PARENTING
HOW TO TACKLE TOUGH TOPICS
WITH YOUR KIDS WRITTEN BY TE CUNNINGHAM
R
emember when your parents could restrict your access to the telephone and R-rated movies?
When I was a child, it seemed the toughest talks my parents had with me didn’t come until the tender age of 13 with the passing of my first close relative—my maternal grandmother. At 16, one of my closest friends committed suicide. It was hard to handle at that time, but in today’s age of round-the-clock news coverage and sensationalism, cell phones, and the nearly uncontrollable access today’s children have to the internet, tackling
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SIMPLYkc MAGAZINE
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OCTOBER 2020
the tough stuff is an entirely different ballgame for parents. The bad stuff abounds: cancer, suicide, and other health issues that take loved ones much too soon. Racism, sexism, pornography, bullying, and violence of the worse kind—murder, rape, terrorism—are everyday words. So how do you help a child process these horrible realities?
Do Your Homework First, if you are at a loss on how to approach a topic that must be broached, research it. What you should not do is avoid it. Your children need honest talk, and they need good role models. Teaching your children how to study issues, think critically, and be objective will produce young adults of good character equipped to deal with the realities of life. Be proactive in your approach as well. If there is a suicide at your child’s school, don’t wait for them to show signs of struggling—talk to them
about it immediately. In fact, use the opportunity to help them learn how they can spot warning signs among friends and classmates for all kinds of dangerous situations—from a potentially suicidal student or one on the verge of a mass shooting. Don’t be a victim of the “not in our town” or “not in our school” mentality. Catherine Craig, a licensed specialist clinical social worker who has worked in both Kansas City and Topeka, has a concentrated focus in the field of attachment and trauma-informed care. “As parents, we must understand and accept that we have little control over these painful realities of life our kids face,” Craig explains. She explains that as parents, our goal is to prepare our children to manage these moments. “We must allow them to experience life,” says Craig. “With our coaching, compassion, and limit-setting, we build their tolerance for discomfort, mistakes, things not going their way, conflict,
