MY BOOK  
ABOUT THE WAR  
AND TERRORISM 
A GUIDED ACTIVITY WORKBOOK FOR CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND 
TEACHERS  
A SIMPLE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD GUIDE TO ENCOURAGE HEALTHY 
EXPRESSION, LEARNING AND COPING. 
GILBERT KLIMAN, M. D.  
HARRIET WOLFE, M. D.  
EDWARD OKLAN, M. D. , M. P. H. 
ILLUSTRATIONS:  
ANNE KUNIYUKI OKLAN, R. N. , CPCC 
Price for this book is $ 17.00 plus shipping and handling ( and tax for CA residents)  
to order please call Edith Lee at 415 474 1854 
 Copyright March 23, , 2003: The Children s Psychological Trauma Center  
a division of The Children s Psychological Health Center, Inc, a nonprofit ( 501 c-3) 
agency  
2024 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, CA 94115  
ORDER ONLINE: http: / / www. cphc-sf. org 2  

 
TABLE OF CONTENTS  
GUIDE FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS -INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
. . 1  
GIVING CHILDR E N PSYCHOLOG I C A L H. A. N. D. S. WITH WHICH TO 
WORK IN A CRISIS . . 2  
GETTING STARTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3  
FOR THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN: A SHARED COLORING BOOK . . . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . 4  
PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
4  
MIDDLE CHILDH O O D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4  
ELEVEN YEARS AND OLDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5  
IF YOU WERE BEREAVED, OR IF A FAMILY MEMBER WAS INJURED, OR 
IS MISSING . . . . . 5  
FO R ADULTS AND OLDER TEENAGERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6  
FOR USE AS A FAMILY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6  
USE BY TEACHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7  
USE BY MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7  
USE OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8  
GUIDE FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9  
ABOUT WA R S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9  
ABOUT TH E 1991 AND 2003 WARS WITH IRAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11  
ABOUT TERRORISTS AND THE 09/ 11/ 2001 ATTACK ON AMERICA . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . 15  
BEING STRONG IN THE FACE OF TERROR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16  
ONE QUESTION AND THREE ANSWERS ABOUT TERROR ATTACKS  
WHY DID THE AIRLINER HIJACKINGS, WORLD TRADE CENTER AND 
PENTAGON CRASHES  
HAPPEN? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27  
TO AL L CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS: MORE ABOUT USING THIS BOOK . 
. . . . . . . . . 32  
MY BOOK ABOUT THE WAR AND TERRORISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35  
QUIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109  
READINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128  
RESOURCES, RELIEF AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
. 119  
WHO WROTE THIS BOOK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131  

 
PICTURES TO COLOR:  
WAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30  
WATCHING TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31  
GLAD TO BE ALIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35  
FEELING BETTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36  
SCARED FEELINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42  
A CH I L D DREAMING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44  
SA Y I N G GO O D B Y E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50  
A CHILD CRYIN G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51  
WAR, A C ' S D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55  
ARMY, A C ' S D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56  
MISSILES, A C ' S D A W I N G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57  
TA N K S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59  
SO L D I E R S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60  
A BO M B E D HOUSE, A C ' S D A W I N G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61  
TA K I N G SH E L T E R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62  
REFUGEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63  
RE D CR O S S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64  
WH A T DO YO U THINK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65  
ASKING FOR HELP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66  
PERSIAN GULF MAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70  
WORLD MA P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71  

 
GUIDE FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS  
INTRODUCTION  
This workbook is here to help parents, families and teachers help their children and 
students. If you are a teenager or a very good younger reader, you can use  
much of it by yourself. It will help children and adults to talk together about terrorism, 
war and peace and has instructions for use with children from preschool  
through high school ages.  
The book s goals are for children to gain strength and learn more. They can gain control 
of facts, ideas and feelings about terrorism, war and peace. We want to  
help children to cope with their worries or fears, and help them think about ways to go 
about solving safety problems. Using this book can help in a stressful  
situation, so there can be constructive learning and coping. We offer a guide and physical 
structure to organize and encourage children s thinking about war, terror  
and the resolution of conflicts between peoples, with the help of their own families, 
teachers and classmates. The authors have had many years of  
professional and personal experience with national disasters, and children s reactions, 
beginning with the senior author s research on children s reactions to  
the assassination of President Kennedy ( Psychological Emergencies of Childhood, 
Kliman, 1968; Children and the Death of a President, Wolfenstein and Kliman,  
1965) .  
The guided activity workbook format is a simple and straightforward approach which 
uses an existing psychological self-help method which has been well-studied  
and found measurably helpful in other situations ( Kliman, 1995) . The activity workbook 
encourages children to learn more about the facts of terrorism, war and  
peace, as well as their own feelings and values. Designed to be used with children of 
varying developmental levels, it includes a guide for parents and teachers and  
one for children. It has a journal to record ideas and feelings; a scrapbook for articles and 
pictures; illustrations to color and discuss; a quiz about war and peace;  
suggestions for activities; a list of resources; a bibliography, and a children' s mental 
health checklist to help identify those children needing more assistance. It  
can be used by children of various ages individually, with their families, in the classroom 
with groups of children, and by mental health professionals as part of  therapy. 
 
