Talking to children about tragedy

After 9/11, my son, then 2, started building twin towers of lego and then knocking them down.  I had not told him anything, but somehow he picked up on something.  Children can tell when their parents are upset or afraid, and sometimes they know more than we think they do.  But what they know, and how they understand it, may be very different from what we would expect.  Be alert to signs they may have some fears they cannot quite express, and create openings for them to talk.

Avoid watching the news when they are in the room; young children pick up on much more than we realize.  

Ocho Kandelikas

This is the song we have been singing as we added candles to the Menorah last week.  Hanukkah is a great holiday for math!  Each day we counted the candles and added a new one, then counted the new number of candles.

I was trying to think of a simple song, other than the ubiquitous "I have a little dreidel", that would not require learning Hebrew.  Since we ave already practiced counting in Spanish, I thought this song was just perfect.

Elementary school tragedy

Everyone who works with children was forced to put themselves in the position of a teacher at Sandy Hook.  And most of us had occasion to realize something we may always have known, but never thought much about - we would not think twice before putting our bodies between a bullet and the children in our care. It's a daunting realization.