Connect for Kids asks KU historian for tips on helping children cope in wartime

LAWRENCE -- Seeking to help children feel safe during wartime, Connect for Kids, an award-winning multimedia project, recently recruited University of Kansas historian Bill Tuttle to join a psychiatrist and an educator to explore ways adults can help youngsters feel safe in uncertain times.

"Every adult with a child in his or her life is walking through an emotional minefield when it comes to helping kids feel safe, and really be safe, in these tense times," reports Connect for Kids on its Web site, www.connectforkids.org.

To get some perspective, Connect for Kids talked with psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School in Boston, well-known for his insights into the minds and feelings of children; G.J. Tarazi, principal of Glasgow Middle School in Arlington, Va., who has helped children from dozens of countries, as well as relatives of Pentagon staffers, negotiate their feelings about Sept. 11, 2001, and the mounting Iraq crisis; and Tuttle, KU professor of American studies, whose book "Daddy's Gone to War" explores how U.S. children experienced homefront life during World War II.

They offer answers to nine questions parents may have as news reports focus on war and terrorism. The Connect for Kids site provides both text and audio responses from each expert about helping children feel safe.

For example, to answer "What are some strategies for calming children's fears on the subject of possible terrorist attack or war?" Poussaint advises parents to nurture their children as a calming strategy and to be aware of physical signs of anxiety. Tarazi recalls how his faculty met with counselors immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks to discuss how a child's behavior might indicate anxiety.

Tuttle notes reports from homefront children on the importance of reassurance from parents. "I wasn't quite prepared for all the scary stories that these homefront children shared with me, about air raid drills and blackouts at night and hearing sirens and hearing airplanes and how frightening they found all of this," he says.

"Again, it always came down to parents, and even the situations of blackouts at home, with the sirens going on and the black paper being put on the windows," Tuttle continues. "Even during those periods some kids have very happy memories of being comforted and reassured by their parents, and especially by their mothers."

Connect for Kids helps adults make their communities better places for families and children. The Web site offers a place for adults -- parents, grandparents, educators, policymakers and others -- who want to become more active citizens, from volunteering to voting with kids in mind.

The Connect for Kids team is made up of children's experts, journalists and communications specialists in Washington, D.C. The team is funded by the Annie E. Casey foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. In addition, Connect for Kids partners with the Ad Council, CWK Network/Connecting with Kids, Casey Family Programs, the National Educational Association and One World U.S.