Terrorism reaches deep into minds of children

Mathis Winkler

Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001 | 10:19 a.m.

Worried about missing family members or scared that destruction may hit Las Vegas, schoolchildren of all ages were trying to come to grips Wednesday with Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

"It's hell waiting to find out what happened," said Kirsten Smith, 16, a junior at Green Valley High School, adding that she still didn't know what had happened to two of her aunts, who worked at New York City's World Trade Center.

"I don't know whether to mourn for them or jump for joy," she said. "It's just a feeling of terror. We have too many things to be afraid of already."

Some of Smith's schoolmates, who gathered at a nearby Dairy Queen after school ended, said the attacks had made them feel patriotic for the first time.

"The Pledge of Allegiance has had no meaning to me because I haven't been through anything that's created patriotism," said Danielle McCoy, a 17-year-old senior. "I think this is going to create a lot of patriotism. I figure it's about time for a war."

Fellow senior John Lagg, 18, said he'd be ready to fight for his country.

"If they have the draft, I'll go in," he said. "We've got enough bombs to take on everyone in the world."

While the high schoolers worried about the consequences of the attacks and argued with each other about possible counterattacks by the government, child experts said that parents of younger children should pay extra attention to their kids right now.

"Parents need to be patient and never tell the child to stop talking about the event," said Eva Essa, a professor in the human development and family studies department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"It's important to reassure children that they will be safe," Essa said, adding that parents should hug their children more to give them comfort. "They rely on us to take care of them, and when something like this happens, it's scary."

Waiting to pick up her children at Thurmond White Middle School, Tina Gonzales said she had to comfort her 12-year-old daughter, Elyssia, after the attacks.

"She said to me, 'Mom, nobody's gonna know who I am,' " Gonzales said. "She was afraid that she, too, was not going to be in this world much longer."

Gonzales said she planned to limit her children's exposure to further news coverage about the attacks. She added that she was taking her kids to a blood donation center to let them see her giving blood.

The family would pray together and talk in the evening, Gonzales said. The Association of National School Psychologists on Wednesday also recommended praying and spending extra time with children as ways to help children cope with the attacks.

Elyssia said she didn't want to watch any more news on television, but Gonzales' 11-year-old son Alex said he wanted to get more information.

"It was really bad," he said. "It's hard because they can't catch the people who did it, because they're not alive anymore."

Some parents said they were disappointed in the school district's decision to avoid classroom discussions about the attacks.

In a memo to schools on Tuesday, Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia suggested keeping televisions turned off and maintaining as normal an academic day as possible.

"They need to talk about it," said Dave Nutting, whose son Jeremy, 11, attends sixth grade at White. "Otherwise it continues to be an isolated event."

Getting out of school, Jeremy said his teachers still had not talked about the attacks, but that he planned to watch television in the afternoon and talk to his parents.

At Robert Lunt Elementary School, Salvador Dimas said his children had asked about the attacks as they saw television pictures of the World Trade Center's burning and collapsing towers.

"I told them it's very bad," he said, adding that he told Bruno, 8, Giovana, 7, and Carla, 5, that bad people had done this.

"They were sad, but not scared," he said. "They just kept going without any problem."

Dimas did the right thing, said Mark J. Chambers, a child psychologist.

"I told my 6-year-old girl that there are bad guys out there and the bad guys crashed a plane into the building," he said. "We didn't tell her that we didn't know who did this. Ambiguity and lack of information is the No. 1 source of anxiety."

Fabian Amaro, a 5-year-old kindergartner, still seemed more shaken by the attacks.

"Airplanes crashed into buildings," he said when asked what happened on Tuesday. "Somebody was trying to kill them all. I'm not very happy."

Sun reporter Angela Soo contributed to this story.