Today, I want to circle back to a point I made very briefly in the post on our trip to the Smithsonian: Explaining to the children that you have adopted from Russia that the United States and Russia have not always been the best of friends. (Apologies to my non-U.S. readers, but some of what I am going to say here will also be applicable to your countries.)

Don't worry, I'm not going to launch into some long dissertation about U.S.-Russian relations. There are folks who do that for a living, and I am not one of them. But before my kids hit the chapter on Russia in their social studies and world history books, I want to make sure they hear about this topic at home. My older son can recognize President Vladimir Putin when he sees his picture in the newspaper or on the computer screen, and usually asks me why he is in the news. And on Monday, when I did a little gasp as I read the story of George Koval and why he was being honored by Putin, my older son wanted a full run-down on the news of this American spy for Russia.

The simple fact is that, sometimes the U.S. and Russia have been on good terms, sometimes we have not. Kids understand the word "friend" pretty early on, and they learn that even good friends have bad days. And they understand that there are some people you just don't want to be friends with, even on a good day. My little guy, who devours books on the world's airplanes, went through a phase of not wanting to read about any aircraft identified as belonging to an enemy. It proved an interesting springboard to talk about friendship because I could point out that some planes belonged to a country that we thought was an enemy when they were built, but that now that country is a friend.

My kids also grasp by now that an individual is different from a government and that we can be friends with individuals even if we're not quite sure we want to be best buddies with their government. Heck, by now they understand that sometimes their mom doesn't consider her own government a friend, although that is a topic for a different blog entirely.

So tell me, how have you talked to your kids about the relationship between the U.S. and Russia?

Image credit: ŠP.Winberg at Morguefile.com