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CNN Live Today

Helping Kids Cope

Aired September 05, 2002 - 10:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is hard enough, and it has been hard enough for adults to endure the fears and emotions stemming from the September 11th terrorist attacks, but the impact on kids has been even greater.
Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta listened to what some kids had to say. I also talked to a child psychologist about how kids have been affected by the attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened when you watched it on television?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two planes -- one plane crashed in one of the World Trade Centers and the other one crashed into a different one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just made me feel sad to see all those people running away from the buildings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My aunt was in a train when it happened. And she got out, and there was blood every before on her. She had to go to the hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my. I'm so sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about you? Anything else you want to say?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, but my sister's best friend's aunt got killed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of my sister's friends, his dad works in the Pentagon, and his dad got hurt really badly, and he had to be in the hospital for a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did any of you have bad dreams about it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you talk about those dreams?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like people, like coming up people's driveways and hurting them in their house, and I couldn't sleep very well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You couldn't sleep very well. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was imagining I was in there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You were imagining you were in there. Do any of you feel it is too hard it watch the pictures on TV?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you do when it gets too hard?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like I walk away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes it is just to get it out of my system, I could write down something comforting or draw a picture that's comforting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should like build towers that are indestructible, and that we should have more people trying to help like people in the Army, and stuff like that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you think Bin Laden and his people did what they did?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because they were jealous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he should like open his eyes and be like, oh, my God, I've done something terrible, and now soon I'm going to die because these people want me dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Really remarkable voices from these young children. I think what struck me the most really is the concept of anniversaries is something that's really foreign to a lot of children. Sometimes when they see these event playing over and over again, they do think it's actually happening over and over again. They are certainly going to get a lot of that over the next couple of weeks.

KAGAN: That is one thing to be careful about, especially leading up into next week.

GUPTA: That's right, limiting exposure to television, and if you are letting your children watch television, make sure they know this is something that happened a while ago, it is isn't happening over and over again. Really explain that starting now, soon.

KAGAN: Now coming up in the next hour, we will have a child psychologist on. What are we going to do?

GUPTA: That's right, well, people have a lot of questions, as you pointed out, Daryn, questions not only about how they themselves should be handling some of the events that are coming up in the anniversary of 9-11, but also their children. They will be seeing this on television. They are going to want to ask questions. The are going to talk about it. They are going to have appropriate fears that will be addressed, and Dr. Kaslow (ph) hopefully will be able to address some of that.

KAGAN: And you will be back, too.

GUPTA: I will be back as well.

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