The Waging Peace Podcast

From Fear to Empowerment: Discussing War + Violence with Kids

• Diana Oestreich • Season 1 • Episode 4

Share episode

How do we teach our children about violence in a way that empowers them rather than instills fear? Are we actively debunking the myth that violence is justice? Tune in as we navigate the challenge of discussing violence with our children - an issue our own parents often shied away from. 

I'm a Mom, War Veteran and Peacemaker and I'm sharing how we can center our kids dignity and empower them to be part of our communities. We'll delve into the importance of age-appropriate conversations, fostering resilience in our children, and introducing them to the power they hold to make a difference. 


Familiar with the adage 'love thy neighbor'? Let's go beyond mere words and actualize this in our communities. We'll explore practical ways to show up for our neighbors when violence strikes and promote a sense of unity rather than division. We'll also tackle the recent events in Israel and Gaza. How do we discuss this with our children? We'll provide you with comprehensive strategies, from understanding what your children already know, to breaking down the story into digestible bits, and guiding them towards actionable steps. This episode is packed with insights you don't want to miss!


We promise not to oversimplify things. No more 'good guys' and 'bad guys', but a conversation that promotes peace, love, and understanding. As we move into the second part of our conversation, we will challenge the narrative that encourages division and hatred, focusing instead on community engagement and balanced perspectives. We'll discuss how we can help our children understand that violence and hatred are never the answers, and that peace is something we can actively work towards.

 By providing a  Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Peace lens to see the Israel-Gaza conflict, through  we offer our children the opportunity to become positive global citizens. Join us as we explore these complex issues, arming ourselves with knowledge and compassion to guide the next generation toward a peaceful future.

This is a growing podcast, will you take 30 seconds and help us?

Yes! I will sign up to get the newest episode delivered by owl to my inbox!

Heck yeah! I will leave a review because I know how much it help

Speaker 1:

Hello, we are interrupting the regular scheduled podcast because I think it is so important to talk about what is happening in Gaza and Israel right now and I know for many folks it is everywhere, and then for other folks it's something that they feel so far away from and it is heart-wrenching to watch, and so it's something that you avoid. So my challenge is, in the next 15 minutes we are going to dive in to how do we talk to our kids about war and, specifically, how do we talk to our kids about the violence that is happening right now? And I think there are two instincts that, as a parent and as a person, we generally have, and also as a war veteran, I know these instincts, and when something incredibly horrific is happening, it is a normal human response to fight or to flight, and so that's just how our bodies are made that we will instinctively run towards something or run away from it, and neither one is anything more valuable or less valuable than a human instinct. So, as people, right now, we just want to acknowledge that some part of us may want to run towards it, and then another part of us might want to ignore it, but neither one of these things serves our children well, and so I want to center the dignity of our children right now, at any age, and also the future that we are building. So, in order to build a future, we need kids who are being respected enough and cared for enough to be welcomed into the reality of what our world is living through right now. They are part of our community, they are part of our worldwide team humanity of 8 billion, and it does not serve them to ignore them when we're talking about hard things. So everything is age appropriate.

Speaker 1:

What I want you to know, as someone who lived through a war. I waged war, I was part of the Prampto Strike in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2004. So 397 days I waged war and when I came home I had two beautiful babies, really fast, because when you don't know if you're going to live until lunchtime, things get real clear. And me and my partner knew that. We knew who we were and we knew what we wanted. So I came back for more and we got engaged, like three months later, married in six months, we're pregnant with our first baby by a year we're adding to our family by adoption, when our first was like eight months old. But it was all intentional.

Speaker 1:

So I have been talking to my sons about war for since they were toddlers, because if you've ever had a toddler they get into the gun phase really fast and that happened for us also. So they were small and they were into the gun phase and then they were also potty training so we had a lot of quality time. So I was having these conversations about what's war, mommy? What's a gun do? What gun did you use? Did you kill anybody in the war? Because kids have no filter and in the truest sense they understand that guns kill.

Speaker 1:

So I had those conversations really young and you can read about them and laugh with me and be horrified with me. In my book it's like chapter four that I go through the adventures of that time. But it was also really foundational for me because I knew that, unlike many parents, I could not escape the conversation and because I knew what war does to the people who are doing the violence, seeing the violence and being part of it. I knew that their humanity was on the line. I knew that I needed to give them conversations that I was never offered as I was growing up.

