Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - MINI: How To Talk To Your Kids About All The Grim News

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

We have been SURROUNDED by scary, sad and angering news recently. We caught up with Dave Atkinson, CEO of the Parenting Hub, who explained how we can explain to our inquisitive children what is going on in NZ & the world right now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jono and Ben, breakfast on the hits. There's a lot of heavy news around at the moment. Yesterday there was violence outside Parliament with the protesters and police. You've got the war in Ukraine, not to mention the alarm and COVID numbers. How is it evicting our kids and what should you say to your kids about the news? We thought we'd talk to Dave from The Parenting Place. Dave, good morning. How are you? Not too bad. Doing better than a lot of people around the world at the moment.

Well, yeah, there's a lot of heavy stuff that's going on and that's kind of what we wanted to talk to you about today because you guys at the parenting place have put out a few little articles online about how to sort of talk to kids about some of this heavy news that's right i mean most of us are parents at the parenting place so we're all experiencing this ourselves personally i mean I've got a six-year-old and he asked me the other day what war is. And I've never thought about how to articulate what war is to a six-year-old. And he really, he got me on the back foot. So we've put a few articles together just to help parents like ourselves manage some of those really tricky conversations. Sometimes they do throw the curly ones at you and they don't give you any runway, do they? There's no lead-in.

How did you tackle it, Dave? Oh, gosh. Look, I don't know if I'm the best case study, really, but one of the things that I try and remind myself is I don't have to have the perfect answer. I don't even have to have an answer. But the most important thing for me and what I have to remember is just being that non-anxious presence in my child's life really reassures them because young people they're always wondering what is the relevance of this thing to me how is this going to affect me and there's some anxiety that builds there so being a non-anxious presence being a parent that says you can bring any question you have to me however you're feeling that's fine

just reassuring them that's really the key rather than trying to find the perfect answer for whatever question they throw at you i like to use the go and ask your mother which has pulled me out of many difficult conversations yeah totally yeah just buy yourself a little bit of time hey no no you guys aren't psychologists or anything like that but uh but you are very helpful in giving advice to other parents as well and things that you can do having through your own experiences but something that i wanted to ask you about is obviously COVID. For the last couple of years, we've all been kind of trying to keep COVID away, stay in your home, protect everyone.

And now all of a sudden we're kind of learning to live with COVID. And I imagine for kids in particular, as friends I know, kids are getting COVID and they're kind of almost playing it off, going, oh, it's just a cold. But you've kind of been saying for two years, don't get COVID, stay at home. We don't want to get it. So obviously there's a bit of a transition that has to take place now with not only adults, but also with kids as well. Oh, goodness.

That's so true. And to be fair, a lot of our kids are actually more exposed to COVID in their schools and more exposed to conversations about COVID in their schools than maybe they are at home. So it really depends on kind of how much of that conversation is happening at home. So yeah, again, there's a huge amount on our kids' minds. There's a huge amount on our minds. We're having to actually learn really quickly how to manage this. So yeah, really follow their lead. Don't give them more information than they need and try and keep it age appropriate. So really what you're trying to do is just reassure their anxiety. It's going to have an interesting effect on this young generation. I think it is. I mean, it's really hard to know exactly what impact that'll be until years later.

But one thing I would want to say to any parents listening is to give your kids the benefit of the doubt that they are resilient. I mean, of course, as parents, we want to protect our kids, but actually it's amazing how resilient our kids are and if you can provide that stable presence at home um then then our kids actually can navigate some really hard stuff and they they may even come out of it stronger more wise um than if they hadn't gone through it and that's what resilience is all about it's about bouncing back and you develop resilience by going through a hard time so i think we can have confidence that this is actually going to yep there'll be some stuff to unpack

over the next few years, but there's also the opportunity for our kids to be stronger and wiser for this. I was just reading an article you guys have put up at theparentingplace.nz, and it's talking about, you know, how to deal with kids in the news. And for someone who loves the sound of their own voice,

this is a great little quote. As a family, if you watch the news together, add your own commentary. And I thought, oh, this is great. I get to chip in and add some stuff. But I guess in a way, it's probably quite helpful to sort of contextualise what's going on. Yeah, I have a six-year-old, so you've got to think about that kind of age appropriateness. So it's quite hard to filter what my six-year-old's hearing as the news bulletins are coming up. So for us personally, we've decided we're not going to watch the news together because I think I'd rather have a bit more control as to what he's hearing.

But obviously you can't shout at your kids from conversations at school or watching the news at their parents' house or their friends' houses or accessing the stuff on devices. So at a certain age, it's probably better to embrace it and then come alongside, offer commentary as you say, and help them make sense of the real complexity that they're hearing. And do you go through the difficult parts? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Just talk over the top of the mute button. Exactly. Oh, there's a mute button. I don't have to do that. Well, David, we really appreciate your advice this morning. And if people want to get that, there's plenty more at theparentingplace.nz. Awesome. Thanks, guys.

See you later. Jono and Ben, brought to you by Resene, New Zealand's most trusted paint. Kiwi made since 1946. there's plenty more at theparentingplace.nz Awesome, thanks guys, see you later