Helping Children in Times of Fear and Terror
Authors: Lies Scaut and Erik de Soir
In a concise and easily readable booklet, the authors bring together several key points for teachers, parents, and caregivers to better equip them to address their children’s questions about terrorism and the associated fears.
Because even adults struggle to understand and contextualize acts of terrorism. How can you then help your child, who ultimately represents the greatest treasure and the future of humanity?
In the first chapter, the authors reflect on the fact that babies are not preschoolers, who are not elementary school children, who are also different from adolescents. Depending on their age and personal development, they may be able to handle different information. Here, they use the stages of intellectual development by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
Chapter two discusses common problems and behaviors of children and how adults can handle them.
Chapter three provides some guidelines for answering a wide range of questions that (young) children may ask, which are actually very fundamental and not easily answered. It is very important to control one’s own emotions and engage in conversation with them.
Chapter four outlines the risks children may face when confronted with terrorism, directly or indirectly. The concept of “trauma” is sharply defined for this purpose.
Chapter five discusses how to creatively communicate with children about what happened. It is important that the child takes the lead in their own thoughts.
Chapter six provides a measurement method with multiple aspects, allowing the experiences of a child or groups of children to be mapped out.
One of the take-away messages of this book is that friendship and love are always stronger than hate.
The authors also warn in the book that although it can provide insight, it should never be used as a substitute for professional guidance.