Talking to kids about January 6

[Moonhawk]

Since we're an education board, I thought others would be interested in this:

PBS: Classroom resource: Three ways to teach the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

It is geared towards a classroom with discussion but most of us are used to adjusting as necessary. Also, at the end of the webpage they list other resources, and some videos and articles that give more first-hand accounts if you like to work with original sources. 

How have you guys handled talking about this with your kids? Are you a news-savvy family and this is just part of your daily life? What about for those of you who don't watch news and discuss politics often as a family?

We don't have TV, I don't talk politics too much (well, before this year, anyway). I've been striving to hit the balance of talking about this with the passion I feel, and imparting how important all this is (they haven't really done any government learning past School House Rock), and also assuring them that this is not something they need to stress about and they are safe. Mostly I think I've succeeded, but if/as things progress over the coming couple weeks I think the tightrope will be harder to walk.

[Shoeless]

I have not been discussing it much with kiddo. We don't watch tv, so he's not getting any info from there. I know he's seen headlines of news websites we read, and I'm sure he's overheard DH and I discuss it. 

I tend to discuss "current events" with him after they have happened, to remove the uncertainty of "will everything be ok?" 

*Eta: my kid is 12. If he was a teen, I would have watched the situation unfold with him.

Edited January 13, 2021 by MissLemon

[JustEm]

My eleven year old watched some of the event as it was being reported (a scene where they were pushing passed the first set of barriers so still kinda far from the building.)  That particular video clip wasn't shown on the news until after the woman who was shot died (just to give reference to how much I already knew before dd started watching.) She was horrified to see what was happening but it was good to talk about it while it was happening. We were able to have a great talk about what led up to the events of that day and why it was all utterly unacceptable behavior.  We also talked about how things may get worse before they get better but ultimately she would just be viewing it from the sidelines via the news.  These events, while an important part of our country, aren't an important part of her personal life so she need not worry. The clip she watched was shocking but nothing so terrible I wouldn't want her to see.  She was still watching when they were about to show the clip of the woman being shot, which is when I closed the computer and said she had seen enough. 

My twelve year old wasn't too interested the day of.  But the next day in the car alone he started asking questions while we were listening to something about it on NPR.  Our talk was pretty similar to the one I had with dd although he had more questions about Trump inciting it while my dd focused more on why anyone would march into the capitol building and become dangerous.

The younger kids have no idea what happened and I don't think they need to know.

[Carrie12345]

Thank you for the link!

I feel awful, because we Iose track of what the younger boys know/don’t know. I’ve felt that way all year and then some! The big kids and I, and even sometimes dh, tend to shoot texts back and forth with “alerts” and thoughts, and there isn’t as much dinner discussion about current events as usual with the two oldest out of the house.  Not that I want to bombard them. But there are times that we forget that we’re their main connection to the outside world and writing that out has just hit me pretty hard!

Now I’m picturing “Hey Grandpa, how did you handle the early 20s?” “Oh, your great-grandparents had me work real hard on math, keeping my room clean, and getting me to shower regularly. It was pretty rough, but I got real good at <enter whatever video game they’re currently obsessed with>.”

[HS Mom in NC]

We watched it unfold together.  I focused on pointing out that it's perfectly fine for people to protest within the bounds of the law, whether we agree with them or not the issues, but breaking the law during a protest is wrong and perpetrators should be prosecuted accordingly. Everyone should be treated equally under the law-if not, it's a law enforcement problem that should be fully and swiftly dealt with by the government.

We also talked about the limits on free speech-like inciting a riot, slander, etc. There have been discussions about the rights of owners of businesses and how they are under no obligation to allow customers and clients their businesses as platforms for the customers' and clients' free speech.  If you want to exercise your free speech, you do it with your own resources or you have to get permission from someone else to use their resources and they can withdraw their permission at any time.  (My husband is a business owner.) 

[prairiewindmomma]

We watched it unfold together. 
 

My kids who are teens have enough history under their belt that they called it a coup attempt upfront rather than a protest. We went through the federal code definitions of various crimes and talked about those at the individual level. We had previously talked about the split within the Republican Party and how this was one arm of that and asked how they thought the other arm of the party would respond and what their choices were. We talked how the military was signaling strongly they weren’t going to support the president in his attempt to remain in office. We talked about the failure to staff appropriately to the event and who we thought would want that and how they could accomplish that. Like, literally, we dissected it all.

For my elementary school student, we talked about how they were following the safety plan in evacuating Congress. We talked about all of the riots that happened in our town this summer and how those looked different than this. We talked about what to do if you come upon police action and riots, what to do if you accidentally get tear gassed, and how to act around police to avoid getting hit or arrested (turn around and go several blocks away from everyone, don’t be part of a crowd, etc.). The conversation was very safety focused because of where we live and because that’s where her mindset is. I answered questions as they came up, and she has the basics—we’ve talked about peaceful protests v riots, and about intimidation campaigns and complicity.

