Related concepts:

AIDS, Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Introduction to HIV:

First the good news: Medical advances have made it possible to decrease the number of children who get AIDS. Nevertheless, HIV infection remains a devastating disease. In the United States, almost all young children who get HIV get it from their mothers. This double infection is more than twice as poignant.

What is HIV?

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) attacks the body’s ability to fight off infections. The severity and time course of HIV can vary widely. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the severe end of the spectrum, when the HIV infection results in other serious infections.

HIV is a tragic illness that profoundly impacts everyone it touches. The one who is sick, loved ones, friends and contacts all deserve understanding and compassion. Unfortunately, misunderstanding abounds and interferes with everyone getting what they need.

Children who are impacted by the disease need to have HIV/AIDS clearly explained at their own level. At my son's elementary school, one of the adults developed active AIDS. Understandably, this generated a great deal of concern from parents, and a great many questions from kids.

I was asked to come and speak to the kindergarten class about AIDS. At the time, they were studying 'the town,' so I decided to compare the human body to a town, with blood vessels as the roads connecting one place to another. I then explained the three main kinds of traffic in the blood - Red Blood Cells (RBC), White Blood Cells (WBC), and platelets. The RBC were the delivery trucks, taking oxygen and nutrients wherever needed. The WBC were the police, protecting the body from infection. Platelets were the repair trucks, fixing the roads (repairing the blood vessels).

Then we played a game. Each child got either a red, white, or brown piece of construction paper to hold as she/he circulated about the room. I announced that there was a cut, and a few of the RBC tumbled off the road as the platelets rushed to stop the flow. Next, cold germs invaded the nose, the police were called, and the WBC came and stopped the infection. Once the children understood this simple model of the body, they were ready to understand AIDS.

HIV is a virus that attacks the WBC. We introduced someone pretending to be HIV into our circulation, and many WBC were incapacitated. Then, when other germs attacked, the body got very sick, and eventually died. The children got the basic idea quite well. I explained that no true cure for AIDS has been discovered yet, but that there are ways to keep people much healthier much longer. We even talked about what a cure for AIDS might look like, and acted out some possibilities.

We then encouraged the children to ask whatever they were wondering about. When you explain HIV to your child, allow plenty of time for this. Honor questions. We always want our children to feel great about coming to us with their concerns. If a child asks a question, assume he/she is mature enough to hear an honest answer at the appropriate level.

The most urgent question for my son's class was, "How do you get it?" The virus lives in blood and other body fluids.