What Children Don’t Know Can Hurt Them
Being a parent can seem a never- ending series of difficult conversations. Difficult because your children, at every age, confront situations that are complex or even dangerous long before you are ready for that to happen. The hard part is knowing how much to tell them, how early.
That has been a concern in the families of many young athletes after the case of Lawrence G. Nassar, the former U. S. A. Gymnastics doctor who has pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault. In all, he has been accused of abuse by 265 young women and girls, including Olympic stars.
So what to tell a young girl who heads to the gym with dreams of becoming the next Simone Biles?
“It’s a tricky situation,” Adelia Matson of California, whose daughter Macy is a gymnast, told The Times. “I have definitely talked to her about abuse, but she’s as innocent as they come as far as a 12-year- old. It’s a bit of a balancing act of how to talk to them without revealing too much that they don’t need to know yet, but that they know how to protect themselves.”
Laura Palumbo of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center said it is a misconception that these conversations are too advanced for children. “In reality, the more information that we can give children from an early age about understanding your bodies and your boundaries and what types of touch are appropriate — not only does it give your child that information, it also lets them know that these are safe topics to talk to you about,” she said.
Brandy Bauman, who owns a gym in Las Vegas, said parents must be open to such talks, “not just in sports — it’s at church and in school. It’s ev- erywhere you are trusting someone else with your child.”
Race is another painful topic that many parents would rather avoid. But some are forced into it now because of a child’s plaything: a superhero’s mask.
After the much-awaited release of the movie “Black Panther,” it’s not just black children who are buying costumes. Parents are divided about how much to bring race into conversations about the story, set in an African nation called Wakanda that has no history of white colonization.
“I’m conflicted,” said Evan Narcisse, who is writing a comic series that traces the character’s early history. “You want that white kid to be able to think that he can dress up in a Black Panther costume, because, to that kid, there’s no difference between Captain America and Black Panther.”
But, he told The Times, it involves “trying to explain what is special about T’Challa and Wakanda without racism. And it’s like, ‘Can’t do it.’ ”
Brigitte Vittrup, a professor at Texas Woman’s University, says you shouldn’t try. “Kids are not colorblind,” she said. “There’s a lot of structural inequality in our society, and kids are noticing that. By not mentioning it, by not talking about it, we’re essentially preserving the status quo.”
And children are often eager to deal with grown-up issues sooner than you realize. In Kansas, six teenagers have announced their candidacies for governor, even though some are not yet old enough to vote for themselves. They are speaking on big issues like what they see as the state’s financial mismanagement.
They are realistic about their chances, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t serious.
“The day a 17-year- old wins governor of any state will be the day pigs fly,” one of the candidates, Joseph Tutera, told The Times. But “hey, we’re here, we’ve got ideas.”