Parenting Matters - Column

When are we going to the parade?" Miss Four whined for the umpteenth time.
And for the umpteenth time I replied: "There is no parade."
Dressed in red leggings and a red fairy-winged singlet, with black ribbons in her hair, she was struggling to understand the concept of Black and Red day.
"It's for Christchurch, to let them know we are thinking of them," I tried to explain.
But in a pre-schooler's head, getting dressed up meant there had to be some sort of occasion.
On the way to kindy I asked her what she knew about the earthquake.
"The buildings fell down and people died," she said, matter-of-factly.
"They will have to build them again properly so they don't fall down again," she added, scuffing her pink sandals on the pavement.
Her response surprised me. Because as the horrifying events of February 22 unfolded on the television screen in front of us 10 days previously, all she could say was: "It's boring, turn it off."
The next day, while playing with her toy animals, she directed a scene where the animals were in a church and the church fell down. But in her enactment there was a happy ending. "Nobody died Mum," she reassured me.
In her young mind she was trying to piece everything together.
Across Tauranga and New Zealand her young peers were doing the same. Reuben, 4, who lives in The Avenues, said he was sad, because he had seen a photo of a 5-year-old boy who had died. He wanted to know when the next earthquake was going to be so he could get everyone out before it happened.
His younger brother Christian, 3, stuck to the facts: "The ground shaked, cracked and wobbled and the houses smashed into people."
Lara, 5, of Otumoetai, told her mum: "I have been watching the Christchurch earthquake on TV and I have been thinking ... I would like to take the money in my piggybank and give it to the people in Christchurch."
Emily, 5, of Brookfield, wrote a prayer list at Sunday School:
1. That the people can have a roof so it doesn't rain on them.
2. I pray the people will be okay.
3. Pray for all them people helping.
Zara, 4, of Bethlehem, waited three days before saying : "The earth we live on can break." And a few hours later asked whether her neighbour's granddaughter, who lives in Christchurch, had died in the earthquake.
"They take in more than your think," her mum said.
And they give out more than they know.