There is just no telling what you are going to hear come out of a four year old’s mouth.
One day in October some
years ago a little girl ran over to me on the playground. Horror was on her
face and she was so overwrought that she couldn’t talk. She shook with breathless sobs. My co-teacher and I looked her over,
searching for wounds, gushing blood, broken limbs, something that would help us
understand what was wrong.
“Take a breath and try to tell us what
happened,” we teachers said. “Where do
you hurt? What’s wrong?” But she just shook and cried. We had no clue.
After several minutes of
asking questions that got no answers we called over the little girls who had
been playing nearby to see if they knew anything. Timidly, two little girls came to us. The tiniest girl in the class looked at me
with quivering lips and she tried to explain.
But words failed her, too.
“Did she fall?” I
asked. The little girl shook her head.
“Did you hurt her?” my
co-teacher asked.
Finally, one of the two
girls spoke up. “We were just playing
witches, that’s all. And we said it was
time for lunch. And we said witches
usually eat people for lunch, and Hannah thought we were going to eat her. But we were just pretending. I promise we
weren’t going to eat her. I promise.”
I asked Hannah, “Did you
think the girls were going to eat you?”
She stopped shaking long enough to finally whisper, “Yes.” I gave her a hug and reassured her that it
was just a pretend game, and that the other little girls were her friends. There were hugs all around. The crying stopped, and Hannah was ready to
run back and play.
The remorse-stricken,
pretend little witch looked like she expected a prison sentence to be handed
down for causing so much anguish and wailing.
I whispered to her that when they play pretend maybe she should make
sure that everyone playing the game knows it is pretend. She nodded soberly and went back to join the
other girls.
Cannibalism is just not a
big problem in preschool and as teachers, we were pretty sure that the two
little girls were not planning to really eat their friend. I’m sure the girls
never even guessed that Hannah would believe
it and be terrified. But Hannah took it at face value.
It is hard for preschoolers to
sort out fact and fantasy. There is such
a fuzzy line between real and pretend when you are young. Some things that we consider very obviously
pretend aren’t so obvious when you are three or four. Television, movies, games, all look so real
when they show scary creatures, and it’s hard not to think that everything is
just how it looks. Especially at
Halloween we invite ghosts and witches into our family rooms, and bats and
vampires on to our porches. We need to
make sure our preschool children understand how much is just pretend.
Pretend is actually a good
thing at times. Learning to play make-believe can be an important step in the
creative process. But it is important to
also talk a lot about what is real, and what might look real but is only a
pretend story, like witches having children for lunch.
Children actually love
Halloween and dressing up as a pretend character, and they so want you to believe
they are the real super hero, fireman or princess. Children even love things that are just the
tiniest bit scary, but only when the scariness is in control, like shouting
“Boo” at the end of a song about ghosts.
Even babies like “peek-a-boo” games. But scary is only fun when children
feel genuinely safe, and talking to preschoolers about it can make the
difference. No one wants to believe they
might be eaten on the playground.
© Diane L. Mangum 2000