Edited January 12, 2021 by prairiewindmomma

[prairiewindmomma]

Coming back to your earlier question, Moonhawk....about what we do and why we do it.....up until a few years ago, our focus has always been on history, and not so much on current politics.  I find a lot of current politics dysfunctional, corporate, and divisive.  We have largely followed the WTM recommendations through homeschooling.  We put our 9th graders through rhetoric and logic.  Our high schoolers get US history for a full year and a semester of government.  We try to be involved in local affairs.  But, generally, we're more likely to discuss the latest episode of Scientific American rather than read Foreign Affairs as a family.  We'll pick up the Economist but skip The Atlantic, generally.  The kids and I listen to CNN10 daily, and my husband and I usually watch the PBS Newshour, but we don't eat/live/breathe it all even though my educational background is solidly in that area and I have to keep up on Supreme Court cases professionally.

All of that said, dh asked me to skew our studies a few years ago and specifically teach against fascism. I pulled out my copy of Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich to guide my own studies on what I thought was important, armed myself with this article, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/21/how-fascist-is-donald-trump-theres-actually-a-formula-for-that/, and used some PBS resources that had lessons with document analysis set up like this: https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-rise-of-italian-fascism-and-its-influence-on-europe/teaching-guide  I spent a lot of time talking about symbolism, media involvement, power, psychology (specifically fear manipulation), and so on.  It's the notion of learning a pattern and being able to recognize it for what it is, in a variety of circumstances. 

I have to run, so I'm going to post this up here and come back to it when I get a chance, hopefully later today. 

[*Jessica*]

We’ve talked about it all a lot, but my older kids are 17yo and 15yo.  It would be impossible to keep the 9yo out of the discussions, so she knows more about coups and US government than the average 9yo, not to mention fascism which has been a huge topic in our house lately.  My oldest is very interested in politics and history, so we’ve always been this way.   I don’t know that I would have talked with my 9yo much about it if I didn’t also have teenagers.

[prairiewindmomma]

Ok, I'm back.  I only have about 10 minutes, so this is going to be shorter than I anticipated.....

The second part of what I did was to work to help them develop the vocabulary to be able to talk about what they hear in the news, on social media, etc.  There are many in society who yell about "fascism" and "socialism" and "x amendment rights" but they really don't understand those concepts as they are defined in textbooks or the law.  I think being able to know what those things are as defined by scholars and having the vocabulary to talk about those things with others is really important.  This isn't a he said/she said thing...it's about having a framework for polite discussion.

An example from real life this week... Elderly relative had a scathing rant this week about how the "protesters" were right to storm the Capitol and make their voices heard.  (Please set aside the politics of this. I'm just trying to set up the framework here.) She ranted on and on, but it turns out that her underlying fear is that "socialism" is going to take over.  And beneath that fear, she worries that her taxes are going to go up.  This goes back to her Depression era childhood fear of not having enough and not being secure. Ok, that's the root of it---but it took a lot of patient discussion to get to there.  She still contends that her political ideas are correct.  I have differing ideas.  But I now understand her better and can give her some grace now that I understand the dynamic of what's at play here. In my family, I am the traitor who turned away from a certain party that I grew up in and participated in for a good chunk of adulthood. I've turned into a "west coast liberal" and all kinds of other swear words.  And again, I can look now with adult eyes at how I view my own politics and morality and I have a framework for analyzing and discussing that. (I'm actually the same moderate I ever was, it's just that the parties have shifted far right and so now I appear left.)  My point to all of this is that most of us don't live in echo chambers, and I wanted our kids to have some ability to make sense of the world around them.  Perspective is difficult to achieve when you're a teen, but having a vocabulary and some basic understanding helps us interact with the world around us.

We've applied this same basic idea to a lot of flare points that have happened in the last few years--about immigration, about racism, about women's rights, and so on.  I think sometimes as homeschoolers it's easy to just embrace the textbook or pre-packaged curricula in front of us....but that doesn't necessarily churn out a student who is well versed in how to look at themselves and the world around them and understand it. I wanted a more functional approach.

[katilac]

22 hours ago, MissLemon said:

I have not been discussing it much with kiddo. We don't watch tv, so he's not getting any info from there. I know he's seen headlines of news websites we read, and I'm sure he's overheard DH and I discuss it. 

I tend to discuss "current events" with him after they have happened, to remove the uncertainty of "will everything be ok?" 

*Eta: my kid is 12. If he was a teen, I would have watched the situation unfold with him.

My completely unsolicited advice is to bring it up with him, as he certainly does know it happened. Kids often worry about things they never say a word about. 

[Shoeless]

28 minutes ago, katilac said:

My completely unsolicited advice is to bring it up with him, as he certainly does know it happened. Kids often worry about things they never say a word about. 

Thank you, but I will wait to discuss what happened until after the inauguration. I can't have him worrying for the next 8 days about what will happen to Biden.