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New Zealand Mental Health workers have issued a kit for parents and schools to help quell Kiwi children's anxiety about the war in Iraq.
According to a statement issued Monday by the Mental Health Foundation, the kit recommends that parents limit television viewing of war coverage to 15 minutes a day for children under five and 30 minutes a day for five to 12 year olds.
The Mental Health workers have compiled the information for adults to help children and teenagers come to terms with war-related feelings of depression, fear, anxiety, sadness or anger.
They cited a Year Eight teacher as saying: "I have children crying in my class every day. They are so sensitive and aware of what is going on, they fear it might come here."
One 11-year-old boy said: "I feel sick when I think about the war and don't want to go to school."
A mother said her young daughter saw a newspaper photo and thought that the bombing was in Christchurch. "Her world is so small. She has no concept of time or distance."
Anna McNaughton of the Mental Health Foundation in Christchurch said New Zealand children were worried about Iraqi children. War images could also affect children who had already experienced war or trauma.
The statement said about 1000 kits had already been sent to schools on the South Island but the kit can also be downloaded from the foundation's website.
In addition to monitoring what children see and read, the kit recommends that parents stick to family routines, listen to and reassure children, and model values such as tolerance and compassion.
President of the Principals Federation Jenny Earle said primary school teachers now started each day with talk time for children to discuss the war before work began.
"This is having an impact. Parents need to talk with their children about what is happening and help them work through it, rather than leave them isolated and feeling unsure and frightened.Get an atlas out and show them where the war is. It doesn't do anyharm to discuss how those (Iraqi) children are feeling about it," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2003)
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