The Morning After: How Do We Explain This To The Kids? (VIDEO)

Like millions of Americans, I woke up this morning in shock and feeling exhausted. Like millions of Americans, I turned to social media to see how my friends were processing last night’s shocking win by Donald Trump.

The question that kept coming up, from parents and elementary school teachers alike, was “How will I explain this to the kids?”

The Huffington Post asked the same question. They shared a blog post by contributor Ali Michael, PhD. She is a teacher and a writer who specializes in race relations and racial diversity.

Dr. Michael told the elementary school teachers and principals who have contacted her that the most important thing for them to do is to reassure the children that we will continue to protect them.

We adults need to tell the children that we understand and respect the democratic process. We should remind them that when our country was founded, those who set it up made sure that one mean person can’t do that much damage.

We need to tell the children that we will honor and respect the laws of our country and the office of the President.

But, she says, we also need to tell them that we are not going to allow anybody to discriminate. We are not going to let anyone be cruel. We will protect our Muslim, black, disabled, gay, trans, Latino, Asian children. We are there for them, and we will start, today, to work toward a more unified, more accepting America.

We need to remind them that we will stick together, and defend each other as a community or a family.

That all sounds great. It sounds useful and necessary and I agree with it.

I just don’t know that it’s enough.

One young teacher friend of mine works in a low income, inner-city charter. She has written throughout this campaign about the fear that her students had about the election. If Trump won, they’d asked her, will my family be deported? Will our school be closed? What will happen? She had reassured them that good would prevail, that they would be safe.

This morning her first post on Facebook was asking, “Now what do I say?”

Another friend is a survivor of sexual assault. She is raising a gang of her own kids now, in a loving, accepting family. She asked this morning, “How do I explain this to my smart, strong teen aged daughter?”

Dr. Michael said that we should remind our children that not all of those who voted for Trump did so because of bigotry. A lot of people voted for him out of economic worry. Some did it just because they disliked Secretary Clinton.

She ended her blog post by expressing her own fear. She said that she has gotten death threats because of earlier posts about the election and about Donald Trump. She ended this way:

“And yet the only thing that makes me feel safe in this moment ― as I stare into the face of a possible of a Trump victory ― is to speak up and speak out, and to invite others to do the same.”

So I am telling my teacher friends to be strong. Hug those kids. Tell them that you will protect them, even if inside you’re just as scared as they are. Tell them that you will fight to keep them safe and to make sure they have the respect that they deserve. Reassure them, even if you aren’t entirely sure that you can really keep them as safe as they deserve to be.

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

  — Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa

This video predates the election, but it gives some insight into how children feel.

Featured image via YouTube Screengrab.

 

 

 

Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life"