Recently, we visited a local mosque, and put scarves on in solidarity. My daughter told the reporter “We are here to be together as one big family group.”
As parents, how do we respond to shocking and violent events – whether they are terrorism, wars, awful mass shootings, or natural disasters?
We can get Listening Time for ourselves, we can listen to our children and answer their questions with pictures of what humans can do together for good, and offer them the huge resassurance of regular Special Time.
Plus some free resources as you move towards the start of school, and courses starting in the New Year.
Recently, we visited a local mosque, and put scarves on in solidarity. My daughter told the reporter “We are here to be together as one big family group.”
“Together” is the watchword for dealing with news of violence or death. “What can we do together, as a family, to remember those who died, and offer our caring?” is a healing question.
Patty Wipfler, Hand in Hand Parenting
In the last few days, we confronted the news of yet another dreadful act carried out against people who were just going about their daily life. We face the tragedy and sadness of it: we may have family and friends who are directly affected in large or small ways; our hearts go out to the people directly affected, and the police and emergency services employees who put themselves on the line to deal with the situation, and to the communities who are touched by these events and the backlash which will inevitably follow.
We may worry about how safe we really are, so far away, but similarly vulnerable. Even if we manage to avoid becoming pre-occupied with events as they unfold, it will in any case play out over weeks on our television screens, radios and newsfeeds.
As adults, we can put these events into a bigger context. We know that people can and will band together to pull through. Our children don’t always have such a big picture and it makes it hard for them to make sense of what they are seeing and hearing. Continue reading →
“Together” is the watchword for dealing with news of violence or death. “What can we do together, as a family, to remember those who died, and offer our caring?” is a healing question.
Patty Wipfler, Hand in Hand Parenting
I don’t tend to listen to or watch the news, but sometime on Saturday a couple of weeks ago it filtered through that something dreadful had happened somewhere in the world.
On Sunday, I woke knowing that it was serious, and that I would need some time to talk about how it makes me feel – how lucky am I, how easily it could happen in the city where I live, that my sense of safety in the world is dented. The horror of imagining what it must be like to have been caught in the middle of it, the senseless waste and carnage, the anguish, shock.
I deliberately did not allow myself to listen to details about the event: I’m pretty sure that I do not need to know. I get the gist. Things in the world are not good.
However, my mind was pulled to it all day. In the evening, I met with a group of people and we took a short time, in pairs, just to listen in turn to one another about these events. We cried about how shocking it was, we talked through the details of what we had seen on the news, we feared for our safety, we worried for our children. Then, we went on with what we had planned to meet for.
It would have made no sense to keep going over the top of the feelings. And taking time to pay attention to, and feel, the feelings does not mean that there is not thinking to be done, and work, to fix things. But the flood of feelings that comes up at a time like this can easily overwhelm us, drag us down and away from the thing we planned to do, and the things we could do to make the world a better place.
“Together” is the watchword for dealing with news of violence or death. “What can we do together, as a family, to remember those who died, and offer our caring?” is a healing question.
Patty Wipfler, Hand in Hand Parenting
As the Sydney Seige in the CDB ran its course and we woke up this morning to the tragic and sad news that people have died, we have been exposed graphic details and disturbing images of the event. We may have family and friends who are directly affected in large or small ways. Our hearts go out to the people caught in the middle of the drama, to the police and emergency services employees who put themselves on the line to deal with the situation, and to the communities who are touched by this event and the backlash which will inevitably follow. Even if we managed to avoid becoming pre-occupied with events as they unfolded (and I certainly did not) it will in any case play out over weeks on our television screens, radios and newsfeeds.
As adults, we can put these events into a bigger context. We know that people can and will band together to pull through. Our children don’t always have such a big picture and it makes it hard for them to make sense of what they are seeing and hearing. Continue reading →
