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FEMA Removes 9/11 Coloring Book For Children From Website
FEMA has decided to pull a children's coloring book entitled, "A Scary Thing Happened" from their website. The coloring book contained three images of the twin towers on fire for children to color. Rose Olmsted, the coordinator behind the book said, "I stand firm that it was a very well thought-out and useful resource for kids, but it's obviously being misinterpreted by a lot of people." Since people are so upset about the coloring book, I can only assume FEMA's plan for a human remains concentration game will be put on hold.
I mean, I'm just sayin'...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A certain amount of desensitization is necessary to live.
I open the paper every day to see a two-page spread of people who died. If I wasn't desensitized to death to a certain degree and instead had a huge emotional reaction to everyone who had died, I'd be screwed.
You don't want kids to be callous, but you don't want them to live in fear, either.
The coloring book was a well thought out resource then for allowing toddlers work out their emotions from that event.
Honestly, can you imagine how scary it would have been to be a 4 year old during 9/11? We adults, the folk they looked to for guidance, were primarily broken. Most of the people I knew back then were completely at a loss on how to act, what to think, or even what to say, they just sat there organically BSOD'ed.
Now imagine you are a kid and your parents are doing this, and the TV is saying we are under attack, showing buildings falling and people jumping out. Over and over again.
The kids back then needed something to help them cope, and giving them the opportunity to draw it in a coloring book, as much as it sounds counter intuitive, is pretty much the standard "coping technique" any child psychologist will suggest for children who've experienced a tramatic event.
On the other hand, I really don't see it being as useful today. I would have supported removing it, not because of 'negative pressure' but simply because it was no longer relevant or useful for the purpose it was created.
..to teach kids about bad stuff.
Hansel and Gretel -- your parents can't feed you so they abandon you in the woods to starve to death. Kids had to be exposed to the realities of the world, which despite our attempts to pretend otherwise, were way worse for your typical non-aristocrat in 17th century Europe. Abuse. Abandonment. Starvation. Fairy Tales served as a way to expose kids to what might happen next.
How is that story -- which was a real threat back when famine and starvation weren't just inspirations for pop music sing-alongs -- any worse than a 9/11 coloring book which tries to help kids understand what happened?
We're so fucked when the response is to just shelter kids from everything. Shelter them from nothing. Expose them carefully and they will learn.
I just read through that entire thing, and seems to me this is a really good and well thought-out coloring book about general disasters and helping young kids cope. The cover is really the only thing that's 9/11 related - and if you look, even that is just ONE part of the disasters represented. I think this is clearly yet another example of overzealous political correctness - i.e. pussification.
Sorry, big bag of fail there. Kids who need coloring books to learn about a terrorist attack do not need to learn the history yet.
I'm not sure someone who has to describe something as a "big bag of fail" has a proper perspective on what children need much less how to educate them.
I agree. I'd never heard of this book before now (I am from the UK) and expected something either frightening/sickly sweet. It's actually good.
If anything the only problem I can see with the use of the 9/11 image on the front is that it's 'out of date' - in the sense that there have been a number of more recent disasters that it may be better to refer to (given the target age).
Change the cover and it's good to go, no?
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On the other hand, kids that are of a coloring-book age (like my 5-year-old) at this point probably don't remember September 11, 2001, anyhow.
Isn't that the point? To explain a tragic and significant event in what is to them American History in an age-appropriate way? I don't see what's wrong with that.
I am well aware that I am "Bruce Fricken Perens" :-)
Well, I see a few problems here.
I actually read the book. 911 is not centrally featured, it's just one of a number of disasters. There are also fires, floods, etc. And there is a really nice talk, at a child's level, on how to be prepared. Now, a child who knows how to be prepared is going to be more confident of getting through an emergency.
I had a big demonstration of this during a dinner-time earthquake a few years ago. Valerie and I just looked at each other in shock across the table, and it was Stanley, then 7 years old, who said "duck and cover!" and got us moving. He'd been well trained in school.
So, I'm bothered that this resource has been removed just because it had photos of the world trade center burning and being hit by an airplane that a child could color in. That's how you get a child to think about things. Most children would draw in people either running, or helping others, or catching the bad guys. Or all three. That's how they think, and that's how they tell others what they are thinking, which a parent can use as a cue to talk things through further. I downloaded the PDF. My kid is a bit old for this now (he's 9) but he is pretty well trained in self-reliance anyway.
I am also disturbed that some over-sensitive people get to tell our government how to give all of us services. That sounds undemocratic to me.
