OMG, vent on 2012 coverage!

[Family Loves Disney]

My sweet little boy with autism was caught watching a show on the SciFi Network on what is going to happen in 2012! Now he is having a panic attack and OCDing on this! He is only 9 yrs old and he does not need to be worrying about this! I explained to him how everyone thought the world was going to come to an end on 1/1/2000 and how nothing happened, that helped, but only a little. How can I ease his mind? My heart is breaking for him.

 

[CheshireSmile]

Oh that poor kid!! I work in a library and I can't believe the number of books I see coming through that all have to do with 2012, it's enough to scare me too! I don't know enough about the predictions to really give you a solid reasoning to use to reassure him. I would say to let him know that the Mayan calendar, which is one of the big predictors of doom in 2012, was figured differently by different parts of the Mayan culture, so they all didn't believe the world was going to end in 2012. Those calendar systems are so old, it's tough to really understand them (they're a rather recent discovery, as far as archaeology is concerned), even for very learned people, otherwise there would be more of a consensus among scholars about what those calendars are predicting. I did read that the present-day descendants of the Mayans do not believe anything significant about 2012 and no longer utilize that calendar, and that the current understanding of an apocalypse would have been an unknown idea to the ancient Mayans. Overall, just reassure him that there is so much we don't understand about history, and there are always people working to understand our past better. That's one great thing about the human race, we're always striving to learn new things! Okay, I'm not sure if any of that is going to reassure your son, so I'll also send

 

[nursegirl]

Poor little guy! It just shows that he is clever and has an excellent imagination. Anyway, thought I'd send through what NASA has to say about this internet hoax: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html. Hope this helps!

 

[Family Loves Disney]

Poor little guy! It just shows that he is clever and has an excellent imagination. Anyway, thought I'd send through what NASA has to say about this internet hoax: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html. Hope this helps!

thanks for posting, I will show it to him when he gets up in the morning. I appreciate it.

 

[indimom]

Point out to him what SciFi stands for "Science FICTION" this is made up cr@p based on a little science...
It's really annoying some of the shows out now. My nephew saw a show that was written to sound like a documentary about dragons and now truly believes they exhisted. Believes to the point that he tries to convince me by telling me where they found the bones (like dinosaurs)... and I'm talking "fire breathing dragons" here not Pteradactyls.

 

[ebtbmom]

My son, who may have GAD he's seeing someone but hasn't been dxed yet, has asked me about this too after he saw something on the internet. I heard about this prophecy about six years ago, I knew about this time people would start freaking out!

I believe what is going to happen is that the Earth will be in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. To the Mayans, this would have been of great ritual significance. They saw 2012 as a period of rebirth and renewal, not doom and gloom. Supposedly it's Westerner's who are putting the doom and gloom spin on it, the Mayans never meant it that way.

And hey, if they could predict our demise why couldn't they predict their own????

 

[my3sons77]

The media coverage on this movie is just ridiculous.

My 9 and 10 year olds ask me about this movie too. More so my 10 year old. My 9 year old says it's stupid. Do they realise what kind of panic they are possibly causing in young children??!! Yes, they have us grown adults to calm them but the thoughts still race through their little minds.

Didn't everybody think the world was going to end on 6-6-06 too? Then there was the Y2K, etc etc. Poor little guy. Tell him not to worry. The movie is just make believe.

Whenever I see something being mentioned about the movie on TV I change the channel. I don't want to hear it, and I don't want my kids to hear it either. Now though they have those stupid bulletin boards on teh side of the road saying 2012, How will you survive?

I can't hide from it anymore.

I wish this movie would just go away.

 

[Bren's Mom]

You can also add George Orwell's 1984 to the discussion. How Orwell thought it would be, and how it really was.

Poor kiddo! Terrible that he's so afraid over this. But I know you'll find the right way to explain to him he does not have to worry.