GIVING CHILDREN PSYCHOLOGICAL H. A. N. D. S  
WITH WHICH TO WORK IN A CRISIS 
The value of active coping is well known. During times of disaster or community upset 
like terrorism 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, 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 national 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) . 
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 terrorism, war and  
peace. The current acts of terrorism and war can serve as a developmental crisis for 
children, or as a catalyst stimulating learning and growth. 
Terrorism 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 all through the nation 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. 
GETTING STARTED  
1. Read the whole book yourself before your child or student does, if he or she is less 
than ten or eleven years of age.  
2. Be sure to read the Guide for Children and Teenagers to children who can' ' t read it 
themselves, and answer any questions they may have.  
3. Point out to your child or student that this terrorism and war are important moments in 
history. It is a time the child s family and the whole world will  
remember. He or she can be part of history. He or she can help make a record of it with 
this workbook. Perhaps years later people will discover this  
workbook, and it will help them understand more about what happened. 4. Be flexible in 
your work with your child. Working on this book may take several  
weeks. The entire book does not have to be completed in order for the book to help. 
Never force a child to face a section of the book against his or her will.  
Allow each child to select which parts of the book to work with first and to stop using the 
book whenever he or she wants, even though it may not have  
been completed. It is usually best not to work on the book right before bedtime.  
5. A child who cannot or will not work with you should have his resistance respected. See 
the Mental Health Checklist at the end of the book.  
6. To Therapists: Our view is that severe stressors are best healed by gaining new or 
increased skills and broadening one s perspective, going on with life,  
and putting the events in a context. There should never be an insistence on endless review 
of the most painful memories. See the Children s Psychological  
Trauma Center Scientific Bulletin of February 2000 on www. cphc-sf. org for our senior 
author s Unifying New Theory of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.  
Note how important it is to help stressed children see and remember their complex worlds 
broadly rather than narrowly, widely rather than only through  
the overly simple and stark perspective of repetitive traumatic memories. 
 
FOR THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN: A SHARED COLORING BOOK  
Expect limited verbal participation in the use of this workbook with children younger 
than three. Two and three year olds can help you color the picture book  
sections. Let babies and toddlers be present while older children work with you.  
A sense of family caring, thinking and working on mental and emotional tasks together is 
a help to babies and toddlers in stressful times. 
Use the many illustrations with your youngest children, giving them a chance to talk 
about what they think happened and why they think these things happened.  
Give simple information. 
PRESCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN  
If your child is between ages 3 and 6, let him or her do a lot of coloring of the many line 
drawings in this book. You can read much of the book to your child.  
Substitute simpler words he would understand. Let the child choose some of the topics by 
reading the captions and asking which part he or she wants to work on  
first. Stop at the quiz, which is too advanced intellectually.  
You can help a preschool or kindergarten child do the drawings. Write down his answers 
to questions and lead-on sentences. Act as an interested reporter- 
secretary, drawing your child out while giving encouragement. Write exactly what he or 
she has to say without changing the grammar. Take your time. Don' t insist on  
the child answering. It may be enough for him to know that you think the topic can be 
shared in words instead of his experiencing his fears and fantasies alone. 
MIDDLE CHILDHOOD  
If your child is between the ages of 6 and 11, use most of the book. You may be surprised 
at how much of it your child can understand. Allow him to set the pace.  
Gently try to work through all of the sections over a period of several days or weeks, but 
let the child direct which sections to work on first. Don' t insist on  
reading any sections a child of any age is reluctant to read. Encourage clipping pictures 
and articles from newspapers and magazines. Help him paste them in to  
make the workbook into a scrapbook. Use the backs of pages for extra clippings. 
 