Speaker 1:

There's so much that isn't said to kids and I believe that they deserve their hearts, their souls, their minds, their bodies. They deserve to be told about some things that are in their world, because they're picking up on it. Whether you boldly, unapologetically, say what's happening, they understand things are happening. So my encouragement is to have the conversation, and it can be age appropriate, but do not ignore it, because what we lose are kids who are wholehearted and aware of their power for good. And those are two things that are essential for resilience in kids. They need to be aware of what is happening with words, because otherwise their body feels it and they know something is off, but they don't know what, and that can be scary and hard when it's spoken up about. There's a relief to that, because what they're feeling on the inside is matching what is being told to them on the outside. And secondly, when they know they have a power for good, that creates resilience and it knits them into the community of humanity that they matter and they have power for good and they have power to show up when things are hard, and that all roots them in a belief that the world is good and even when it's not it's, they have the power to make it good. So that's kind of the foundation of what to do. So when I first started talking about war with my kids, they were like two and three, and their first march they ever went to was probably when they were in kindergarten, in first grade. It was in 2014 when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson and his mother asked everybody to say his name and to honor him, and so that was the first time they had been out at a vigil.

Speaker 1:

Vigils can be prayer, they can be prayers, they can be protest, but it always involves a community coming together to acknowledge a loss, typically to violence, and then also to link arms and say that that life mattered and we as a community are stronger together. And typically there's always, I feel like this little light of mine and Amazing Grace tends to be sung at these events, which is wild because, if you come from a churchy background, those are the songs that we sing in Sunday school Sunday school, this little light of mine and it is powerful. So we started going to things when they were pretty young and now they are in high school. So talking to high schoolers about what is happening in Gaza and Israel is much the same that you would at different ages, so I always start with hey, there is fill in the blank of what's going on Right now it's Israel and Gaza. And I say, hey, I have no idea if you've heard about this, but there is something happening. Fill in the blank, what have you heard?

Speaker 1:

So, first, you always ask them what they know and for a lot of kids, they're on the internet for Pete's sake, so they need to know something and they already know something. And so always ask what they know. And then, two, I ask them would you like the short version or the long version? And for each one of my kids, they typically ask for something different. So that's giving, it's checking in with them to know what they want to know and what their capacity is to know at that minute. And that is a way to honor their personality, honor just where they're at with it, and give them options. And then, lastly, I always offer and invite them a way to take action, because this is where they find their power, this is where the world is not being done to them, but they are actively part of the good, of their faith, of the community, of our country, of the world house, as Martin Luther King called it. They are actively being part of the beloved community. So there's always a place to take action.

Speaker 1:

And when I talked to my kids about Gaza and Israel, first, when I asked them what they know, I found out they didn't really know much and I gave them a short history. That started after the Holocaust, after World War II, in 1948, when the states, the people who won World War II, created a state, for basically they were all the refugees Jewish refugees from the camps and also from the countries, because they had been expelled and their homes and their businesses in their land had been taken over or looted in their home countries. So they had nowhere to go. So it was a solution. So I start there and I give them the simple points about 1948, and then also that on October 7th Hamas, a terror group, a Palestinian terror group, committed a horrific act of terror and took 1400 Israeli lives to 134 hostages. And I tell them about the response that Israel has decided to make civilians, palestinians, pay for what the terrorist group, and to date they have killed over 5000 children and over 9000 people. And then, lastly, I give them an action step. So for what we did is we made cards for our local synagogue and a loaf of bread and we made a card for our local mosque and a loaf of bread to be neighbors to show up to say we are thinking of you and your neighbors, we love you and we are so sorry. So those are the three things Ask them what they know and then give them age appropriate information, the short version or the long version, and then give them an action step.

Speaker 1:

I think it's really important and I think we can do it as parents and we can do it as a community. And when I was growing up I think that here's the biggest truth I know we either arm our kids for peace or they will be recruited for the next war, the next culture war, the next religious war, the next political war. I definitely had been recruited to political and religious wars before I was 18. So by the time I got deployed to Iraq, I already knew that I couldn't find Iraq on a map, but I knew somehow that invading this country was justice, that if we took lives it was righteous, it was on behalf of our God and our country and the good guys. Now being in war is where I saw that not much of this stacked up and not much of it was true, and we now know there were no weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the perpetrators of 9-11, 15 of them were from Saudi Arabia. None of them were from Iraq.

Speaker 1:

So I believe that we as people right now, as people of conscience, as people of goodwill, that we need to speak up and we need to acknowledge what is happening and refuse the simple story that there's good guys and there's bad guys. The bad is always violence. People are not the enemy. The violence is the enemy and the enemy, and violence always needs us to participate. Violence can't do anything on its own. It needs us to pull the trigger. It needs us to use speech that dehumanizes, it needs us to pull the trigger and to launch the bombs. So if this is a people problem, then we, the people, can be the solution.

Speaker 1:

So I, when I was raising my kids, whenever something bad would happen, we would show up for that community. We didn't need to know anything. We didn't need to like know enough to be in agreement or not. It had zero to do with agreement. It had everything to do with us believing that everyone was in our jurisdiction to love. And whenever violence harmed a community, we would show up, because love can never be silent. So I'm going to read you. So one of the things is that I did in I brought my kids to a mosque when there was the Christ church shooting, where 50 people were killed when they showed up for prayers on a Friday in a Muslim mosque, and we brought our kids to the synagogue when there was the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, where there was 11 people killed and more wounded. So each time something happened we showed up for our neighbors and I think that was the game changer, because instead of hearing the names of these, of what, of Muslim, of shooting, they actually got to meet their neighbors. So I really want to read you this little part from my book. But yeah, I'm going to do it. So this is the first time I had ever taken my kids to a mosque.