 

[xipetotec]

My sweet little boy with autism was caught watching a show on the SciFi Network on what is going to happen in 2012! Now he is having a panic attack and OCDing on this! He is only 9 yrs old and he does not need to be worrying about this! I explained to him how everyone thought the world was going to come to an end on 1/1/2000 and how nothing happened, that helped, but only a little. How can I ease his mind? My heart is breaking for him.

That is terrible. Furthermore this whole 2012 is just blown out of proportion nonsense from people who don't know what they are talking about.

Barring the fact that i had already read all about the so-called 2012 ending. It's just an ending to the Mayan Calendar cycle. Furthermore, when we were in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, we had a tour guide who is of Mayan descent. ( Because contrary to popular belief, the Mayans are not extinct! They were largely assimilated, but they are still around ) And he spoke about this and how the whole 2012 fear is not accurate. That all it means is that Mayan Calendar worked in cycles, and that the current cycle of the last calendar the had ended in what is equivalent to dec 2012. But this did not mean anything abysmal like this, it just meant that a new calendar cycle would then start. But the Mayan astrologers who would have created the new calendar cycle are no longer around to do so.

The only other thing that people feared would have some sort of effect on the planet is a complete planetary alignment, which NASA has confirmed is total bunk.

So you can tell your son that your friend on The DIS talked to an actual MAYAN who told him there's nothing to worry about

 

[tinkerfan1]

"And hey, if they could predict our demise why couldn't they predict their own????"

My sentiments exactly!

 

[xipetotec]

"And hey, if they could predict our demise why couldn't they predict their own????"

My sentiments exactly!

Well To Be Fair ( and I re-iterate I don't buy into the 2012 thing AT ALL, read a couple of entries above ). The idea is not that they were some kind of amazing fortune tellers. The IDEA is that their knowledge of astrology and the stars showed that some sort of celestial cataclysm would happen. This has nothing to do with who or what would invade them.

That being said, they did not believe in a world ending cataclysm, it's just the end of a calendar cycle. i.e. no biggie.

 

[Kies99]

On a side note, the guy who is "credited" with calculating the whole 2012 thing actually revised his calculations to be 2087. Used the current 365.25 day calendar and should have used a slightly different one to match the Mayan calendar.

Also on a side note, not directly relating to the specific date, but to the event. Apparently throughout history and across various cultures, there are many consistencies with "end of the world" predicitions. They almost all revolve around the central theme of return of God(s). In the true scientific community there is evidence to support the return of some celestial object (most likely a comet). They do NOT believe that this comet is the end of the world, just that it would be a big event in ancient cultures.

 

[xipetotec]

On a side note, the guy who is "credited" with calculating the whole 2012 thing actually revised his calculations to be 2087. Used the current 365.25 day calendar and should have used a slightly different one to match the Mayan calendar.

Also on a side note, not directly relating to the specific date, but to the event. Apparently throughout history and across various cultures, there are many consistencies with "end of the world" predicitions. They almost all revolve around the central theme of return of God(s). In the true scientific community there is evidence to support the return of some celestial object (most likely a comet). They do NOT believe that this comet is the end of the world, just that it would be a big event in ancient cultures.

Exactly!

 

[js]

Poor little guy! It just shows that he is clever and has an excellent imagination. Anyway, thought I'd send through what NASA has to say about this internet hoax: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html. Hope this helps!

Thank you. I just sent the link to my almost 16 year old dd.
Although she says she doesn't believe in that stuff, I am sure she thinks about it. Thank you.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

Ahh your poor DS. I remember not being able to sleep at all when I was younger because I was afraid the world was going to end. Sure made the boogeyman seem like small beans. I hope you are able to comfort him.

 

[C&G'sMama]

Oh I hope my DS (6) and an Aspie doesn't hear this. His sister mentioned to me casually that the kids at school told her the bible says the world is ending in 2012. And that was it (for now).

Right now DS perseverates on Disney World (which is necessarily a bad thing and is terrified of "bad guys". We explain that every noise is not a bad guy and every person we see while out walking is not a bad guy. The walks have been with our newly acquired 180lb St. Bernard. So I tell him we're not too worried.

Good Luck.