At the very least, ask the child to help color in the illustrations, while you participate. 
Some children may work on the book on and off as they get stronger.  
Children very close to the disaster make take weeks and sometimes even months, and 
will be able to complete a difficult section only at a later date. 
ELEVEN YEARS AND OLDER  
Many children over age 11 will want to work on the book on their own, but it is part of a 
network approach for you to tactfully participate, pitch in with ideas and give  
your assistance at times. The older children can look up information and answers in the 
rear, find out about their own mental health by using the checklist, and might  
give you plenty of adult-sounding suggestions about how to help the community and 
them back to a normal life! Be available to serve as a sounding board and resource  
for your child or teenager, helping to find information and answering questions. Share 
your own reactions in words and with caring, protective actions. Try to avoid  
seeming incapable, numb, silent, unavailable or retreating emotionally. The whole 
network of caregivers can help children by being as energetic as possible in  
expressing thoughts, mentally processing rather just taking actions or being frozen with 
anxiety. 
IF YOU WERE BEREAVED, OR IF A FAMILY MEMBER  
WAS INJURED, OR IS MISSING 
Studies show adults example of strength will lead the way to children s recovery. Your 
children may benefit from brief preventive consultation. Help is available  
through support groups and mental health services. Services are listed under Mental 
Health or Social Services or under State or County Health Services  
listings in your local Yellow Pages. Also helpful may be your local Psychiatric Society, 
Psychological Association or Psychoanalytic Institute. Military families  
may receive help through their base family support or community service centers. 
Bereavement is a high mental health risk for all children, and even more serious  
for preschool children. See www. cphc-sf. org and www. aacap. org/ publications and see 
our resource list at the back of this book for more help and information. Use  
of a personal life history book method such as this book can help preserve the bereaved 
child s sense of continuity. 
 
FOR ADULTS AND OLDER TEENAGERS  
Even adults may find that using this book can help them understand better and cope 
better with their experiences. You can add your own questions as well as  
answering the questions asked of the children. You may also find that drawing or 
coloring the scenes may help you become calmer or help you to mentalize,  
remember your experiences and master them. Along with answers to learning about the 
war questions, , the end of the book has a reading list for children and  
adolescents and a list of helpful resources. Relief efforts might be able to use your 
volunteer help, and that of your teenage children. 
Finally, a Mental Health Checklist tells you what kind of behavior to be concerned about 
in your children or students during terrorism, war or other public stressor.  
Older children and teenagers as well become more clingy, dependent or angry if they 
have been overstressed by traumatic events. Try to tolerate but not  
completely accept such behavior. Affectionately state your expectations of future growth. 
FOR USE AS A FAMILY  
One very helpful way of using the book involves parents, brothers and sisters, and any 
other relatives frequently in the home all working together. . The sooner you  
begin to do this, the better.  
Each child can individually work on the same questions ( each from his own workbook or 
on separate blank paper) . Add the pages all together in one family project  
About the War in Iraq and Terrorism in the World. When many children all work on one 
book, contributing their own reactions, each should sign his or her own name  
to his entries. Engaging in a shared thinking and remembering with adult leadership can 
help your children feel stronger and safer as they work on a joint  
project under your direction. This can also help bring your family closer together. 
 
USE BY TEACHERS  
A social network ( Moos 1992) has been shown to help children and adults cope with 
stressors and catastrophes. Teachers can use My Book About War and Terrorism  
in a classroom setting. Children can work individually or in small groups with teachers' 
assistance. This is a way to encourage learning more about war and peace  
and to support group togetherness. Don t avoid discussion. Children s school behavior 
deteriorates in a national crisis when discussion is avoided ( Kliman, 1964) .  
To help identify children who need additional assistance, use the Children' s Mental 
Health Checklist at the end of the book. Many U. S. Schools have official mental  
health consultants. Consultations are often available to U. S. schools by calling a local 
County Community Mental Health Center, Mental Health Association,  
Psychiatric Society, Psychoanalytic Institute, or Psychological Association. 
USE BY MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS  
Therapists can use this book during individual, family or group sessions as a supplement 
to treatment for children or adults with Post Traumatic Stress  
Disorder, Depression, or Adjustment Disorders due to personal traumas experienced as a 
result of the war or terror attacks. Assistance for governmental  
agencies, mental health professionals and community agencies in the use of this book is 
available from The Children s Psychological Health Center, 415-474-0955.  
In one state ( South Dakota) a an earlier version concerning terror attacks has been 
distributed by the Department of Human Services in Emergency/ Disaster  
Kits.  
Visit our website http: / / www. cphc-sf. org for more contact information and Scientific 
Bulletins on trauma. As explained in our February 1999 Scientific  
Bulletin, in Kliman s article on a Unifying New Theory of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder 
( ( available free online) , we advise against exclusive use of debriefing  
approaches with constant review of traumatic memories. Our orientation is strongly on 
developing a supportive adult and child network, with active discussion,  
learning, narrative and art production. For more detail see http: / / www. cphc-sf. org/ 
resources_ articles_ bulletin0299. html# unifying_ theory. 
A social and family network approach helps children to have cognitive restructuring and 
reframing, learning new coping strategies in response to stressors. 
 
