The recent capture and killing of America's number one enemy is on everybody's lips. Children are undoubtedly hearing about it from their classmates and they cannot help noticing their parents watching the story on television. What should parents and educators tell children about the man Osama bin Ladin and why America pursued him and killed him, especially since we teach our children that killing is wrong?
Children learn best through stories or fables. As Plato said, parents should be mindful of the stories they tell their children because stories shape a child's moral character. According to Plato, parents and educators should choose with care the stories they tell children and even censor certain information that might be harmful to them. For example, young children under the age of eight should not be allowed to watch the story of bin Ladin's death on television because graphic violence can be traumatic to a child's consciousness.
The story of bin Ladin's capture and killing is an opportunity to teach a child a moral lesson that will help the child learn right from wrong. Of course we teach our children that it is wrong to kill. But our country had every reason to believe that bin Ladin would take even more innocent lives if he continued to live and plot against the United States. And American forces made every attempt to capture him alive, rather than kill him. Our military even decided not to bomb bin Ladin's hideout because they did not want to harm innocent people who might be there.
Children learn from the story that we live in a world where good triumphs over evil and justice triumphs over injustice. Osama bin Ladin planned the attack that killed thousands of innocent men, women and children on September11, 2001. It is right that our country has finally brought him to justice. The attack on the world trade center in 2001 was similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In both cases, our country was unprepared and thousands of innocent civilians were killed. In both cases, good won out in the end and the evildoers were punished.
The feeling that we want our story to invoke in children is not joy at the death of an evil man, but fear that evil-doing will be punished. Eventually this feeling of fear will evolve into the child's conscience. The child first learns to do what is right because he fears getting caught and punished. As the child grows, he eventually chooses good over bad action because he intuits that it is the right thing to do.
Copyright Marilyn Wedge 2011
