Here are some thoughts about caring well for our children and ourselves during these days.

• First, we need to set aside time to talk with each other, work through some of our feelings and reactions, at times and places separate from our children.  We adults carry a heavy load of feelings about these events, because we have been made to feel helpless and hopeless about both current events and historical events over and over again.  The deep feelings we carry are important to release in crying, trembling, and an open show of upset, but with other adults.  This helps us recover our ability to pay attention to the power we do have and the things that can be done right where we are.  We won't communicate well with our children without taking time to express and unload our deep feelings, without expecting our children to handle the bulk of that load.

• It is important, however, for our children to see that we care about people, about justice in the world, and about bringing an end to people harming people.   If you are upset, go ahead and cry openly, but without detailed explanation of your feelings.  "I'm sad about something I heard on the news" is fine, along with "and I just need to cry for a little while to get the sadness out."  What children don't need to hear is expressions of anger, hopelessness, or helplessness.
• It is not helpful for very young children to know all the details of what has happened.  They can't digest this kind of harm, and can become terrified by exposure to the graphic images and the feelings of horror and drama that we attach to the details.  To keep young children from becoming unnecessarily terrified, we can

• Shield them from the media.  TV reports, newspaper photographs, and radio commentary in a disaster all communicate that adults do not feel safe, in charge, or trustful of others.  These are best kept away from our children. 

• Keep concentrating on our present lives, the tasks and routines of every day, and the goodness of being together and enjoying one another. 
• When explanation is needed, explain the events in general terms, and in terms that your child can understand.  For example, you could say that lots of adults feel upset, that some people died suddenly, when no one was expecting trouble, and that when that happens, grownups can get sad and angry.  You can explain that you have feelings, too, and that you will be talking to other grownups to take care of your upsets about it. 
• Children who are exposed to the images on TV or to tense, distressed adult talk will need explicit reassurance.  They will need to know specifically that they are safe, that all is well, and that you will be doing what you know how to do to help people work together so harmful things don't have to happen again. 
• If you are asked why this happened, fashion your answer to your child's age and experience.  Acknowledge that we grownups haven't yet figured out how to have everything fair for everybody in the world.   You can explain, for instance, that when they don't feel that things are fair for them, they may get mad and cry about it, and that you listen to their feelings, and then you work out solutions.  But for many people, there's no one to listen or to help them enough with their concerns.  So sometimes people get mad and do things they never really wanted to do.   They try to get attention, and they do it in hurtful ways.

In the end, though, irrational acts don't make sense to children, because they don't make sense, period.  So don't try too hard to get the explanation "right."  The facts don't make irrationality understandable.  Young children need an explanation of why the adults around them are reacting, that all in their world is still OK, and that we are taking care of them.  They need to see that we don't give up loving, caring, and working to make life good in our families and our communities.

If your child has become frightened by the tones, words, or images he has seen, he will find ways to bring up his fears that may be indirect.  For example, he may wake up crying in the night, may get upset over not getting to sit on your lap during dinnertime, or may have a tantrum over not being able to find the shoes he wanted to wear today.  Our children need us to LISTEN at these times, to stay close and reassure them while they feel the feelings in a big way.  "You can sit on my lap after dinner, I promise," said with a relaxed tone, will let your child cry and fight out the feelings of fear and tension until your reassurance sinks in.  "We'll find your other shoe, but right now, I don't know where it is," will work just fine to give him an outlet for the fears and worries. 

 Children need these small upsets to serve as "can openers" for the emotions they have stored away.  They usually choose a safe family time, like dinnertime or bedtime, or a challenging time like leaving for school or day care in the morning, to break out into upset so they can offload the feelings, then sense that they are safe again.  When you listen, you can expect the feelings to last a good while.  The warmer and more loving you are, the more intense the feelings will become.  This is normal, healthy, and a wonderful acknowledgment of the sense of safety you have provided.  Don't mention the crisis that you think may be attached to all these feelings.  Children's emotional release process can be stopped cold by our interpretations.  It works better to keep referring to the small issue at hand, which your child chose because it was just the size he could handle. 

And finally, when faced with a crisis, our political leaders have been known to use the painful emotion of the moment to promote blame, mistrust, revenge, and other toxic emotions that advance economic and political agendas.  The spread of real justice, human understanding, and a sharing of power and resource in the world are not served when we buy in to fault-finding and violent reaction.  In times of crisis, we need to listen well to people's feelings, to help remove the reactive edge so people can think more clearly.   We also need to make sure we speak out and organize against reactive "solutions" that do nothing to address the injustices that spawn irrationality and division between people. 

As parents, we know that it takes a great amount of person-to-person love, work, and commitment to keep a group of people working cooperatively together.  The skills we develop as parents are exactly what is needed to heal our human community, person by person.  May we draw closer to each other, including people whose lives seem to be different than our own, and listen with compassion, to heal the hurt we've just incurred, and the injustices beneath it.

This article was used with the permission of the author, Patty Wipfler , who founded the The Parents Leadership Institute, a non-profit organization which she now directs. She has written 12 booklets for PLI on principles of listening parent-to-parent and parent-to-child, and on leading Parent Resource Groups. To date, the booklets have sold over 330,000 copies, and have been translated into Spanish and 9 other languages. PLI offers classes, workshops, talks, and leadership training courses for parents and those who work with parents and children in the San Francisco Bay area, and elsewhere. For more information and additional articles, check out the PLI's website.