Thankfully our teens don't listen to or watch the news regularly like my wife Amy and I do, but they still hear about local and world events through friends, social media, school, and us. They can also experience them directly, and that's when we need to talk with them about it.
For example, recently a group of men from Gideons International, a Christian Business and Professional Men’s Association, came to the middle school unannounced where our youngest daughter Bryce attends, and distributed Bibles to students while on the public sidewalk, which was their right. The Bibles however had a table of contents pointing to verses about abortion, sexual temptation, adultery, and many other topics, which I wasn't happy about. I remembered when I was in high school and a Christian group distributed a pamphlet denouncing the music I listened to and why it was evil. My favorite band Rush was supposed to mean "Rangers Under Satan's House." Good God, please.
Bryce thought it was funny though and brought the Bible home. We ultimately weren't that upset and were happy about how the school responded. The school staff was respectful to the missionaries as were the middle schoolers themselves. The principal sent a note to all parents letting them know what happened and that the bible distribution was not a school sponsored event. Even better, social studies teachers made time to discuss the First Amendment, which is under attack on all fronts more and more. We also don't practice Christianity, but still had a discussion with our teens about both.
When our teens do want to talk about something significant and/or traumatic that's happened globally or locally, we listen to them first, without judgment (which isn't easy when you're fighting with your own world-view parental demons), and then have a dialogue about it. We help them understand as much as we can the greater context as to the why of the something that happened.
We also talk all the time about verifying something we've heard about or read about with multiple "objective" credible sources if at all possible. Because if not, that's when the adulting complexity of biases and -isms of all stripes can also be dangerously impactful on our kids, directly and indirectly. We've seen enough destruction of late of what it can do to grownups and children alike.
Talking to our teens about why people believe what they believe and do what they do is still really hard. It's hard because everyone sees what they want to see, which we have to be okay with, even in the face of sometimes unsurmountable evidence to the contrary (which we're not quite okay with), but we remind them we will always lead with love and empathy.
The difference, we also remind them, is that when beliefs intentionally cause harm to others socially, emotionally, and/or physically, that's where we draw the line. That's when there must be accountability for that harm, no matter what we believe.
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