talking to our children in the context of horror [Visit the Forum to post/read messages from other site visitors concering the terrorist attacks .] Dear Jean: In wake of the recent terrorist attacks on the United States, I was wondering if you could address the issue of what parents should tell their children about this tragedy. How can they address their fears and concerns, and help them to understand the pain and suffering millions of people around the world are suffering, without frightening them? What about the issue of racisim? How can I explain that there are bad people from every race, and that not all Arabic people are bad when I feel so angry and resentful myself? I think it might be a good idea to address this issue in your Question of the Week, as I am sure many people would appreciate some professional advice on how to discuss this very emotional issue with their children. Thanks for your time and consideration on this matter. Jean responds: Thank you for your thoughtful question. There are some excellent suggestions of techniques for calming children and helping them to process their feelings, at a site contributed by the PTA, NEA, Federation of Teaches, and Association of School Psychologists. Here's the URL: http://www.nea.org/news/press/crisistipsad4.pdf In addition, the following sites offer excellent discussions of how to talk to children/youth: Seattle Times article Cornell expert advises parents on helping children cope One of the Crisis Tips listed at a web site indicated above is, "Tell children the truth." I have two concerns about that simple statement: younger children need to be protected from the full traumatic ‘truth' of what has happened, and, what is the truth? To take these concerns in reverse order: Your question nails the biggest moral problem: how do I explain that not all Arabic peoples are bad, when I feel so resentful myself? I think this struggle is absolutely at the HEART of the current crisis, and its outcome will be tremendously influential in determining our own future and our children's, even the outcome of our "war against terrorism" itself. As we try to answer questions from our children and adolescents, clearly we have to be addressing OURSELVES as well. I relate easily to your struggle. I had to talk to myself rather sternly as I saw images on the tv screen of Middle-Eastern-looking men arrested at the New York airports soon after the terrorist attacks: a part of me felt violently angry. I wanted to scream at them or shake them, even hurt them, for what "they" had done to those people in New York, DC, Pennsylvania. Yet at that time, it was not clear that these men had anything at all to do with the terrorist attacks! Worse: when I've heard commentators and our highest government officials insisting that Muslim Americans have experienced the same sense of tragedy and outrage at these events as "the rest of us," I have struggled inside with a doubt--Do they really? Or perhaps I should write, Do "they" really? Or is there some part of "their" religion, their allegiance to "the people they came from," that makes "them" feel that somehow "we" deserved what happened? Even though "they" have chosen to live among "us", do "they" see "us" as evil or sinful? Are "they" maybe glad, in a part of themselves, that "we" ‘got our come-uppance'? Are "they" just benefiting from living in this great, free country, while secretly maintaining allegiance to their country of origin and, worse yet, actively hating the very country whose benefits they are enjoying? I realize, as I join this struggle in my own head and heart, that I am projecting onto anyone who is Muslim my own guilt and fear: my guilt at living in the richest nation in the world, my guilt at our nation's having sometimes taken advantage of other nations and specifically, of late, of Muslim nations (remember our 1998 bombing of the chemical plant in Sudan and our sanctions against Iraq, which to many appear to have plunged the children of that country into terrible poverty and sickness), my sense of the revulsion with which some of the images that purport to represent our people must be received by others around the world, especially by religious others: the violence, the pornographic sex, the rampant abuse of drugs we export from abroad. As I paint these "others" with the darkness in my own heart, I draw a line--between "us" and "them." It takes a while until my intellect kicks in and says, "Thus has begun every war, in every time, in the history of the world." When I think and feel like that about fellow Americans and/or about all Muslims everywhere, I am mirroring, I think, the internal state of the terrorists: they, too, have divided the world into "them" and "us." They, too, have painted others with the brush of their own guilt and fear. How REALLY DIFFICULT it is not to do this, ESPECIALLY when you have been seriously injured, or your family has been lost, or you have suffered other extreme violence or exploitation at the hands of a few who belong to a particular ethnic or religious group that is not your own. Yet it seems to me that everything depends on our being able to win the struggle inside our own heads and hearts: the very future of our beloved country, of our beloved children. Because we do not want their inheritance to be a war-torn republic, divided against itself, divided against the world. And so I say, talk to your children, and to your adolescents, according to their capacity to understand, but with the following thrust: "When a person does something so very horrible, so wrong, so devastating, as these attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., it is normal for us to want to call him a monster. The persons who have crashed airplanes into buildings where innocent people were working have in fact acted like monsters. They have forgotten themselves, they have listened only to the hate in their hearts and not to the love. "They seem to have decided that Americans are "bad guys"--ALL