In the aftermath of last week's terrorist attacks, parents and teachers are struggling to help area schoolchildren bounce back.
Last Wednesday, the day after the attacks, Philadelphia public schools closed so staff could consult with mental health and crisis professionals. Psychologists were present in the schools last Thursday, and information on dealing with tragedy was sent home to the parents.
Professor of Human Development and Behavior Vivian Seltzer said that, to some extent, today's children were not immune to exposure from great violence in the past -- a fact which can actually helped parents to explain the tragedy.
"Kids see this kind of thing on television all the time," Seltzer said. "If they ask about it, you can draw that as an example and say unfortunately this was a real-life event, that it wasn't just make-believe."
Seltzer also said this tragedy would impact children differently depending on age, with younger kids less affected than their older siblings.
One parent of a Penn-assisted school student said that while her five-year-old daughter had not been affected by the tragedies, her 13-year-old son, who understood better what had occurred, showed signs that something was amiss.
"He didn't want to be near windows, like he felt an imminent danger," said the mother, who asked not to be identified. "He really was frustrated with adults changing the routine because he knew that he... needed to do ordinary stuff."
And Maria Schellhorn-Secchi said her daughter, a first grader at the Penn-assisted school, is probably too young to understand the tragedy, so she is dealing well with it.
"I just explained to her that it was a terrible accident, and she was OK," Schellhorn-Secchi said. "She felt sad about the people involved in the accident, but she doesn't ask anymore because she understands that an accident is an accident."
"I didn't explain to her more because... she might start to be afraid of her environment," she added.
Although both the Philadelphia School District and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers urged their employees to talk to the children, Pathology Professor Jeannette Bennicelli said that her 10-year-old daughter's school in suburban Stratford decided to pass the burden entirely to the parents.
"They sent a note home saying they wouldn't be talking about it at all," Bennicelli said, adding that her daughter helped to work out her feelings the night of the attack on Kids Corner, a call-in radio show on WXPN 88.5 FM.
"Some kids were saying they're scared and other kids were saying they're sad and my daughter said that she's angry," Bennicelli added. "It's not an overwhelming anger -- it's an `It's hard to believe someone would do this to us and what can we do' kind of anger."
But Seltzer said that educators necessarily play a limited role in helping children to deal with tragedy.
"The idea is that you work in collaboration with the parents, let them know what the other children are saying, and let them know what their child's reaction is," she said.
Children troubled by last week's events might show symptoms including not eating, moping around and not wanting to play with other children, Seltzer said. But under normal circumstance, those should not last for more than a few days.
After the symptoms pass, the process of comprehending how such an event could have occurred, and how America should react, begins.
"I grew up with Vietnam... but for people in their 20s and other kids this is really hard because they have nothing to compare it to," Bennicelli said. "It's really sad that we have to teach them about these things."
