home.
I think shes mad.

IIRC being in a car is the safest place possible. I seem to remember a programme when I was young proving that.
Something to do with the tyres...

Usually tell them a variation on Wulfstan's explanation. We try to keep it as factual as possible because my kids would freak at the thought of giants or anything like that.
They used to be great with thunder and lightening, DH and I love it and have never been scared when there is a storm, so they were fine. Then DD went to mil's and there was a storm, and grandma is terrified, so now she is too.

I tell them it's the clouds bumping together.
ladytophamhatt - yes thats right its safest in a car, it's called the Faraday cage effect I think?

Yup, Faraday cage.

I was amazed when I found out, not that long ago that the lightning that you see is the backstroke.....it going back up (as it were)

astonishing