OUR COMMUNITY
P
romise Ziegler of Royal Oak joined a
recent webinar presented by JFamily
and Jewish Family Service to find
out how the community was coping with
recent events in Israel and more about how
to help her son, 15, if he came to her about
the news.
Taking part in the “Parenting and Grand-
Parenting in Times of Tragedy: Talking to
our Children about Israel” Zoom event,
she heard from David Kurzmann of Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, as well
as mental health professionals from Jewish
Family Service. She also took part in a
breakout room — there were several divid-
ed by kids’ age — which gave her a better
understanding of how to help him without
overloading or overwhelming him, Ziegler
says.
“They’re encouraging parents not to
overexpose to the news and kind of check if
teenagers are seeing things on their phones,
”
she says. “Because I think for a lot of teen-
agers, they’re really quite smart and they
know about things.
”
Ziegler says the event felt responsive, and
that she was glad to see it acknowledge the
struggles people are going through in trying
to manage the day-to-day realities of both
getting the news and trying to figure out
how much to process.
“They encouraged us not to oversaturate
ourselves with that kind of news,
” she says.
“When you read these stories or follow the
news, it activates these kinds of feelings
where you feel stressed and upset, and par-
ents have to determine if they need to talk
to their kids about it.
”
Ziegler says she came away with ideas
around helping her son filter his media
consumption to the best of her ability and
even how to wonder with kids about what
JFamily and JFS provided a webinar for parents and grandparents about
how to discuss the Israel-Hamas war with children.
Talking to Our Children
About Israel
KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
22 | OCTOBER 26 • 2023 J
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