USE OF ILLUSTRATIONS  
The drawings throughout the book can be used by families, teachers, teenagers and 
children in a variety of ways to help strengthen normal coping. 
Young children ( ages 2-4) , severely traumatized children, and learning-disabled or 
learning specific children ( ( who may have a preference for visual as opposed to  
auditory communication) can color in the illustrations with an adult to aid in nonverbal 
mastery of their worries. The pictures can then be used as starting  
points for open-ended discussions about the events pictured.  
Adults and children who are overwhelmed with sadness, , flashbacks, memories, and 
anxiety, who startle easily, or have insomnia or nightmares may find the  
process of coloring in images of the experience helpful. We suggest they choose to start 
with the illustrations furthest from their own experience and gradually work  
up to those closest to their own experience.  
Family members can sometimes all work on a drawing together, each coloring a portion. 
This may allow everyone to feel less distraught about the image before  
them and take control together, feel calmer and remember their feelings.  
The illustrations can also be used as topics for early and middle childhood classroom 
discussion. This can be an aid in remembering and re-experiencing for  
those children who remain emotionally numb or have some trouble putting their fears 
into words. For example, a parent could ask about an illustration: What is  
this child feeling? or What is happening? " Children often can respond by describing 
what someone else is feeling, when they can' t talk about their own  
feelings. The illustrations can be used for mastery-promoting activity. Ask the child to 
draw a picture of what he and the family can do to make things better.  
Focus on benevolent aspects: what the scene will look like when there is peace again. 
 
GUIDE FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS  
WHY LEARN ABOUT WAR?  
Acts of terror and war have occurred throughout history and all over the world. Knowing 
about them can help you understand more and be safer. In terror attacks,  
wars and other disasters people can be helped by more knowledge and talking to others 
about their worries. Knowledge and social support can help you stay in  
control of your feelings. Your ideas may help people live in peace in the future. 
ABOUT WARS  
Even the youngest children should be taught that war is a terrible thing even when it is 
necessary. People get hurt and killed, and homes, schools and buildings  
destroyed. Pollution from wars, like oil spills, smoke from big fires or nuclear fallout can 
damage the Earth s future. Women and children can be harmed by  
crashes, explosions, bombs, missiles, bullets, poison gas, germs, radiation and other 
weapons. And many people can be frightened. 
Sometimes the leaders of our country have to make a very hard choice. They may have to 
decide that our armed forces must fight a war, even though it is so  
terrible, because of some very important reasons. In March, 2003, President Bush had the 
job of deciding if those reasons were important enough to risk people' s  
lives, and whether it would be even more dangerous not to have a war.  
Many children and adults get frightened, sad or worried during a war. In the past 50 
years, children in the countries of the United States, Afghanistan, Israel,  
Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, Rwanda, Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Ireland, have been very 
close to fighting or actually in wars. Some have seen and heard airplanes, missiles,  
explosions and gunfire. Children have heard air raid sirens and had to stay in shelters and 
wear gas masks. Some have had their homes or schools destroyed, or  
seen collapsed buildings. Many have family or friends who were injured or even killed, 
and many children have been hurt themselves. They may have had to leave  
their city or country. Some have had to leave family and friends behind. Many children 
have died because of war injuries. All through the world hundreds of  
millions of children have seen a tremendous amount of war on television, sometimes over 
and over. 
 
Until the attacks of September 11, 2001, most children in America were never very 
personally close to war. They don t remember the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,  
which started our entry into World War II on December 7, 1941. But most children have 
seen pictures of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which were the  
beginnings of a major terrorist war. They saw and heard lots about it on TV, radio and 
read about it in the newspapers. They had their favorite TV shows interrupted  
with scary news bulletins and saw their parents get upset and worried. They saw and 
heard about tremendous buildings collapsing, saw the clouds of smoke and felt  
fear. They heard about ashes and people falling and fires continuing, of police and 
firemen killed. They know that thousands of office workers and airplane  
passengers died, were injured or are missing. It seemed close on TV even though the 
events were far away for children living outside of New York and Washington. 
Many children know or even have a parent, family member or friend who may have died 
or been injured or is missing. These children may be very brave, but still  
worried and miss someone very much. Many children have trouble studying, sleeping, or 
have bad dreams during a disaster or war. They may be afraid to go to  
school, or have headaches or stomach aches because of their worries. They may have 
trouble paying attention at school and might not even know that their minds  
are thinking about the war instead of school work. They might feel sad and cry easily and 
want to be very close to their mom or dad. They might feel angry and  
get into trouble or fights because they are so worried. They may be scared that war would 
come over here even more, so they will feel very unsafe. They may miss  
someone they love and worry that something bad will happen to them. They may have 
been very sad about what did happen. 
Some children might not even know that they are worried about terror attacks and wars. 
They may have trouble even thinking about what has happened. Other  
children may think about frightening things that they would rather not think about at all, 
especially when they are reminded by the news on the radio or TV or even  
when an airplane flies overhead.  
But it is also normal for children not to get too upset. A lot of children do not get worried 
much at all and stay fairly happy.