Sept. 18, 2001

COLLEGE STATION – On Sept. 11, 2001, the nation and the world were changed forever. Three commercial jet airliners, each carrying passengers and crews, were hijacked and used as weapons to attack the United States by taking down the World Trade Center in New York City and destroying part of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth hijacked airliner went down in a field in Pennsylvania before reaching its designated target.

The death toll is still not certain, but will probably number in the thousands.

And now, as rescue workers dig through the rubble left by the collapse of those structures, the rest of the country must dig through the emotional rubble left in their lives by these attacks.

This event has touched everybody, say experts, no matter how far away from the scenes. "We're at some distance but our lives have been affected in a very powerful way," said Dr. Linda Ladd, Texas Cooperative Extension family development specialist.

For most Americans, news sources – television, radio, newspaper and Internet – have been constant companions. The scenes of the Twin Towers collapsing and the Pentagon burning have become part of the nation's collective waking nightmare.

Every other topic of conversation seems trivial. Total strangers stop each other on the street and ask if there's been any developments.

During the first day or two after the tragedy, schools and businesses closed; airports were shuttered and locked down; buses were stopped.

The nation's heart still beat, but slower and more solemnly.

Then the initial shock and fear began to be replaced by stories of heroism and selflessness and a general desire to help. Americans started reaching out to each other. American flags were visible on buildings, cars, lawns and clothing. Rebuilding began.

Life may never get completely back to what it was before – some experts say our national innocence is gone – but the recovery process has started.

And that process begins with families, Ladd said.

In order to start the recovery process, "we have to take a look at how the balance of our daily lives have been disrupted by events in Washington and New York," she said.

For most people, a daily routine is just a matter of course. Get up at a certain time, go to work and/or school and/or day care at a certain time, have lunch, go home, do chores, go to bed, all at a certain time. People tend to behave in an orderly fashion every day, Ladd said.

Now, however, events beyond control have interrupted these daily routines, and when that happens, "we get out of balance,"she said.

And how parents deal with this upset in the order or balance of daily life can affect their children in positive or adverse ways, Ladd said.

Parents under any kind of stress – the stress generated by day-to-day life – may find themselves "extremely rattled" by this crisis, she said. "People with an overload of stress may have a difficult time. They can either shut down or act out,"Ladd said.

Of the two, acting out – such as yelling and crying and punching pillows – may be the healthier course to take, she added, because shutting down can lead to an emotional explosion later, and the results could be disastrous.

But everyone should realize "we have a long time of adjustment ahead of us," Ladd said, and the best way to get started could be to mourn what we have lost – and then "do what we need to do" to get daily life back in balance.

Ladd emphasized that children's stage of development will affect their understanding of the world around them, and they will look to their parents for direction. "Adults can look down the long road," she said, and see possibilities. "Children are literal – they can't see down the long road; teen-agers can look down the long road, but they don't have the experience to look very far.

"Children do not have the depth of experience (to guide their own understanding)," Ladd said. "Parents need to be aware of how their short-term reactions (such as ‘Let's go over there and nuke them!') can affect their children in the long term."

As time passes and a certain amount of calmness returns, parents need to tell their children about the changes in their thoughts and emotions, Ladd said.

And perhaps, she said, although life may never be the way it was before, families can ease the way by nurturing and emotionally supporting each other while establishing their new daily routines.

Ladd advised parents who may still be in turmoil about their own reactions to this national tragedy to emphasize the many acts of heroism they are seeing: the children who are collecting donations from their classmates for the relief effort ... people waiting in line for five or seven or nine hours to donate blood ... the firefighter who, just moments after his own rescue from beneath the rubble, grabbed a quick sandwich, put his helmet back on and went back to work ... the passengers and crew of the fourth airliner who evidently fought their hijackers and prevented them from hitting their target.

These and other acts of heroism, she said, is where the country's healing starts.

For more information on how families can get back to balance, Ladd recommended these Web sites:

http://www.familyinfoserv.com/crisis.html from Family Information Services;

http://www.ksu.edu/wwparent/ from The WonderWise Parent Web site (with information that originated at Kansas State University);

http://www.preparerespondrecover.com/childrensneeds/ copyright 2000-2001 by PrepareRespondRecover.com (with material adapted by Dr. Karen Debord, child development specialist with North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service; material from the Stress and Coping with Disaster Manuel from University Extension in Columbia, Mo.)