Bruce Perens.
Since people think you are Insightful (and I don't) maybe you can clue me in. You said:
Because the people who are asking them to take it down are silly, that's why.
What evidence do you have that they are "silly"?
Things like coloring or drawing pictures (and talking about the pictures thus drawn) of traumatic events is good therapy.
What evidence do you have that making children draw and colour tramatic events is good therapy? Do you recommend that children be given colouring books picturing Jeffrey Dahmer raping and eating people as therapy? Do you think such a colouring book is a good educational tool?
Removing something that supports that is silly.
What evidence do you have that removing this is "silly"?
But they should also know when a few people are being silly and complaining about something that is actually worthwhile.
How is the government supposed to know when people are being "silly"? and what metrics does the government use to decide that making children colour and draw morbid pictures is "good therapy"?
There's a whole branch of psychology known as Art Therapy built around this premise. You may believe psychotherapy is a bunch of hooey, but there is certainly a reasonable body of evidence to suggest that creative processes, such as drawing & coloring, can be useful therapeutic tools for children who have affected by some sort of traumatic event.
Now whether or not the objections are valid or silly, I cannot say - I'd have to defer to the wisdom of trained & accredited psychologists to determine whether or not these particular materials in this particular case had any sort of therapeutic benefit.
I would say the guideline would look something like this: when you have a bunch of people with no psychological qualifications whatsoever complaining about something that a large majority of psychologists actually feel is beneficial, the whiners are being silly. Disclaimer: I do not know if that is the case here, but the government certainly should be capable of determining whether or not an objection has merit.
I am aware of Art Therapy. I was referring more specifically to the FEMA colouring book though.
Wouldn't the coloring book be Art Therapy? I'm not sure I follow you on that one.
I am not aware that children who have lived in New York during 9/11 are the only people who have access to this coloring book.
They've got this new invention, it's only been around about 100 years now. It's called a TeeVee, TV for short. Through the magic of the TV and news media, millions of kids saw the 9/11 attacks. I myself, thousands of miles away, watched them fall.
I would easilly wager hundreds of thousands, if not a million or two, children saw the planes hit those towers and watched them fall. Do you think none of them were traumatized? Furthermore, the book was not about 9/11, it was about "Bad Things". You may have noted the title: "Bad Things Happen". It gives it away. 9/11 was mentioned, but it was by no means a book targeted at children who had been traumatized by 9/11 specifically. It was for kids who had been through, or were affected by, a major tragedy. Most ANY major tragedy, pretty much all the natural disasters were covered too.
Beliefs are fine and dandy, but evidence and proof is necessary for people who don't live on Faith alone.
All of science is based on a belief, or hypothesis of some kind. As it developes, it becomes a theory, or framework which explains reality. The theory holds until it is proven wrong, or a more accurate theory is developed. Since there are no perfect theories, they are all proven wrong eventually, or at least inadequate. Even Newtonian calculus, which held for a couple hundred years and is adequate for most applications today, has been proven incorrect. So don't attempt to invalidate a modern therapudic technique because it's "just a theory". You are revealing your ignorance when you do.
Lastly:
Though I think the book has been published many years too late for it to be of any benefit.
The book was published six years ago, the 9/11/2001 was less than eight years ago. So, 4-7 year olds at the time of the attack were too young to have been traumatized by the event, and perhaps receive some benefit from the coloring book? I'd like to see some of your precious evidence that shows four year olds can't be traumatized!!
You are ignorant on the subject, and you clearly do not wish to educate yourself. If you did, you might have to alter your opinion, so that obviously won't happen.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Since you and several others missed it, read the final sentence in the summary: "I can only assume FEMA's plan for a human remains concentration game will be put on hold."
The poster is trying to make an invalid point employing reductio ad absurdum. Assuming there is no such memory game, the poster is using an absurd example that is even worse than the one that does exist to try and emphasize how bad the existing image is.
This is a logical fallacy. The image itself should be judged on its own merits instead, and going down "slippery slopes" in your own head, no matter how logical they seem is improper logic.
As with fanboys and flamers online (Penny Arcade link I posted), the poster of this article assumed everyone already agrees with his or her point of view and would appreciate their colourful remarks instead of actually making a logical point against the images.
PS "They're obviously horrible" is not a logical statement either when said explicitly or implied.
For the rest of you who understood the point, congrats. Disagreeing with me is fine, but not being able to see others' prejudices in a statement is just ignorance.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)