World Politics and the Preschool Classroom

Lately, I have been realizing that being a 4 year old is pretty tough. Thing 1's world has opened up a great deal this past year to include cities, other states, countries and other cultures. For the most part, it is wonderful. Thing 1 realizes that that the world is made up of many continents and countries. He realizes that people speak different languages and do things differently than we do and that this is ok. But, sometimes, this experience can also invite problems that I really do not think 4 year olds should know about, much less discuss.

This week, he came home from school very upset. Two boys in his class were playing a game that I understand include putting people in jail. These kids were trying to take Thing 1 prisoner and they were telling him that they did not like Americans and that was why they were putting him in jail. They also kept taunting him with “my country is bigger than yours” type of one upmanship (I smirked at this because he is right – the US is the larger country!) Thing 1 found this to be mean and he did not understand why these kids hate Americans. Thing 1 told me that one of the boys is German and the other Polish. I find this rather amusing because these two countries have the poorest of relations in the EU.

But, it made me sad that at his young age he is experiencing anti-American sentiment in his preschool. No 4 year old should be playing out world politics in a preschool classroom even if that classroom is a miniature version of the UN. I addressed the problem with his teachers This is the second time since we moved here that I have had to explain why some people do not like Americans. The other time was after we got our car and went to the Embassy for the first time.

Every time we enter we need to stop and security inspects the car for explosive devices. Naturally, Thing 1 asked what they were doing and why (he’s at that age). So, between these two incidents, I have had to explain to my 4 year old why there are some people who would like to do us harm. It is sad that this is the world we live in.