Explaining the Second World War to 7 year olds...

[Greythorne]

We live in France so I am quite used to being surprised by the way things are done here.

But this time, I think it's just a bit off.

Dd is 7.4 and has had a worksheet this on WW2.

In one column it has a list of three countries headed:

France's allies (and the countries are USA, GB, Canada)

And in the second column, the heading is:

France's enemies (and the countries are Germany, Italy and Japan).

Clearly I am not disputing the factual nature of this homework but questioning the terminology and way it is being explained. No context, no background, just allies and enemies.

I am going on a business trip to Germany next week and DD nearly leapt out of her chair when she heard, because now she thinks Germans = enemies of France.

Is it just me?

Try doing it in The Uk when your DD is actually half German!!!
I spoke to the teacher when I found out about the topic and DD 's class put together a list of questions for her to ask her great great aunt ( who lives here now) and was in The Hitler Youth.
I was concerned about bullying but it was fine and I spoke to DD quite a lot about the war and how our families on both sides had suffered.

Hopping
Indeed, that does sound tricky.
Glad it worked out well for your DD.

DD is fully German but knows this so far:

At one point in history Germany and the UK didn't really liked each other. You could call them enemies. It got so bad that a war broke out (we skipped the reason why so far) and a lot of people on both sides died. Both sides had planes which send bombs onto lots of different cities and lots of building were destroyed. The Brits call it "The Blitz".

Germany lost and there was a big peace assembly and it was decided how to avoid such problems in future. Since then Germany and the UK are good friends and actually your beloved Queen is German btw.

So far it works. It helps that her grandfather (DH's dad) was also part of the children's transport to the countryside like lots of UK children (she had a book in school about it once) and could tell stories about it. I also lost a grandfather to a British lorry driver (car accident) so she knows how it affected the "normal people". My mum recently told her a story about how a British bomb went through her roof.

It will be interesting to see how her school will deal with WWI from Summer onwards.

I know the French have a lot more problems with the Germans as it was a occupied country. I would try to talk about the EU and how you know can move easily between all the countries and how it is possible to work. See how one bad episode has changed to today's advantages.

You could also tell that in the past France and England were at war, if you are ok to put some medival war story-topics into her mind. But it could show her that because countries were enemies once they now are allies and friends.

I can only suggest getting a good book (Usborne do some that are great for that age) and talking through it with your DD. There are also some good BBC resources if you search on line.

Good advice there from Nora!

DS is aged 6yo and is very interested in WWII, and has been for some time.

He is quite happy with the concept of the Allies and the Axis, but he also knows that we are friends with the Axis now. As far as he's concerned it is a bit of history which he is interested in. He told me a couple of years ago that he knows that we are friends with Germany because we cooperated on making the Eurofighter Typhoon (military place).
In fact he was fascinated by the idea of the cold war-that two of the Allies were then not friends for ever more.

He has several Japanese friends at school, and one of dd1's best friends is German, and he never has shown any wariness or anything other than friendship to any of them.
Dd1 did the WWII in year 6, and I don't think any comments were made to her friend.

As far as ds is concerned it is as much in the past as the Wars of the Roses. As a Lancastrian I think there's probably more rivallry still going on there as there is from the Allies/Axis-mostly good humoured if the Yorkshiremen have a good humour