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Dilemma for parents: What to tell
kids? Kim DeSantis doesn't want to tell her two young sons about a coming war. But for families across the land, it's hard to escape the message. President Bush talks about war. So do Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and countless schoolteachers. At the bottom of the television screen, CNN proclaims in its banner, "America's New War." "I didn't want to have to deal with this," said DeSantis, a 35-year-old office manager from Kennesaw with sons 5 and 8. "I don't want to mention it until I have to." After hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week, DeSantis explained to her 8-year-old son, Tony, that buildings were destroyed and people were killed. "My husband asked him if he understood the magnitude of it all, and my son said, 'What's magnitude?' " said DeSantis. She's going to ask her 93-year-old grandfather, a World War II veteran, for advice on what to tell her sons. Her sons' ages fall on either side of the benchmark for comprehending what's going on around them: age 7. For younger children, war talk and explosions are things in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The challenge for parents is when --- and what --- to tell their kids about war. Bush said "the American people are beginning to understand, this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." Kids younger than 7 "just aren't going to get it," said Christine Ziegler, an associate professor of child psychology at Kennesaw State University. "They don't need to be deprived of their childhood --- not just yet," Ziegler said. "They don't need a bone-crunching understanding of everything that's going on. We as parents err on the side of giving them too much information." Parents, though, should be prepared with simple explanations if their children ask about war. "This is the story of stories. I don't think any child of any age is going to be immune from this," said University of Wisconsin communications professor Joanne Cantor, author of "Mommy, I'm Scared," a book that examines how television and movies frighten children. Purdue University mass media researcher Glenn Sparks said parents should filter TV and other news sources that flow into the home. They can have more sophisticated discussions with teenagers but should use simpler language when talking to children younger than 12. "Most kids have some concept of war based on their experience with the media," Sparks said. "You don't need to invoke some kind of metaphor. You can tell them it's a disagreement. Disagreement is a word that kids understand." After the space shuttle Challenger exploded, schools set up counseling sessions to help young students deal with their grief. Sparks said his research revealed counseling wasn't needed because the event didn't mean anything to younger children. Sparks and others advise dealing with your child's questions but don't impart more than they want to know. For instance, Sparks said, you can tell kids that Islamic radical Osama Bin Laden, identified by Bush as the prime suspect, is a bad person. You can say there will be fighting if the United States sends in troops. "But you don't have to talk about high-yield nuclear detonations," Sparks said. "Reassure them. Tell them nothing has changed on their street." In Mableton, Debra Power discussed pending war with her two daughters. The family had their own candlelight vigil by their fireplace on Saturday. They said prayers for victims in New York and Washington. Power asked her daughters about their feelings, about their fears. Power sought out their emotions when one of her children, 10-year-old Kristie, had trouble sleeping at night, crying after she was put to bed. Her father works at Hartsfield International Airport. A 19-year-old cousin has just finished Army boot camp and expects an assignment any day. "The more questions they can get answers to," Power said, "the safer they feel." WHAT TO TELL CHILDREN | ||||||||||||||||||
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