A couple weeks ago I saw my first #ThreetoFlee video of a dad with his kids talking about refugees. I immediately realized this might be a good activity for all of us to do on our own or with our kids to talk about the global refugee crisis, especially as it is so close to home on the US and Mexican border. However, it wasn’t until I began talking with my kids about refugees with the #ThreeToFlee challenge by World Relief that I realized this conversation was long overdo.
Talking With Your Kids About Social Issues
The amazing thing about kids is that they are constantly growing, changing, and learning.
And forgetting.
During my stint as a homeschool mama, one of the practices that I found insanely helpful (that I still use) is the concept of “memory pegs”. Imagine your child’s mind is a little like a laundry room. Each time you introduce a new concept or idea, you put up a peg, or a hook on the wall of the laundry room. For the concept to not be forgotten, it must be used. You hang up something on the hook, another conversation, another story, another anything that helps refresh the topic. You keep “hanging” things up on the memory peg, otherwise, it kinda rusts and falls off. Or at least it doesn’t become vital.
It is like this with teaching your kids about social issues. I’ve shown my kids videos about refugee kids in Syria. We’ve read books. We’ve had conversations. We’ve “hung things up” on the memory peg of “refugees” (or so I thought).
But then, when I brought up the #ThreeToFlee challenge they were like, “What is a refugee?”
Sigh. Oh. I guess that peg has been rusting, has it? I probably haven’t even talked about it with my five-year-old.
Thankfully, though, it didn’t take them too long to remember what a refugee was. We talked about how there are more refugees in the world than at any other time. At the end of 2018, there were almost 71 million refugees in the world, which is kinda insane (see here)!
We talked about how “refugees” is usually used as a generic term and about the legal terms, like “Internally Displaced Person”. We talked about how the United States is currently approaching amnesty-seekers and about the refugees on the US and Mexico border (which you can read about here).
But mostly, we talked about what it would be like to be a refugee.
What is the #ThreeToFlee Challenge?
And that is the whole point of the #ThreeToFlee challenge, to create awareness for what is going on with those having to flee their homes because of war, conflict, blackmail, famine, drought, etc… World Relief recognized that the best way for us to begin caring about refugees is by giving us a chance to put ourselves in their shoes and begin thinking like a refugee might have to.
To do the #ThreeToFlee challenge, you take a video (or post) about the three things you would bring with you if you were fleeing your home. What would help you survive? Go the farther? Where you live, would you walk on foot? Is it cold? Hot? Would money help you?
Then you tag someone and try to get them to do it too. Why? Because you want awareness of the global refugee crisis to expand. And that can’t happen unless people talk about it.
Was it Worth Doing the #ThreeToFlee Challenge With My Kids?
I was actually really thankful for this chance to talk about refugees with my kids. Like I already mentioned, I didn’t realize that we needed to “hang” something on this memory peg again, and this was a simple way to do it that all my kids could participate in. It was also a safe and kinda fun conversation, despite the fact that I was trying to help expand our compassion through #ThreeToFlee.
Overall, I would highly recommend using this as a way to talk with your kids about refugees. At the end of it, I also recommend asking them if they have any ideas of how to love refugees more (or what they wish someone would love them if they were a refugee).
Our #ThreeToFlee Challenge Video
My other kids didn’t join us in our video, but throughout this post you can see pictures we took with them and their #ThreetoFlee choices.
Your Turn to do #ThreeToFlee!
Can you do this challenge too in order to help expand awareness of the refugee crisis? It should take you about five to fifteen minutes to do!
World Relief also has these simple instructions and a blurb you can copy if you want.
Then, of course, check out what World Relief is doing to help refugees.
As always, tag me in your social media post @AverageAdvocate (on Instagram, Feacebook, Twitter, wherever) so I can cheer you on! You can also let me know what was hard, fun, or easy about it.
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9 Ways to Help Syrian Refugees
Baby Carriers for Syrian Refugees
