My son was playing with some neighborhood kids and they had said to him that Israeli planes were going to drop bombs on everyone and that they kill people when they find them...got him really wound up and scared.
So I explained to him that the other kids were Muslim, and they they believed certain things that we didn't necessarily believe in. They don't they don't eat pork, we do; we believe in Santa, they don't; etc.
I then went on to explain about how some countries fight and go to war with one another and people get hurt and killed and it's never nice, but it happens. And hopefully soldiers try to be as careful as they can, but sometimes women and kids and old people and animals get hurt and killed by accident. It's sad but it happens.
And then I explained that some of our best family friends are Jewish and/or Israelis, and I asked if he knew that (no, he didn't), and then I said that I didn't think that our friends were bad people at all (he agreed), and so I didn't think it was fair for people to say that ALL Israelis were bad. That there were good and bad people everywhere, all over the world.
He kind of got the idea...
But it IS tough raising kids here...and I know I am going to have to constantly fight this battle, because he will hear it from kids every single year -- on the playground, in class, everywhere.
BTW, we had to do this song-and-dance on another controversial issue: homosexuality. My son came home one day and announced that when a man loves another man and gets married to him, it's "haram" (LOL -- he didn't even know what that word meant!). So off I went on my soapbox, trying to explain to him MY point of view that there is nothing wrong with any two adults who love one another...and that when he grows up, he can decide for himself what he thinks is right and wrong about a lot of things. And that in the meantime, he will hear a lot of different ideas, but that doesn't necessarily make any of them correct or mean that he has to agree with them, even with ideas that I subscribe to.
My son was playing with some neighborhood kids and they had said to him that Israeli planes were going to drop bombs on everyone and that they kill people when they find them...got him really wound up and scared.
So I explained to him that the other kids were Muslim, and they they believed certain things that we didn't necessarily believe in. They don't they don't eat pork, we do; we believe in Santa, they don't; etc.
I then went on to explain about how some countries fight and go to war with one another and people get hurt and killed and it's never nice, but it happens. And hopefully soldiers try to be as careful as they can, but sometimes women and kids and old people and animals get hurt and killed by accident. It's sad but it happens.
And then I explained that some of our best family friends are Jewish and/or Israelis, and I asked if he knew that (no, he didn't), and then I said that I didn't think that our friends were bad people at all (he agreed), and so I didn't think it was fair for people to say that ALL Israelis were bad. That there were good and bad people everywhere, all over the world.
He kind of got the idea...
But it IS tough raising kids here...and I know I am going to have to constantly fight this battle, because he will hear it from kids every single year -- on the playground, in class, everywhere.
BTW, we had to do this song-and-dance on another controversial issue: homosexuality. My son came home one day and announced that when a man loves another man and gets married to him, it's "haram" (LOL -- he didn't even know what that word meant!). So off I went on my soapbox, trying to explain to him MY point of view that there is nothing wrong with any two adults who love one another...and that when he grows up, he can decide for himself what he thinks is right and wrong about a lot of things. And that in the meantime, he will hear a lot of different ideas, but that doesn't necessarily make any of them correct or mean that he has to agree with them, even with ideas that I subscribe to.
Whew! It's tough being a parent!!