Violent drawings by children depicting planes, explosions and people crying have been cropping up with regularity during therapy sessions at the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services’ since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
So have toddlers’ re-enactments with toys of the devastating plane crashes that brought down the World Trade Center towers and tore through a side of the Pentagon.
But such manifestations are not a worrisome phenomenon, according to JFCS counselors. They’re just some of the many normal reactions of young people who are processing their feelings about such an unfathomable event.
“It’s important that if it’s on their mind they can find a way to express it,” explained Kym Sites, a JFCS clinical supervisor in San Francisco. Once they are able to do that, she said, “we can help them deal with it.”
Since the tragedy two weeks ago, neither the S.F.-based JFCS nor JFCS of the East Bay has seen an increase in clients — children or adults. Staffers, however, have been dealing with a wide array of reactions from existing clients of all ages during their counseling sessions and other programs.
“Many are afraid, anxious about flying, worried about the economy,” said Laurel Kloomok, Parents Place director for the S.F.-based JCFS. “We’ve been giving adults a chance to talk it out, and kids a chance to play it out.”
Kids have also been encouraged to talk, and San Francisco Parents Place clinician Amy Cooper has seen some positive results. While volunteering in a public school class of 9- and 10-year-olds, for instance, she found the kids “were trying to understand what had happened in New York and Washington by associating it with violence that hit closer to home.
“They were so thoughtful. They were relating the disturbance in the larger world to those they’ve experienced in their smaller worlds. They were searching for answers and looking for what power they might have to make the world a safer place.”
But counselors recognize that not all kids will want to talk.
“Some will want to talk and some won’t. Either response is OK,” said Karen Friedland-Brown, parent educator for Parents Place Palo Alto. “We just want to give them the opportunity, when they’re ready, to communicate.”
As for parents, telephone calls began pouring into JFCS offices almost immediately after the attacks from those who “wanted to know how to talk to their kids without upsetting them,” said Kloomok.
In response, the S.F.-based JFCS posted a list of tips on its Web site — www.jfcs.org — and also mailed it out to more than 300 preschools throughout the Bay Area. The list appeared in the Sept. 14 issue of the Bulletin.
JFCS recommends, for instance, limiting older children and adolescents’ exposure to the media, not exposing children under 5 to the media images at all, and keeping family routines as normal as possible. The organization also recommends that adults manage their anxiety and anger around their children, and encourage their kids to express their feelings about the disaster without passing judgment.
“A lot of parents are worried that they are doing everything wrong,” said Sites, “but right now is a time for compassion. We’re being sensitive to that in our feedback to them.”
At JFCS of the East Bay, Ted Feldman, the executive director and a rabbi, said staffers have been working with preschools and religious schools, helping teachers and parents to deal with the crisis.
Feldman said many of the agency’s emigre clients have been particularly disturbed by the events of Sept. 11. It’s not just Jews from the former Soviet Union but refugees from war-torn Cambodia, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
“They’re deeply affected,” said Feldman, adding that Afghans are particularly upset. “They have lived with the trauma of what’s been happening in Afghanistan for many years, and now that all the world’s attention is on them, it’s very difficult for them. Many of them are living in fear, feeling that they’re being characterized as terrorists and wanting the world to know they’re very peace-loving and concerned about friends who still reside in Afghanistan. The basic teachings of Islam from their perspective do not include the kind of evil acts they’re experiencing.”
At a staff meeting on Sept. 10, Feldman said, one of the social workers on an exchange from Israel “was telling our staff how difficult it is for Americans to understand what it is like to live under the fear of terrorism — and then the world changed the next morning.”
Residents of senior homes have also been affected. One of the first things the S.F.-based JFCS did after the attack was gather the seniors at San Francisco’s Rhoda Goldman Plaza together into one room so they wouldn’t be watching the media coverage alone.
Cooper likened people’s current mental states to the aftershocks that follow an earthquake.
“We don’t know when and if it will happen again,” she said. “Our general sense of safety is shaken. A real fabric of the whole society has been challenged.”
Actually, area therapists are seeing some similarities between the attack and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in terms of the effect on people of all ages.
“But with that, there’s another layer,” said Friedland-Brown. “This time we were the victim of an attack by ‘bad people’ rather than a naturally created disaster, and that adds incredible anger and pain that was missing with the earthquake.”
Because of the unusual nature of the tragedy, Sites predicts that “parents are going to be facing a whole new set of issues and questions around safety and politics” when it comes to teaching their children. The S.F.-based JFCS is thinking about starting a program to address these changing issues.
It’s impossible to know the long-term effects of the tragedy on people’s psyches, but Friedland-Brown is convinced “it is going to be a long haul.
“We will want to stay tuned in,” she said, recommending that those who are concerned they or someone around them is not handling the tragedy well can always start with a phone call to JFCS in order to seek help.
At JFCS of the East Bay, Feldman said, “many insecurities and fears — both from an economic point of view and also from the issue of peace vs. war — are arising…Every day as the days unfold is going to be different.”
To deal with those issues among individuals and families, JFCS of the East Bay is offering free drop-in groups in Berkeley and Walnut Creek.
On a positive note, Friedland-Brown said many adolescents and teens “are dealing with the attacks by doing healthy things.”
For instance, she said, “younger kids, like around 7 years old, are organizing lemonade stands to raise money” for relief efforts. “Older teens are saying, ‘since we’re too young to give blood, we’ll give money from our pockets instead.'”
Because of the backlash against the Arab-American community, Friedland-Brown also noticed a perfect opportunity for parents of younger children to teach them about tolerance.
“Children are not prejudiced, they come into the world openhearted,” she said. “This is a chance for parents to help them keep those views alive.”
Another thing that parents can do, said Cooper, is try to connect their families with positive, nurturing times and a sense of ritual.
“It could be as simple as going on a picnic to celebrate the love they have for each other so that the kids know that even though a bad thing happened, good things can happen too.”