This question was particularly relevant since he lives in Turkey, attends a Turkish school, has Turkish friends and yet also is close to America and his family back in the United States.As an expat parent, this is a hard question to answer. Even though I reassured my son that all Turks did not, in fact, hate his American side, he was dubious. The news reports told him that Turks had attacked the US Consulate, a building that represents not only his other country, but also the other part of his family. Explaining that this was the action of just a few people and that no one he knew was angry with him or me because of what country I happened to be born in helped ease some of his fears.
Just how do we explain acts of violence to children? What a child witnesses in their world can affect them in ways we are often unaware of. And how confusing it must be to be a dual national witnessing one side attacking the other. Does this in subtle ways affect their self-image? As I searched for ways to explain what was being aired on the news, I wondered how my son feels about having loyalties to two countries that seem to him to be at odds.
As parents, we all strive to protect our children from harm. Rather than keep the TV tuned to the news, after the first reports were in and there looked to be no new developments to be announced soon, we turned off the set and talked together. In his efforts to try and make sense of this new glitch in his personal world, Ali Adem puzzled over what would cause someone to want to hurt someone else, particularly someone who they did not even know. "What about the families of those policemen who were killed?" he asked, "They are now so sad because their babas are dead."
Just how do we, as parents, explain to our children about violence they witness themselves or see on the nightly news? How can we reassure them that the world is not, or should not be, a scary place? Unfortunately I suspect that there are no easy, pat answers to give children that can answer their questions and assuage their fears. Expats as well as dual nationals can have a very difficult time finding ways to clarify events their children feel close to.
It is easier for adults to recognize that the acts of a few people do not represent an entire country. But children often have trouble making that distinction. To reassure them is not an easy task. But, after talking about the situation with my son, he slowly began to understand that this action did not have any bearing on how his friends or family felt about him. But, he still does not understand what causes some people to act out of violence. And I too am at a loss to understand the situation, much less explain it clearly. He does know, however, that Turkey is our home and this is where we choose to live. Violence can happen anywhere in the world, but when it happens in a host or home country, it becomes more real to all living there.
After we watched the latest updates about the situation on the television, Ali Adem announced that he was going to build a new American consulate out of his blocks. "This will be a building that no one bad can come into. All Turks and Americans will like each other when they come here," he explained as he began construction. Wouldn't it be nice if all of life's problems could be solved so easily?
Send comments and questions to k.hamilton@todayszaman.com
