The other night, Madison came downstairs after we'd thought she'd been asleep for an hour. She was sobbing.
She said, "I know it’s just not true about an angry God out to get us. And about global warming. But sometimes I just get so scared. I worry so much that you’re not right, and that everyone else is. That I’m going to spend forever in Hell because I'm not following the rules of a religion. And they said in Engineering Camp that humans are destroying the planet, that the polar ice caps are going to melt and drown everything and we're all going to DIE. Or that the hole in the ozone layer is going to...well, do whatever harm that awful hole in the ozone layer is going to do. Everyone says humans are so bad, everyone except YOU. But how do you know you’re right? You can’t prove that there is no God. You can't prove that there isn't going to be some environmental disaster."
Snuggling her, we explained again, about needing evidence to think something IS true, about the motivations of people who would try to scare little kids and not-so-young people into panicking, about how sober thought is necessary before acting in a frenzy about something for which we have little evidence.
Poor kid. This is precisely why I loathe the fearmongers. (And some say that homeschooled kids are too insulated. Imagine how freaked out this 9-year-old would be if she were busy being bombarded by this every day.)
I found this Walter Williams article from this week, which may help her understand that many, many sober scientists are backing away from the global warming hysterical folks. I'll show her later today.
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3 comments:
It's awful for people to be feeding this stuff to kids.
On the GW thing, have you tried giving her some historical context, to demonstrate repeated point during history when vast majorities of people were wrong about something? not sure it'll help; just a thought that came to me on reading your post.
On the God thing, does she know that most people in the world do not believe what the Christians say? We haven;t encountered this from our son (yet?), but I think I'd probably respond by detailing various concrete rules from various religions: many million Hindus say it is a sin to eat beef while pork, mutton and chicken are fine, many million Muslims say it is a sin to eat pork while beef, chicken and mutton are fine, most Christians say it's fine to eat either, but not so fine during 40 days of the year!
A second thing I'd probably try -- in the context of a Christian culture -- is to explain the changing descriptions of God, during the course of the Bible. I would try to make him see how man-made it really is.
Obviously, it's been a while since you wrote this. I hope she's been feeling better. Have a feeling this is something I'll face eventually, having a kid who imagines things vividly, too. You're right, though--how much more she'd be exposed to if she were in school....
Great post.
I have a book called "Facts not Fear" about teaching kids about the environment. It is now out of print, was published in 1990s. An intro was by Marilyn Quayle. It tells facts then what kids in school are being taught and how parents can balance out the info at home to counterbalance propaganda. It also tells how some org's are providing free teaching materials to schools that back up their agenda.
(That same topic was touched upon in a book From Crayons to Condoms relased in 2008.)
Between that and the entire topic, some liberals and environmentalists turned on the book "Facts Not Fear", you should see the amazon customer reviews which some seem to slam the book for exploring the very topic ---not for the actual content or analyzing the data and admitting that some of it may be true. It seems some 'reviews' are not even by people who actually read the book. Some try to just say 'the book is all lies' in order to discredit the notions such as global warming might not be what they say it is.
An overarching goal is I do feel we can get kids more interested in being good stewards of the Earth by connecting them to it rather than scaring the pants off of them with abstract concepts that they have no control over inside of classrooms through book learning and lectures.
The fact is no matter if we all want clean air we as citizens of USA (or children living in USA) can't help what company officials from X company do with their company nor what other countries do (i.e. we reduce coal burning in USA but China and India are now burning a lot of coal).
Lest one think that pursuading legislation is the answer just loook to the mess of the current law about protecting kids from lead and pthlates in toys...
The worst is having our kids feel guilty and bad for something that someone else is doing that is COMPLETELY out of their control to fix. That will raise a nation of people who may wind up clinically depressed or severely angry at the world yet not empowered to make real changes, a horrid feeling.
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