Helping children to cope with a world entrenched in fear

May 4, 7:56 AMNY Education ExaminerLorri Giovinco-Harte

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the NY Education Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Having come of age in the midst of the cold war, I can understand what it is like to be young in a culture entrenched in fear. We spent much of our time never being quite sure if some trigger-happy individual would press a button and subject us all to a nuclear attack. 

Popular entertainment from that time period mirrored the anxiety we felt at the threat of a nuclear explosion.  Remember the mini-series, The Day After - the frightening piece of cinema which depicted the horrific after-effects of a nuclear war?  Scared the pants off of me.

Even seemingly, innocuous pop songs reflected our underlying anxiety.  Here's a line from the 1983 song, 99 Red Balloons:

It's all over, and I'm standing pretty
In the dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
Here it is, a red balloon
I think of you and let it go

I'm sure it caused nightmares in more than a few people.

This is not to say that children today live with less fear than we did.  Global warming, terrorist attacks, AIDS, SARS, child abductions  - these are just a few of the factors that today's children are forced to grow up with.  To make matters worse, however, the level of media saturation about the world's dangers seems to have increased.

Just look at the fear inducing headlines being produced about the Swine Flu:

WHO fears pandemic is imminent

World Health Organization raises global epidemic threat to second highest level as numbers of infected continue to rise

World takes drastic steps to contain swine flu

Swine fever could explode into a global pandemic

This is not to say that Swine Flu is not something to be concerned over, yet, some of the coverage has been so severe as to cause some to accuse the media of fear mongering.

Fear mongering has, indeed, become a part of our collective culture and our children are becoming the most vulnerable of victims to it.  Although we not always realize it, children can react very strongly to the headlines and sound bytes they hear and see.

Consider the following statistics and factual findings:

67 percent of girls ages 9-11 versus 60 percent of boys ages 9-11 worry that the earth won’t be as good a place to live when they're adults.

35 percent of American children experienced one or more stress symptoms, such as difficulty falling asleep or trouble concentrating in response to news coverage of 9/11 and 47 percent reported being worried about their own safety or the safety of loved ones.

Heavy exposure to major catastrophes in the news is associated with intense fear and even post-traumatic stress in children.

 A random survey  of parents of children aged 5 through 11 found that 37% of children reported being frightened by what the witnessed on the news, the most common of which included violence between strangers, wars, and natural disasters

The effects of these fears can be very harmful to children and influence the choices they make in every day life.  A 1991 study looked at how reactions to media based fear affected children in their real-life choices:

In this experiment, exposure to dramatized depictions of a deadly house fire or a drowning increased children’s self-reports of worry about similar events in their own lives. More important, these fictional depictions affected the children’s preferences for normal, everyday activities that were related to the tragedies they had just witnessed: Children who had seen a movie depicting a drowning expressed less willingness to go canoing than other children; and those who had seen the program about a house fire were less eager to build a fire in a fireplace.

Research shows that parents often underestimate the level of fear that their children experience as children may not always directly express these fears to the adults around them.

It is, therefore, very important that adults find ways to help children to deal with the anxieties and worries generated from the world we live in.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has posted guidelines for helping children to deal with the effects of witnessing traumatic and threatening events - both personally and in news reports and television programs.  They suggest the following:

* Encourage children to ask questions. Listen to what they say. Provide comfort and assurance that address their specific fears. It's okay to admit you can't answer all of their questions.

* Talk on their level. Communicate with your children in a way they can understand. Don't get too technical or complicated.

* Be honest. Tell them exactly what has happened. For example, (in the case of a death or deaths) don't say that someone who has died has "gone to sleep;" children may become afraid of going to bed.

* Find out what frightens them. Encourage your children to talk about fears they may have. They may worry that someone will harm them at school or that someone will try to hurt you.

* Focus on the positive. Reinforce the fact that most people are kind and caring. Remind your child of the heroic actions taken by ordinary people to help victims of tragedy.

* Pay attention. Your children's play and drawings may give you a glimpse into their questions or concerns. Ask them to tell you what is going on in the game or the picture. It's an opportunity to clarify any misconceptions, answer questions and give reassurance.

* Develop a plan. Establish a family emergency plan for the future, such as a meeting place where everyone should gather if something unexpected happens in your family or neighborhood. It can help you and your child feel safer.
 

For more information visit the National Mental Health Information Center.