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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.