Speaker 1:

So the Friday, after I picked up my sons from school and driven to the mosque, my hands gripped the steering wheel as I sat in the parking lot staring straight ahead. If I had been by myself I would have stayed in the parking lot, too nervous to walk in, but I wanted my kids to know the neighbors they'd been told to fear, to experience relationships instead of separateness. Turning to look at my older son in the back seat, I caught a little hint of his bravery and I cracked my car door open. We held hands while inching across the icy parking lot toward the door. We walked in the entrance and pried off our winter boots to put them in the pile of shoes and boots. A man smiled at my husband, jake, in motion for him and the boys to follow him through the entrance for males up to the service. I stayed with the women.

Speaker 1:

The service wasn't at all what I had expected. Children gallivanted through the rows of kneeling, adults leaning on random backs like a bird finding a familiar perch to rest on. For the closing prayer, worshippers stretched out their stocking feet to touch the nearest foot of the neighbor. On either side of them, the neat rows of individuals praying were now connected by the zigzag of each person's outstretched feet. As this prayer ended the service, I witnessed the joy of a community celebrating togetherness at the end of a long week.

Speaker 1:

As my sons and I gathered with the women in the back after the service, while the men stayed up front talking, a smiling woman named Bridget asked me would your boys like a cookie? I said yes, feeling so grateful to her for taking the first step towards me and talking to me, breaking the ice with cookies and small talk. When we were back in the car and driving home, I lobbed a question in the back seat what do you guys think of the mosque? Bridger quickly replied I really liked Bridget, mom, and the carpet was so soft. And did you see? They let kids play and make noise right in the middle of the service. You liked Bridget because she gave you three cookies instead of one. Bridger, I knew my sons and food was their currency of friendship. The moment we walked in, our sons had been surrounded with welcome. I was so surprised by how much it moved me to see children so celebrated in a place of worship. I felt wrapped in love just watching these women make a big deal over my shy sons. Now I knew that when my sons heard the word Muslim or mosque, they would think of Bridget a face instead of just a word. It also meant something to them now. It meant neighbors and friendship. That was the first time they had ever met one of their neighbors who also happened to be Muslim.

Speaker 1:

So I think that we have a chance to not only remind our kids that the same, the hate that exists, we can always identify and call out because it harms our neighbors. Anti-semitism is wrong and we call it out every time because it harms our Jewish neighbors. Islamophobia that causes hate crimes against our Muslim neighbors is always wrong and we call it out and we show up together. And anytime we hear hate rhetoric, no matter what the person's faith is whether they are Christians, buddhists, atheists we don't care If they are using words that are violent towards our neighbors. We call that out too, and I think this is a simple way that we anchor our children in our communities and they know what's happening in the world, but we also equip them to know that when they see these things, good will always overcome the darkness, the badness, that they can always use their voice for good, because they're going to watch us as adults boldly talk about the harm of violence and hate and also what we do when we see it. So this is how we wage peace, this is how we activate justice and we instigate joy by committing courageous acts right where we live.

Speaker 1:

So continue to look for ways to talk to your kids about what's going on. Amin, gaza and Israel. These are things that we don't want them to be 20 or 30 and have amnesia, where they have no idea what their neighbors were going through, that they have no idea that there were hate crimes in the US right after October 7th, that they have no idea that 9,000 Palestinians have been killed, that they have no idea that 1,400 Israelis were killed in a terrorist attack. These are part of our human story of violence and we can un-make that same violence. So I want to thank you for being brave.

Speaker 1:

It can be a small thing, it can be a card, a loaf of bread, it can be one conversation.

Speaker 1:

But one of my friends texted me the other night and she said, diana, she's like I would never have talked to my son about what's happening in Israel and Gaza or war, if it hadn't been for the way that you've said that we can do it and your book shows us how.

Speaker 1:

And so she showed me how, when her son had brought something up, she had talked about war and about how we can choose to not kill people, even when they do wrong things, and she is giving her sons a different way to see themselves and see the world. So we can do this and, just to recap, we can talk to our kids about Israel and Gaza. The three ways we do it is one, we ask them what they know, and then, two, we give them the short version, age appropriate, or the long version, age appropriate, and then, three, take action, whether it is going to a march, whether it is signing a petition or making a card for someone in your neighborhood. I am so grateful for you. I believe that Waging Peace is how we create a future that's worthy of our children. So, thank you so much. See you next week.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Diana K Oestreich

Host