The bad news is everywhere and, in today’s world, it’s difficult to shield young children from the sordid details of this national tragedy. Despite parents’ efforts to protect them from the full brunt of the news, children frequently hear the words terrorists, airplane hijacking, and building collapses and they worry. How can parents help their children?

Parents are often so caught-up in their own anguish about the terrorism that they fail to notice the horror and anguish on their own children’s faces in reaction to the images they see.

Many young children who are exposed to media regarding the attack are reacting to and are affected by it, whether their reaction is overt or silent.

Children who hear about this tragedy may be traumatized by feelings that they, too, could be vulnerable to terrorists smashing airplanes into buildings. Parental anxieties about the terrorism leave their children with heightened feelings of vulnerability.

Changes in news delivery

A generation ago, news programs generally only appeared at ten o’clock at night, long after little ones were asleep. Nowadays, there are 24-hour news channels and many homes have multiple televisions playing news programs throughout much of the day. Violent and disturbing images in the news are constantly available to toddlers and young children. As the media becomes faster at bringing us the latest news, it also tends to distort how frequently such tragedies occur. To some families, it seems that the daily dose of terrorist activity seen on the news is an omen of such things happening in their own family and community.

Helping children cope

Children need our assistance in dealing with early exposure to bad news as portrayed by the media. Children younger than five usually are not able to really understand the issues reported by the media. Children aged eight and under should be shielded from disturbing news programs as much as possible.