What kind of real life moral and ethical dilemmas do our kids have to deal with on a daily basis?

It's Thursday night, and you are a 13 year-old Israeli starting off the local weekend by spending some quality time with your slightly frail, elderly uncle. You help him with some tidying up for Shabbat and take out his rubbish, and he suggests that going out for a light supper at a local cafe afterwards.

Just as you are sitting down to breakfast for dinner at a coffee shop in the nearby mall the pre-alert goes warning of incoming missile fire to your area. It's a big mall, there are safe areas, but they are a few minutes walk from where you are. You, an athletic, long-legged teen can easily get to shelter in time, especially with the pre-alert which often goes before the siren, extra warning time because the ballistic missile is coming all the way from far way Yemen.

But your elderly uncle? He has arthritic feet and legs plus issues with his back, so he walks at a snail's pace using a walking stick for support. There is no way he can get to shelter in time. Odds are the missile will be intercepted, but there is always a risk that chunks of shrapnel could come down in populated areas and sometimes even Israel's top anti-missile systems can miss, like earlier today when a Yemeni attack drone hit a building in Israel's southernmost city of Eilat.

What do you do? Run to protect your own life or stay with your elderly relative and do your best to help him find some kind of safer area (for example guiding him to an inner corridor away from windows). You can't carry him. Even with help from a kind waiter, you can't move him fast enough.

This was the call Jason and I had from our middle child this evening. "Imma, Abba, I can't just leave Uncle, but he's too slow to get to shelter in time, I don't know what to do, how do I help keep him safe when he's telling me to go save myself but I know he'll feel abandoned?"

How do you tell your child, go save yourself, leave our beloved elderly uncle and make sure you're safe?

This isn't the first time our kids have had to face such an ethical dilemma, caught outside the home when the siren goes, having to decide between running to save their own lives or stay with a slow moving older relative who can't get to shelter in time. Missiles and attack drones are fired at our country on a regular, often daily, basis. It's a fact of life. Our kids are learning these ethical questions as their real life lived experiences, not theoretical dilemmas in a class discussion.