Americans. Worse than that, they may have decided Americans were NOT LIKE THEM--not really real people at all, but some kind of monsters: yes, perhaps they saw all of us here in the United States as monsters. "When we think of others as monsters, as essentially different from us, then we can believe it is all right to do anything at all to them, no matter how wrong. It's hard not to think this way when someone has hurt us so much. It's hard because we ARE hurt so much, and we often want to hurt back. Everyone struggles with feelings like this. "But we must work very hard to remember that the people who did these things are human beings like us. It is true that they must be stopped. The hijackers are dead. But we can't let friends of the terrorists who believe that what the terrorists did was right, go ahead and hurt people again. Our government is trying to figure out the best way to stop people who have let their hate take over, from doing more harm, and we are starting right away to get other countries in the world tohelp us stop them. "It is wrong to blame someone who LOOKS LIKE the men who did these terrible things. Just think: if Timothy McVeigh, the American man who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma, had bombed the Eiffel Tower in Paris instead, how would you feel, as an American? Would you be ashamed of what he had done? Would you hope that everyone else in the world, especially the people in Paris and all over France, would realize that IT WASN'T YOU who did that? Would you hope that people would realize that Timothy McVeigh does not stand for what most Americans really believe is right? Would you feel a little bit embarrassed or maybe even scared to visit Paris after something like that happened, afraid of how people would look at you? Would you hope that a Parisian would come up to you and say, 'Don't worry; you're American, but we know all Americans are not like Timothy McVeigh?' "That is how many Arabic-Americans are feeling right now. It is not fair to blame everyone who is Muslim, or everyone who has a Middle- Eastern name, or everyone of a religion or a tradition different from ours, for the awful things a few men have done. We need to reason with the part of ourselves that wants to blame a whole group--that part is our fear, not our love. "We need more than anything to show our love, right now...the way the firefighters, policemen, doctors, nurses, and many ordinary people have done and are still doing in New York and D.C. The rescue workers would never refuse to rescue someone from the rubble because his or her skin was of a different color or because they suspect that person might be Muslim. The rescue workers, who are our heroes, shout and cry for joy when they are able to save any LIFE. They are our examples for how to feel, our examples of people who are in touch with their love and their hope and their goodness and their dream of an America that is truly brave and free." In addition, educate yourself and your children/adolescents old enough to understand, about what is going on. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! Where is Afghanistan, and what kind of country is it? Who is Ossama Bin Laden? How did he get to be a leader of a terrorist organization? Where is Pakistan? Why might it be hard for Pakistan to cooperate with the United States? What is the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians about? What is Islam? What do those who follow Islam believe? I'd like to add just a few tips on protecting younger children (under age 13) from the full traumatic impact of these events: Do not leave your tv's turned on to programs that are all about the terrorist attacks when your children are present. Younger children should be completely protected from the horrifying images the stations keep presenting repeatedly. Even older children may need help understanding what they are seeing, and if they see it once, that's enough! Younger children may not be able to discriminate between repeated presentations of images of one event (the airplanes crashing into the towers, for instance) and a recurrence of different events (they may believe that there are still airplanes crashing into towers or that this is happening many times a day!). Younger children, and teens to a lesser extent as well, need reassurance that they and their families are personally safe--even if the adults cannot be certain that this is so. (After all, we can never say with absolute certainty that we are safe, even where terrorist attack is not a factor. Yet we must make our children feel safe in order for their development to proceed normally.) Reiterating what the educational site referenced above says: regular routine and parents' closeness will help children recover from whatever the traumatic impact of these events on their immature psyches may have been or will continue to be. Try to discern the fears in a youngster's question: I remember my younger daughter asking whether the trains that ran nearby could come into our house. It never occurred to me that she didn't understand that the trains ran on tracks that defined their course! If your young child attempts to "tell the story" about what happened differently from the way it happened, i.e., altering sequence or facts about practical things like how many airplanes were involved, he or she may simply be amending the story to try to make it more acceptable, or to find a happier ending. I wouldn't try to correct him or her. It is more important that he or she be able to deal with the trauma than get the factual details straight. Avoid very challenging, demanding, or scary activities for the next several days or weeks if possible--although pleasant distractions may be helpful. Jean. Disclaimer: Ms. Walbridge's response to your question is intended to be educational and informative. It is not a substitute for face to face consultation or psychotherapy with a mental health professional.

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