Helping Kids Cope With The Threat Of Terrorism

How fears can be overcome with confidence-building activities, games, stories, self-talk and rewards.

A book which provides a unique insight into the causes, symptoms and treatment of problem fears in children, Fear-Free Children shows how fears can be overcome with confidence-building activities, games, stories, self-talk and rewards.

Fear-free Children is written in two sections – the first giving information for parents and the second teaching examples through stories for younger children. Teenagers can benefit from reading the entire book and directly applying the information to their own circumstance.

The simplicity makes it easy to understand, adapt and apply so that you quickly get control over your fears and learn to solve your own problems.

http://drjanethall.com/shop/fear-free-children-book/

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As we’ve seen it’s an alarming development… Australia is in the middle of the biggest counter-terror bust our nation has ever seen…

With every news outlet showing terror warnings… many parents are worried about how this information will affect their kids

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So where do you even start when they ask about terrorism and should we sugarcoat the truth?

Psychologist Dr Janet Hall in Melbourne joins us now… along with the Courier Mail’s Damien Stannard and Jo Abi from iVillage

Q. Jo, yesterday your kids school ran an intruder drill and your ten year old thought it was a game! As a parent, how do you talk to him about what’s going on in your own backyard?

As a parent I’m asking what do I do now? When my son told me they were running an intruder drill I was scared. They run these drills every year but now it’s different. It’s a different type of threat.
He laughs- he thinks it’s a funny man coming off the street; he doesn’t think like a parent, that it’s a group of men with guns.
I won’t talk to them about terrorism because they deserve to enjoy their childhood. I will teach them about stranger danger and what to do if they are abducted, in order to make them vigilant and aware.
But I am not going to fill their little brains with what terrorism means. There is nothing they can do.
They deserve to enjoy their childhood. As a parent I want the news to stop putting a spotlight on this issue, I don’t want my kids to see it and get scared. I am a little bit paranoid but that because a parent’s primal instinct is to keep their children safe. So there is nothing wrong with that.

Q. Dr Janet, no matter how old they are, this kind of news can terrify them.  At what age should we stop hiding the truth and start explaining the reality of what’s happening?

I think only the parent knows at what age it’s appropriate to tell their child what’s happening.
There is no golden age of when that is. Of course it needs to be age appropriate, as you wouldn’t tell a six year old details of be headings.

But it needs to be child appropriate. You can have a six year old who is very mature and can understand issues like this… you can also get a six year old who only talks about fairies and this would terrify them. Modify information you give them to what their maturity is like… ‘there is such thing as a bad person and they’re called a terrorist’. You don’t have to say what they do… but start letting them know what’s out there.
Kids are so technologically savvy these days, that you will be surprised how capable they are in dealing with the real world. We need to talk to kids in some form about it because they will see it or hear it from somewhere and have questions that need to be answered.
So while you give them some information, minimise their exposure so they don’t get scared. Parents shouldn’t talk about it all the time. Reassure them that they are safe and that mum and dad will protect them because under it all, they are frightened little souls.

Q. Damien, as a journalist you believe we shouldn’t sugarcoat facts… but at the end of the day, these are kids. Should we be worried about exposing them to the cold hard truth?

We live in an age of full disclosure. We shouldn’t sugar coat facts. People always ask questions, kids ask questions. We should be aware of what’s going on so we know how to address it.

This situation is unprecedented. It’s never happened in my lifetime, that we’ve had to deal with a real terrorist threat in Australia. I’m going to be a dad in two weeks so certainly I’m going to be asking myself more and more how much information is too much and how do we find the balance between what they need to know and the cold hard reality. After 9/11 there were a lot of similar questions asked and the same sense of paranoia and fear was around. But this threat was always at a distance. This is in our backyards. This is the time everyone needs to be informed.