An essential element of any good story is tension or scariness–the conflict. A story without conflict is quite frankly boring. And certainly life as we know it is full of stressful parts that cause us to fear. What should we do then when we are reading a book or watching a movie with our children and it begins to make them feel afraid? In our house, we read and watch the scary parts, too. Here’s why.

Life has its scary moments. As parents we raise our children to be adults. We don’t raise them to hang on to and keep under our wings for the totality of their lives. We raise adults and let them fly the coop. Since life has its scary moments, we do our children no favors by sheltering them from the reality of conflict. Plus, skipping the scary parts deprives them of an essential element of the story. Skip the scary parts and neuter the story of its resolution–the denouement–because what is resolution without conflict?

The way we shepherd our children through the scary parts is by reading them and watching them together. We reassure our daughter, who will be three in a couple of months, that we are there with her and that we’ll read or watch together. Additionally, rather than say “Everything will be alright,” we say “Let’s watch together and see what happens.”

Two reasons for these two actions, reading/watching together and saying “Let’s see what happens.”

We read and watch together to show the importance of having one another–family and close relationships in general. Conflict will come, in stories as in life. A proven response is to cling to family and friends and God. Life is best lived together, in fellowship first with God which fuels secondly healthy, loving relationships with family and friends. We need God and we need each other, especially in scary moments. “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

We say “Let’s see what happens” and not “Everything will be alright” because quite simply everything will not always be alright. While the short stories we read and watch with our children regularly promise peaceful, imminent resolution of conflict the same is not true of life. In God’s grand unfolding narrative in which we live, creation still groans for God’s final setting right of what sin continues to untangle. We are not promised in this life that everything will be alright. Case in point is the life of the One whom we follow, Jesus Christ. With Easter coming up we daren’t tell our children in the course of reading the passion narrative that “everything will be alright.” Everything was not alright. Jesus suffered beyond comprehension as he yielded his will to the Father’s. Nonetheless, he endured. Thus, with the Easter story as with life, we wait to see what will happen. What’s God up to? (Answer: resurrection!)

A disclaimer is in order. Even with the realities of conflict, we do not force our children to read scary books or watch scary movies. Just the other day Poppy began watching Finding Nemo for the first time and Nemo’s disappearance and the pursuit of him by his father proved too much for little eyes. (It is a rather dramatic scene and perhaps especially for children who may fear above all being separated from their parents.) We turned Nemo off. We didn’t endure. We didn’t fast-forward. Maybe we’ll watch later, but we needn’t seek out conflict and scary things. Rather, let us face conflict with one another and see what happens.