Fw: Our World, Our Children's World

["C. Eyler" <eyler@mindspring.com>]

As an online customer of Title9 Sports (women's sports apparel), I received
the following message from that organization.  As part of our discussion of
the horrific events of a week ago, I thought this might be useful for
parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles (officially and otherwise) -- all of
us who have children in our lives.

(Thanks, Steph, for letting us use Ridecamp to communicate about all this to
each other.)

Cindy
(who loves the bras from Title9 Sports)


"Bad people stole some planes and crashed them into buildings. Lots of
people got hurt." That's my 3-year old's explanation to anyone who will
listen. I wish our very grown-up world were as simple as my 3-year old's.
Obviously it's not. Still I find myself wondering what she really
understands and how it all impacts her. Then I wonder how different, how
difficult, it must be for a parent to tell that same little 3-year old that
a loved one is never coming home. I asked the director of her nursery school
for advice. Bonnie said, "Listen. Your world, my world? Well, it has changed
forever. But you must work to keep your child's world the same."

It seems like good advice for all of us. How do we try to keep our little
piece of the world the same, if not for us, at least for our children? No,
there's not a lot to "do" but if we can just keep things the same, or at
least, if we can just get back to some semblance of  "normal," well, that
may just have to be enough for now. To that end, I'm attaching some links
that have started to help me move towards normal-repair, restore, move on. I
hope they'll be helpful to you.

I'm now 8 and ½ months pregnant, can I give blood?
The answer for me is "no." But even if I'm nursing, I'll be able to give
blood 6 weeks after delivery. 6 weeks from now will probably be a better
time anyway. Right now, blood banks are simply overwhelmed by people wanting
to give. Here's more about blood donation from the Red Cross:
http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/blood/learn/eligibl.html

How do I talk to my daughter about what's happened?
This is a tricky one and seems to depend a lot on your particular kids,
their ages and the bombings impact on your family. I think the best piece of
advice I got was again from Bonnie, "Turn off the TV."

Obviously while that may be a good start, each kid is different, has
experienced a different level of tragedy and is probably more complex than
my 3-year old. So here are a couple of good articles/sites that I've found.
Perhaps you'll find them helpful as well: "Help Them Face Their Fears" by
Eda J. LeShan (http://www.title9sports.com/helpthem.html) and a series of
articles from experts on how to help your children cope
(http://www.drspock.com/topic/0,1504,677,00.html).

I've added a special box to our home page
(http://www.title9sports.com/fallwinterindex.html) with a bunch of links to
different information and donation sites. As I try and move back to normal,
I've found some of this info helpful. I hope you'll find it helpful, too.

Take good care,

Missy Park