When your six year old asks if the sun is going to explode someday, the answer is not “yes.”
No matter how good the data are.
Isis the Scientist
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People with Shnizz to Say
When your six year old asks if the sun is going to explode someday, the answer is not “yes.”
No matter how good the data are.
Actually, it won’t. Not that it helps us much, to be sure. http://www.universetoday.com/18847/life-of-the-sun/
Don’t worry. Someday Little Isis will think it’s cool that the Earth is scheduled for a fiery death.
I’m curious, what is the answer – for a curious six-year old? I guess ‘no’ won’t satisfy him for more than a millisecond.
d.
I’m curious, what IS the answer for a curious six-yr old? I’m guessing ‘no’ won’t satisfy him for more than a millisecond. d.
I suspect “don’t worry dear, we’ll all be long dead by then” wouldn’t really help either…
I followed the “don’t worry we’ll be all long dead” approach. They asked 55 more questions, ensured that the humanity would colonize other stars by that time, and had a new topic for their pretend play that day. It’s OK to answer “yes” I guess =)
Explode/Devour the Earth in a fiery inferno. You say tomato…
I definitely followed Arseny’s tactic–we’ll be dead and our decendents will be far far away from the carnage. The munchkins (5 and 7) were cool with that. They are, however, still frustrated that I won’t explain the mechanics of _how_ the sperm gets to the egg–but I think their peers aren’t ready, even if they are.
When my daughter was five, she wanted to become astronaut and was able to read by herself. She read everything she could on “space, planets,etc.” and watched every documentary about space. One evening, before going to sleep she came to me and told me that the sun will explode in 5 billions years and that there was a bigger chance that earth will be hit by a meteorite before that”
.I asked her if she was scared: “I think that humans will not be living on earth by that time… so I don’t really care”… then she asked me to stay in her room becaus she was scared about witches and ghosts even if she said that she knew they did not exist…but still, she was scared.
At nine, now, she is scared of burglars and murtherers (we live in Canada, so we are less concerned about “crazy gunment”).
So I guess that fear is not very rational…and we always have a “reason” to express anxiety.
haaaaaaa!!!!! sorry I just envisioned that same moment with my 8 year old and trying to get out the door to school on time…..my sympathies are with you Dr Isis……
What about “yes, unless you become a scientist and figure out how to stop it”? /evil parent
Yep, that’s a good one. It is not that evil actually; I have to use it every time they ask me about death, global warming, or cloning of dinosaurs.
@sopia – have had similar experiences with my kids (different topics) – I guess that it just goes to show that what kids think is important is not necessarily what the parents think the kids think is important. Maybe the best strategy is to ask them what they think, then go from there.
There is always the urban myth about the kid who asks ‘where did i come from’ and the parents get all uptight about the reproduction story, and all he/she wants to know is which city he/she was born in. We should never jump to conclusions about what a kid actually wants to know, or what they may be afraid of.
(I can totally understand that witches or burglars are a more immediate threat, in the middle of the night, than the sun exploding in millions of years’ time).
d.
“When the sun runs out of hydrogen to burn and has to start burning helium and the gravitational pressure causes…”
“Never mind, dad.”
That’ll teach ‘em to ask an existential question!
@joemac53 … ha ha ha – that would have just sparked a whole heap more ‘why’ questions in my kids …..it wouldn’t have stopped them. It would have taught Dad and Mum a lesson, trying to be too clever.
d.