How to Talk to Your Child about the News

This is the second of our three-part resource series. Read the first post here: Continue Dr. Martin Luther King’s Legacy — Talk to Your Child.

Maybe you have been thinking about talking to your child about a difficult news report you saw together. Maybe your child, like Ruthie in the video below from the Oak Park Public Library, is acting strangely because of complicated feelings they are processing in response to recent events.

Below, you can find a few guides to help you talk to your child about the things happening in the news and on social media in a way that makes your child feel safe and heard.

• How to Talk to Your Child About the News — Start the conversation by asking what your child already knows, advises Kids’ Health [En Español]
• Explaining the News to Our Kids— From common sense media [En Español]
• When Bad Things are Happening – Support for educators from Teaching Tolerance.

Let us know how your conversations go. If there is something else you would like to see here, tell us.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, ”Recognizing and Supporting Children who have Faced Trauma.”