Dear Kerry,
The other day my 3 year old asked, “What’s new about New Year’s?” and my 6 year old told him, “I don’t know, since there are lots of new years, like Chinese and Jewish.” Then they both turned to me, and I wondered how to answer them. Any suggestions?
LB, Brighton

Dear LB,
It sounds like you have children who listen to the words they hear and ask real questions — what a pleasure for you and their teachers! You have clearly given them the message that curiosity is a welcome strength. That is a life lesson that they will be able to use in every situation.

When children ask us those questions that don’t have an obvious answer, one response is to turn it back to them, for instance, asking them, “Well, what do you think about ‘new’? What makes something seem new? What do you notice that’s new these days?”

Here in Michigan one new thing to notice around Jan. 1 is that the days are already beginning to get longer. Even though our winter will last for another three or four months, there’s more light each morning and night. Talking about that allows for activities like looking up and tracking times for dawn and dusk and the science of why the days change. The way that every culture includes light in celebrations offers fascinating openings to learn about different people and customs. It also brings in conversation about the cycle of the year and the understanding in every culture about the importance of the sequence of seasons.

There are opportunities there too for history lessons about agricultural societies and how they learned to track the seasons and use their climate and soil well. You can also take this chance to make the parallel between seasons and the life cycle. When you can help children see the natural and universal cycle of life and death, growth and fallowness, you are giving them a framework for encompassing the specific events of change, loss, and death that come up in everyone’s lives.

You can ask your children to remember the steps in how the tree in front of your house changed through the year — first there were only swellings on the little branches; then the tiny green leaves began to show; they got bigger and bigger until the shade was thick; acorns or seeds or propellers grew and began to fall to the ground below; the leaves began to change color and dry out; then they, too, fell to the ground, and now the tree looks bare, sleeping until the spring starts the cycle all over again.

Your 6 year old has been fortunate to learn in school about many different holidays and ‘new’ years. Here is a chance to talk about the rich diversity in the world, where people choose which moment of newness to mark, depending on their traditions and what is important to them. The idea that there are different ways to experience the year and the sequence of seasons, and different expressions of the same feelings gives depth to a value you can convey to your children — people share the challenges of life and constantly find new ways to master and celebrate them. By enjoying that variety, we learn to respect others and what we can learn from them.

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, affiliated with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. She is a founder of Allen Creek Preschool and author, with Jack Novick, of “Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children,” available through http://www.buildemotionalmuscle.com and at amazon.com. She welcomes your email with comments and questions for future columns at kerrynovick@gmail.com.The ideas and opinions in this column are Kerry Kelly Novick’s and do not necessarily represent the views of Allen Creek Preschool, MPI or MPC.