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Giving Children Psychological "H.A.N.D.S" With Which to Work in Crisis
The value of active coping is well known. During times of disaster or community upset like terror or war, children do better when they are given "H.A.N.D.S.": The term "giving children Hands" is an abbreviated way of saying children must be helped to "Honestly communicate, Actively cope, and Network with peers and adults, in a Developmentally Specific manner." This workbook has been designed by parents and mental health professionals to promote a real sense for children of being in control of their own emotions and learning in the face of stress. The personal life-history book approach (see www.cphc-sf.org) is a form of mentalizing (Fonagy,1992, Kliman and Hope 2003) and narrative- building therapy which has been very effective when used with traumatized children in family crises, and is here adapted for use in the current crisis. It is a method that has been used by the authors previously in large-scale disasters: after the October, 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area ( My Earthquake Story ); the Santa Barbara Fire of June 1990 and the East Bay Hills Fire of October 1991 ( My Fire Story ); the devastating tornadoes in the spring of 1990 in the Joliet, Illinois, area ( My Tornado Story ); the massive flooding in the Midwest in 1993 (My Flood Story); the recent Balkan War, 1999 ( My Kosovo Story ); and the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters ( My Book about the Attack on America , 2001), My Story about Katrina and Rita , My Story about School Shootings and My Story About the Sichuan Earthquake . Children do best in a network of helpers, which this book tries to mobilize in a simple way, to give them strength to struggle with issues of terror, war and peace. The current acts of terror and war can serve as a developmental crisis for children, or as a catalyst stimulating learning and growth. Terror and war occur when people and nations believe they can't solve their problems without violence. The survival of our world depends on all of us thinking about how people and countries can cooperate better and talk to each other instead of fighting. All of our futures may depend on whether we and our children struggle thoughtfully with these issues. This workbook is carefully designed to give psychological first aid to both you and the children you know, love and teach. You are going through a great stress, just as your own children and students are. Your idea in using this book is probably the same as ours. You want to try to help children change a possibly chaotic and traumatic situation into a structured learning and coping experience. Children's fears can be managed if you include shared adult and child activity, discussion, collecting, building and organizing of knowledge.
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