Teach children acceptance, tolerance

• What to tell kids about terrorism

By Patti Martin
Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

Muslim men pray at a roadside in Karachi, Pakistan. Teaching children to accept differences in religious practices helps foster toleration. Associated Press

In response to horrors inflicted by terrorists, parents are finding themselves sharing a double burden — not only must they cope with their own grief, fear and anger — they must also find ways to help their children cope as well.

"As America's focus shifts from rescue and recovery to retaliation in the wake of the terrorist attacks, it is essential for all of us to talk with our children about discrimination and stereotyping," says Susan Linn, associate director of the Media Center for Children at the Harvard University-affiliated Judge Baker Children's Center in Cambridge, Mass.

"We don't want to create hate in young minds and hearts. After all, it was hate that caused these attacks in the first place."

It is important for parents to understand, points out John Seccafico, a licensed clinical social worker and executive director of the Center for Behavioral Health Services in Brick, N.J., that children learn prejudice at an early age.

"Children, probably as young as 15 months, begin to observe the world around them," Seccafico says. "As they grow up, their parents' actions and words give them a sense of how they should act and react to other people."

It's understandable then, Seccafico says, that if parents have boycotted a gas station because of the ethnic origins of the workers or made negative comments about a particular group of people, that children might develop prejudices.

"Children, in their innocence, believe what their parents do, believe what their parents say," Seccafico says. "I think this is the perfect time for parents to examine their own biases and what messages they may be sending their children, intentionally or not."

Experts say the terrorist attacks are providing parents with a unique opportunity to teach children about tolerance and diversity.

To help children understand that it's OK to be mad at some people (like the terrorists), but not an entire group of people, Manasquan, N.J., psychologist Sandra Sessa recommends relating to something in the child's life.

"It can be as simple as saying something like, 'If there were one or two children in your class who were misbehaving, how would you feel if the entire class got punished?'" Sessa says. "That's something concrete that children can relate to."

Then, Sessa says, the conversation can be turned to the terrorist attacks.

"You can then ask the child if it is fair that all Arab Americans or Muslims be treated badly because of the actions of some," Sessa says.

Further conversations can then focus on the fact that there are good people and bad people in every race, nationality and religious group, Seccafico says.

"And to help children understand that in order to see the good or bad in a person, you have to know them," he says. "Different isn't good or bad, different is just different."

To Sessa, it's quite simple.

"If children live in a family where acceptance and tolerance is taught and lived," she says, "that's the spirit in which they'll approach the rest of the world."