Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Working through terror

By GREGORY K. MOFFATT, PH. D
Child's Play

These past many days have been difficult for people across the country as we all struggle to come to grips with the horrific actions of Tuesday, Sept. 11.

My phone has not stopped ringing as parents have called to get direction for helping their children deal with this terrorist act and the pending response from the United States Government. One of the most important things to keep in mind when deciding what to say to your children about these events is their ages.

Children younger than five or six years of age should be shielded from television footage and should not be a part of discussions about terrorism, plane crashes, and war. They are far too young to process the information and their minds do not allow them to understand cause-and-effect relationships. Therefore, if they saw images of planes crashing or buildings falling - if they hear parents talking about a terrorist who wants to kill Americans - children at this age will assume planes will crash into "their" buildings and that terrorists are hunting for "them" personally.

Just like you cannot convince a young child that there are no monsters in the closet, once a child begins fearing plane crashes and terrorists, it will be very hard to comfort him or her.

For children who are in grades one through five, even if you shelter them from the news, they will hear rumors and gossip from their friends. What is worse, the gossip they hear will most likely be seriously distorted. Therefore, children at this age need basic facts about what is happening.

Address questions about the past two weeks like you would address questions about sex - just the facts and just enough to satisfy their curiosity. Do not lie to them about events, but do not volunteer too much information, either.

Children of this age need to be reassured that they are going to be OK and that you, the parent, will protect them. If amid all the talk of war they begin to show signs of fear, they need to be assured that this is something that is being planned for a country far away from us, not on U.S. soil.

Children who are middle school age or older need to be well informed. I do not think it is healthy for any of us to consume hours of television coverage of these events, but parents can talk to their middle and high school aged children openly about the issues facing America.

They need to be comforted and assured that war on American soil is unlikely and that as horrifying as the plane crashes were, this has never happened in human history and our government is working hard to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Terrorism has been around for decades and the chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack are very small.

I used these events as an opportunity not only to address the facts with my teenager, but also to address the resilience of Americans and the stability of our nation and our government. We talked about geography, religion, and politics, as well as how an adult handles extremely stressful times like these. This is a life skill that your child needs to learn.

I was growing up in the 1960s and I recall many nights seeing the evening news and observing video footage of battles in Viet Nam happening right before my eyes, often even seeing dead and wounded bodies of service men strewn about the landscape. It terrified me.

Avoid the TV when younger children are present. Rely on radio, newspapers, or Internet news for up-to-date information or watch the television while children are sleeping or well out of hearing range.

For both children and adults, witnessing the repetitious images on television of the planes crashing into the world trade center, post-traumatic stress symptoms are not unusual, just as for people who actually were there. These symptoms almost always include sleep disturbance, difficulty eating, and mood swings. Other symptoms include numbness, avoidance of the topic, diminished interest in normally pleasurable activities, difficultly concentrating, and a sense of foreshortened future.

If you or your children are experiencing these symptoms, I recommend you seek a therapist to work through them. Hopefully, when this is all over, our country will be even stronger and the world will be a safer place.