Educating preschool children about violence and nature and spiriuality

How did you deal with questions of violence (as in animals attacking other animals) and meat coming from animals, etc.

We eat so little meat in our house (maybe once a week - poultry or fish). Several months ago my husband took our now 3 1/2 year old son to the famous La Brea tar pits where there is a museum full of fossils of animals that have been stuck in the tar ... prehistoric animals among others. He saw a still shot he saw as part of a movie in the La Brea Tar Pits of a saber tooth tiger attacking a horse that got stuck in the mud? We've been trying to answer his questions with simplicity and yet sensitively about these subjects but they're really looping in his mind.

In nature violent things happen and it directly contradicts all that we tell him about violence at home. A few weeks ago on our annual family trip to Yosemite National Park, he saw a diarama of an Native American carrying a deer kill over his shoulders and our son has been OBSESSING about it. Moreover, he doesn't know about death so when we explained that the 'indian' (his words from school.... sigh) ate the deer he was repelled and then he had all kinds of questions about the if the deer was "sad when they were biting on him?" and where was the deers mommy and daddy? Ethan then asked.... are you ready for this one.... WHY ARE THE INDIANS BAD TO THE EARTH????

And so mommy on the spot improvises a parable about how the Native American people lived in a place where they could grow food in the summer and gather herbs and fruit but when winter time came there was no more food so they asked Mother Earth to send them some food to feed their children. Mother Earth sent them the deer and they were so grateful to have food for their whole village with this one deer that they wasted nothing... they used the fur for clothes, the antlers for flutes, the hooves for cups, etc.

He asked again if the deer was sad when they were 'biting on him' which I realized later was a response also to having seen the saber tooth tiger on the horse's back in the tar pit... finally I told him that the deer went to a deep sleep so that it wouldn't hurt and he was happy to know that he could feed the children. He's now back to the wild cat and since he doesn't understand extinct (though we've tried to explain past and present) he's confused.

I don't have clear answers but I am aware that I'm trying to give him the simplicity of very difficult concepts that many people never come to peacefully. For hundreds and hundreds of years humankind has considered these issues and tried to make themselves comfortable with these concepts let alone put them into bite sized concepts for a small mind.

Obama's lack of baggage may help him sail through security

The following letter to the editor was written by my good friend and colleague Stan Froelich.

Inexperience may be advantage for Obama From Stan Froelich

(Regarding John Fortier’s column, “The secret Obama meeting,” Feb. 28.)

THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2007
THE HILL

Hey, John, be careful what you think you want;
you may get it.
The inexperienced Obama is truly inexperienced.
JFK, who was also woefully inexperienced, represented a hunger
against the generation of Eisenhower/Nixon and the 1950s to a
new generation of politics that Nixon underestimated
badly. That was Nixon’s election to win, fairly easily — then television
killed him politically.

Republicans want to face Clinton with
all her baggage, but Obama represents an
enigma wrapped in a puzzle they can’t
figure out. Other than his inexperience,
there’s nothing on him. No record, no
nothing. If this country elected Bush with
no international experience and certainly
no real interest beyond Texas, then
Obama may become the Republican
nominee’s worse nightmare. A whole
year is a long time in American politics
and America will get tired of Clinton, and
Rudy, too. And Obama is new and fresh,
and a year or two won’t make him old
news as the world finds out about him.
Something else that’s very important,
too: Republican evangelicals will be destroyed
politically if Rudy gets the nomination.
Then Rudy won’t need them and
they will become irrelevant to a man
whose social values they don’t share.
Rudy is his own man. That’s what most
people hated about him when he was
mayor. It’s also what makes him an attractive
presidential candidate.
As president, Rudy could appoint as
many [judicial] conservatives as he
wants, but they will be more like Justice
Kennedy or Justice Souter. If Rudy gets
elected there’s a good chance that evangelicals
will be in the political wilderness
for eight years.
Again: Watch out, evangelical conservatives;
be careful of what you think is conservative.
Rudy will discard you like an
old shoe.
- New York City

Original article can be found here

I'm training for the June 3rd San Diego marathon and in the spirit of today's LA Marathon I'm putting it out there that I'm on the path. . . literally.

This past weekend we trained up some nasty hills in Simi Valley -- miles 2-4 were straight up hill. . . we had a mile to catch our breath and then sent us up another hill. . . it was a butt burner to say the least...

More than that it started a conversation with myself, an epiphany and then a decision... it goes something like this, "I have done harder things than this. Of course, those were bigger risks in my head not my body. My body is more than just a life support system for my head/ my brain." It was then that I decided that I owed it to myself and my family to stop letting my brain put limits on the capacity of my body. Then an image of someone passing me on this hill in a wheelchair. I can do this, I just decided it. I decided that I owe myself, my loving husband and my beautiful son a long life, an active life and the kind of spirit that knows I can clear that hill. And with that, I got my ass to the top of the hill and ran down and around til I made it to the finish -- 8 miles!

Please consider supporting me:
Here's my page: http://www.active.com/donate/tntgla/AliSimard