Though sometimes I describe Urban as his own natural disaster, he has become increasingly obsessed with actual natural disasters. He wants to know so much about what happens and how. It started out innocently enough with questions about thunderstorms and lightening. But soon it developed into an obsession with tornadoes.
We try to talk frankly with him. We tell him about wall clouds and the different kinds of cloud formations within a storm. We go online and look at scientific pictures of storms. For a while he even proclaimed that he was going to be a weatherman.
Then, last spring, he happened to walk into the living room when I was watching coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. "What happened? Why is the ocean in the streets now? Where did the buildings go?" He wandered around for days talking about earthquakes and tsunamis and waves crashing into buildings. He never seemed that scared, just interested and concerned. We talk about the people effected by the disasters and how other people, heroes, rush to their aid and try to help.
The earthquake fascination faded quickly and "normal" boy obsessions took over again. Especially lava. Lots and lots of lava. It shoots out of his hands, it fills our living room and the bad guys have to jump in it. Lava is everywhere, it seems.
So, the other night at dinner when he turned to me and asked, "Mama, did people make lava?" I wasn't surprised, but, as with other questions, I had the brief internal struggle of how much is too much information? I remember sitting at a parents' conference last year that focused on gifted kids, and they said, "Answer the questions until they stop asking. Don't over-inform, but don't blow it off either." So I told him about volcanoes. Which led to where volcanoes are in the world. Then to what happens to the lava after it comes out of the volcano. We ended up talking about tectonic plates and the earth's molten core.
Then, yesterday, he hears the DJs on the radio talking about the earthquake in Turkey. I have intentionally avoided the coverage to try and avoid all the earthquake talk again, but there it was. "Mama? There was another earthquake? Like the one in Japan?"
"Yes."
"Mama? Will there be another tsunami?"
"No." So we talked about how the tectonic plates move to cause the earthquakes. That there are fault lines all over just like seams on his clothes, and that sometimes the plates shift around and it causes the earth to move. They aren't always by oceans, so they don't always cause tsunamis. Sometimes it causes volcanoes to erupt, and most of the time it just causes things to fall off of shelves.
"Mama, if there was an earthquake here, we would run away really fast and you would hold me and keep me safe right?"
Oh, buddy... I assured him that I would always do my best to keep him safe no matter what. And we talked about what you should do if there really was an earthquake. (Which, I assured him, is very unlikely in Minnesota.)
"Mama, I want to see one. On the videos. I want to see what an earthquake feels like."
Ummmm.... so, after some internal debate, last night we sat down together on YouTube and watched videos. We started by watching some beautiful footage of volcanoes and talking about lava and fire and how it makes new land and islands. Then we watched some footage from the earthquake in Turkey. He sat quietly for a while.
"OK, Mama, I think I understand. Can we just watch buildings fall down now?"
So, I pulled up a bunch of building demolition videos, and we ended our night shouting, "AW! COOL!" as skyscrapers fell into piles of controlled rubble.
But I still wonder, how much is too much information? I want to shelter him from all of the painful and frightening things in the world, but I also want him to understand and feel like he is safe. I feel like if I can explain things to him so that they are not big scary unknowns, then maybe he won't be so scared. I hope that's the case, and I guess, that's all I can do... continue to answer questions and hope. And give lots of hugs. There's always hugs...
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