A Brief Post on How to Help a Child Who's Afraid of a Terrorist Attack

In this brief post I ‘d like to address how to help your child when they see there was a terrorist attack.  First assure them that they are safe.  Talk to them about the police, government agencies and the military and how they protect us all.  Then allow your child to express their fears through drawings or storytelling.  Ask them about what is going on in their pictures or what is happening in the story and why.  This helps them talk about how they feel. 

 

Then normalize their feelings.  Let them know that it’s OK to be afraid sometimes and that everyone is afraid sometimes.  Address their fears, again letting them know they are safe and that people are working to keep us all safe.    

 

Then tell your children how much you love them and let them know if they need to talk about their fears that you are always there for them to talk about anything that bothers or scares them. 

 

If your child is more anxious than others and continues to talk about their fears of a terrorist attack for more than a month or so, it might be a good idea to have them talk to a counselor or other mental health professional.  Unless of course their was another terrorist attack.  These seem to be trying times for everyone.  It's hard for parents and teachers to understand why this happens so imagine how hard it is for children.     

 

It’s terrible that we have to talk to our children about the bad things people do.  In a perfect world, children would always feel safe but the world is not perfect and it never will be.  It’s up to us to teach our children that there are bad people in the world but we can’t let those bad people rule our lives.  It’s also up to us to teach our children how to deal with the fear bad people can bring.  I hope this post has been helpful in some way.  Thanks for reading.