News and the kids...

I remember when my husband was on his first deployment.  He left 4 months before the war in Iraq started.  I couldn't turn off the news.  I slept with it going in my bedroom and I kept it on the living room except when the kids were up and watching it.  My oldest was in the 3rd grade.  In retrospect I probably shouldn't have kept it on like that.

The next 2 deployments, I steadily decreased the amount of the news time that the kids could see.  My son did catch it sometimes and if they mentioned which ever country my husband was in at the time (Iraq or Afghanistan) he would run for the map his daddy had got for us and would look to find where the "action" was they were talking about and see how close it was to where he knew his daddy was.  To be honest, this was actually a really good thing for us.  It helped to keep my son's worry at bay when it wasn't near his daddy and as we had just started homeschooling it often worked into our schooling with history and geography. So how do you deal with news and kids?  Do you shelter them?  Do you let them know little bits and talk with them?  What do you do?

With all that has been going in Afghanistan lately it has me thinking on the families of those in harms way.  Our military families have been heavy on my heart and in my prayers.  Please remember to keep them all, soldiers and families in your prayers.