| Product: |
Health and Safety in General |
| Date: |
05/10/01 (48 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: You can reassure your child that you will keep them safe.
Disadvantages: You may not like trying to do this but you have to consider the child
As adults, we have all watched the replays of the footage of the September 11th incidents, feeling the horror, the sickness in the pit of our stomachs, and trying to come to terms with what happened that day. We have poured out our thoughts to our friends, some of us have written articles and poetry about our feelings, yet still we find our fears not totally dispersed.
We have moved into a different era and we know it, just as we know our lives will never be the same again. So, if this is this how we are reacting, we need to consider how our children and grandchildren are feeling, and give them an outlet for their fears.
Children do not see things the same way as we do, and this was brought home to me only last week. Since the events of September 11th, a trip by my daughter and two granddaughters, from England to see me here in South Carolina, has been cancelled and the elder of the two girls has been continuously ill.
She suffers from asthma, and it has been constant since the televised events (replayed over and over again there, as here). She also had a lot of other aches and pains, tummy upset and some vomiting ... none of which the doctor could find any cause for.
Asthma being a psycho-sematic illness, I wondered whether the other symptoms might be similarly exhibited, and told my daughter to mention this to her doctor, and also to discuss with Angelica to see if there was something seriously worrying her.
Angelica is one of those 6 year olds who are usually going on 60. Sometimes, because we are so used to their sounding like miniature adults, we forget that their thought processes are different to ours.
Even during the children programmes on television, there were newsflashes and updates - all showing the video as the second plane hit the WTC.
However, where we were all watching and understanding that this was a replay of the original event, in talking to Angelica it came out that she thou
ght each was a SEPARATE event. In her mind, planes were flying into buildings all over America and killing lots of people. As an extension of that, since nanny and grandad lived in America, she thought we would be getting killed too.
Yes, we had been warned to reassure our children that they were safe, and that we love them - but nobody had really considered the fact tht childrens thought processes work a little diffeently to ours!
Even in trying to explain that it was the same event just played over and over, she was disbelieving - because of the different footage. The different camera angles, to her, showed different planes hitting more buildings.
Once that was pointed out to her she could discern that video A was video A replayed time and time again. Likewise Video B. But she could NOT comprehend that they were both different videos of the same event.
She could accept the difference of one to another, and understand that she was watching the same video (say A or B ) yet at the same time, could not understand that both A and B were about the same thing.
In discussing this with other people at work and elsewhere, they too have found their children to be thinking the same about this.
Just wanted people to be aware of this, so that they can talk to their children and make sure they realise this happened the one time. That it has not been something that is happening every day, with different planes and different buildings.
For those children who are old enough to read just a little, the tv coverage (in the USA) entitled "America Under Attack" could also be propogating this idea, implying that it is an ongoing attack by planes against buildings.
Childrens little minds are so fragile, and we need to explain things to them more fully than we might think. We don't want to scare them but we do have to give them a chance to vent their fears, and to put right any misconceptions
they may have.
Thnk how upset we have been at what has happened, and then magnify it on a daily basis. This is what some small children are unwittingly believing.
Has your child started having nightmares since these events occurred? Reverted to bedwetting? Maybe just been "acting out" a bit more?
Settle down with them, quietly, and give hugs and reassurance - then ask them how they feel about this. Especially with those up to about 7 or 8, make sure they realise this was a one time event, it is not happening over and over every day.
Let them ask any questions, no matter how uncomfortable they may make you feel. Try to answer their questions calmly. You can tell them that sometimes people do bad things, things that make us very sad. That mummy and/or daddy love them and will keep them safe so they have nothing to worry about.
It's not going to be easy - probably on a par with the facts of life with your pre-teenage daughter - but far better than letting these events fester in a childs mind, frightening it into thinking that all these buildings are falling down,and plane loads of people are being killed every day.
No-one said being a parent was easy. sometimes it's just harder than others.
Summary:
|
|
