As a child care center music consultant, I observed the shock and aftermath of 9/11 in weekly snapshots.

At first, no matter what our ages or roles, everyone was "fogged" and thrown into survival mode. The majority of adults tried to hide the stress and go on as usual. They took the position: "The less said the better." However, I observed that children of all ages were visibly stressed, uncharacteristically fussy, and remained unsettled for weeks. From my perspective, even the youngest children needed more help to understand what they were seeing, hearing, and feeling than they were getting. Most saw some TV news -- and all felt the confusion and fear of their adult caregivers. But adults insisted that their children didn't know anything -- especially not the babies! So experiences remained unexplored.

There is an unspoken rule in child care to let parents decide what to say to their own children, but numerous parents seemed ill equipped to talk with their children -- or anyone else for that matter. A few adults opened up to me and we processed the events together; others treated me suspiciously -- a part-time, nosy stranger in their midst. Because I passed out helpful articles from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), some teachers asked about my ideas of how to work with their own children or kin; most avoided this discussion with their child care children.

I knew of no formal center meetings with staff and/or parents to decide together what to say or how to support each other in this confusing time. In contrast, the Atlanta Friends (Quaker) School renewed its commitment to ongoing communication and took a pro-active approach with families. On September 11th, staff respectfully restrained themselves until parents had a chance to tell their children about the day's events in their own ways. The school then held a meeting to help adults discuss their thoughts and fears, and to decide together how to approach these challenges with the children. Throughout these difficult weeks, administrators, teachers, and parents shared deep thoughts with each other on a daily basis -- and in developmentally appropriate ways with the children.

At the child care centers where I consult, it was important to everyone to return to their sense of normalcy. Although some parents took a day off immediately after September 11th or arrived early at the center to do something fun, most brought their children to child care daily as though nothing unusual had happened. Unfortunately, since teachers also took time off or got sick, many children were left with a merry-go-round of substitute caregivers. Watching this, I was struck by the fact that when a crisis hits, children are not given the power to spend more time with those they really love. They are at the mercy of their adult caregivers, who decide how children will spend their time -- and with whom -- no matter how the children feel.

During the second and third weeks following September 11th, adults in the child care centers I observed became more withdrawn. Personal needs took precedence over everything and everyone. Emotions were fragile. Children spun regularly out of control and some visited miniature acts of terrorism on classmates. A few teachers became impatient and sharp with the children; others reacted almost violently to those who were disruptive. Bonds with children and families, which teachers had just begun to create after summer transitions, were being stretched to the maximum. We are all strangers to one another, after all. Everyone seemed to be feeling, "Why bother bonding! The world is headed for war!"

When the bombing of Afghanistan began, most of the children and adults had just returned to a place of routine and calm. Fewer children seemed to know about the bombing than about the events of September 11th, and I saw no evidence of new or added stress. It was as if we were all saying, "Okay, enough is enough! We have to get back to living." And so we have. War is once again an adult affair.

When I began teaching a song that celebrates the word "peace" in Arabic, Hebrew, French, Russian, and English, I saw appreciation in the children's eyes -- especially in the eyes of those too young to use words. Parents and teachers have started singing this song, too. It feels like a good direction for all of us.

Although I am only a part-time "stranger" in the child care centers where I work, I try to model ways of assuring children that the stresses they still sense in the adults around them are not their fault. I find myself now hugging children more often, picking up those who are fussy, modeling empathy. These children are the future; this is the world they will inherit. I want the experience of a compassionate, responsive, peace-filled world to be the one that is hard-wired in their brains.

Alice Honig, Ph.D.
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
ahonig@mailbox.syr.edu


Helping with grief work in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attack needs to take into consideration helping children, individually, and in child care or other groups; helping parents; and helping teachers and counselors. Also, the timeline will vary. Some folks will only feel their deepest worries or fears weeks and weeks, even months, after their initial shock and attempts to stay calm and be there for the children in their care.

As a licensed New York State psychologist, I have been able to meet with families in a public library setting, with directors and teachers in child care, and with staff members at specially convened meetings to help them sort out their own responses as well as ways to work with children.

Children can be more aware of the terrorist attacks than adults believe. This is important for adults to realize, because on September 11th some parents, as soon as they heard about the terrorist attacks, ran to pull their children out of child care and told some teachers they did not want their children to know anything about the attacks. Obviously, this makes for an impossible situation for a teacher. One teacher child me that a 4-year-old had lost two uncles in the World Trade Center attacks, yet some parents did not want her to mention the terrorism in her classroom.

Sometimes, preschoolers who have vivid imaginations about a monster under the bed or in their closet also create imaginary carnage in addition to the actual WTC killings. One preschooler recently drew a sad face. His teacher asked him who that was. "That is my Uncle Joey," the child answered. "He looks so sad. Is he sad?" asked the teacher. "Oh yes, because they killed his baby girl, Lara, in the airplane crashing," the child assured his teacher. The teacher, who knew the family situation well, said, "But, honey, your little cousin is just fine. No airplanes were crashing in Syracuse." "Oh, I just p'tending," answered the preschooler.

