Children Speak About the Attacks
Sept. 12 -- As citizens everywhere struggle comprehend Tuesday's massive tragedies, children can find it especially hard to understand. What can parents do to explain and reassure them of their safety?
"Those two guys, I heard that they hijacked the planes and took those people out of the planes and killed them because they hate the United States," said a freckled boy in the fourth grade at Washington Irving Intermediate School in Tarrytown, N.Y., 20 miles up the Hudson River from New York City.
Many of the children at the Tarrytown school have parents who work in the city's financial district. While the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon hit close to home for students in the New York and Washington areas, children across the country are struggling to deal with the complex situation as the school year gets under way. They are facing many of the same questions, confusion and emotions as the children in Tarrytown.
"Someone in the plane wanted to kill a certain person," said one fourth-grade girl at the Tarrytown school. "They couldn't just kill one person, so he said 'I'd rather kill myself and kill everybody.'"
The fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Stevenson, encouraged all her students to share their thoughts about the disaster. "We need to talk about it," she told them. "We can't pretend it didn't happen."
She had her class sit in a circle and pass a ball, giving each child the opportunity to speak. Stevenson wrote down a list of some of the key emotions that were mentioned, which included "panic," "blame," "afraid," and "felt bad."
'Where's My Mom?'
While so many children are confused by the details of the disaster, most are also consumed by emotion. They talk of fear, anger and mostly sadness.
"I just burst out into tears, because, I mean, it was horrible," said one youngster in a plaid dress.
While some students expressed disappointment that their favorite TV shows were not being broadcast, others recognized the gravity of the day's events.
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