For teachers and caregivers, this is a good time to explore in group time with children why we have such strong classroom rules about helping each other, not hurting; about being kind and sharing with each other, not mean. This is a good time to emphasize books about kindness; I call this "bibliotherapy." If we renew our dedication to work toward creating a more convivial society, then our efforts to heal from the terrorist attacks will strengthen our children's loving commitment to family, friends, and community. The grief work goes on. And so does the healing and renewing our dedication to creating a kinder culture for our children and with our children.

Elizabeth C. Halloran, Ph.D. and Michele Knox, Ph.D.
Medical College of Ohio, Kobacker Center
3130 Glendale Avenue
Toledo, Ohio 43614-5810
lhalloran@mco.edu; mknox@mco.edu


Virtually every American was affected in some way by the events of September 11th, but in Toledo, Ohio, 1,000 miles from New York City, many adults had the opportunity to shield infants, toddlers, and preschoolers from the horrific events. We called eight area child care centers and preschools and asked them how they handled the events with the children in their care.

Two of the day cares/preschools reported having television broadcasts running in the classrooms of children 3 to 5 years old on September 11th. Other teachers decided not to show or discuss the attacks, saying that the children are "too young." In some cases, teachers described parents calling to urge them not to discuss the events with their children. In other settings, teachers told preschoolers and kindergartners what happened. One teacher did not tell the children what happened, but the classroom project in the days following the events was to make American flags or praying hands. To explain the project, the teacher talked about the victims dying and going to heaven.

How did the children react? Many teachers told us that they did not notice any changes in children's behavior, play, or topics of conversation. One preschool teacher, however, described children "playing New York." This meant repeatedly crashing toy airplanes into towers of blocks. In the same preschool, children played "firefighters" and "police officers" by "playing dead" on the floor.

While most of the day care/preschools in Toledo that we talked to did seem to protect children from news of the September 11th attacks, a significant minority thought it appropriate to show news images of the attacks in the classroom and talk about what had happened. We do not believe this is developmentally appropriate, due to the risks associated with children's exposure to violence through visual images or hearing about violent acts. When children are personally affected by such events, they need to be given developmentally appropriate information. However, there is no clear benefit to sharing this information with youngsters who are not personally affected. Although such information may help them better understand the reasons adults around them are suddenly anxious, it is imperative that adults be helped to manage their anxiety so that they can keep the needs of the children in their care in the forefront, and convey to them a sense of safety and security.

Cleta K. Booth
University of Wyoming Lab School
College of Education, University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming 82071
cbooth@uwyo.edu


On Wednesday, September 12, I started "circle" by asking if anyone had any news to share. Several of the 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children talked about the events of the previous day, fears about monsters, and scary dreams. (Readers who are interested in the transcript of the class conversation and scanned images of 6 or 7 drawings made by 3-5 year olds following the conversation can contact me.)

A few days later, talking privately with M, who had just turned 5, I apologized for missing some of his turns to talk on September 12th. I asked if he still had anything he wanted to say about what had happened. He said, emphatically, "Ten planes hit 10 buildings!" When I assured him that it didn't happen to that many buildings, he insisted that it had: "Three buildings the first day and then the next and the next." When I asked M if he had been seeing the attacks over and over on TV, he confirmed he had. I explained that it had only happened on one day, and that TV kept showing the same pictures over Andover. "No," he asserted, "They are different pictures!" I tried to explain to him that they were pictures from different angles, but of the same events. M could not be convinced.

During the last week of October, the events of 9/11 surfaced again, even though we had not talked about them in school since the first week.

• On Tuesday, one four-year-old, who watched the attacks on TV but hadn't spoken or drawn pictures of the events, suddenly asked her carpool driver, "Did you know a plane flew into a building?" The startled driver asked, "Today?" The child answered, "No, a couple of days ago." When the carpool driver confirmed that planes had flown into buildings a few weeks ago, the two carpool children spent the rest of the way to school talking about the details.
• That afternoon, the mother of a kindergartner who was in my class last year stopped by to tell me that Monday evening, her son had been playing quietly with blocks, when he built a tower and crashed his Lego airplane into it. The mother, who was watching, asked, "Are you still thinking and worrying about that?" He said, "Yes," so they had another long talk about what happened, with the mother reassuring her child about his safety.
• Tuesday evening, I spoke with my daughter-in-law, who has been convinced that my granddaughter (age 4) doesn't know anything about the attacks, since the family doesn't have a TV, they have been careful about when the news is on the radio, and her teacher has avoided the subject with the children. That day, noticing a magazine cover picture of a fireman standing in front of some rubble, my granddaughter suddenly asked, "Mom, is that New York or Afghanistan?"
• Thursday, I observed a boy in our class playing quietly alone with blocks. After awhile, he built a tower and smashed a plane into it, knocking it down. Then he went on with his play. After awhile I went over to him and asked him quietly, "Are you still thinking about the scary news that was on TV?" When he replied, "Yes," I asked him to tell me more, and he said that he was thinking about the people who died.
• A mother told me that her 4-year-old, waking from sleep at the end of a car trip to Denver last weekend, suddenly saw the tall buildings of the Denver skyline. She asked, "Are those buildings going to fall down?"