• Limit young children's exposure to the media. Turn off the television and don't let young children have access to the front pages of the paper. Insist that children view Internet news with your approval and participation. Make sure the commercial breaks that come between appropriate children's programming aren't full of news headlines and violent images.
• Share in discussion about the news with older children and teenagers. Make sure that they don't "go it alone" without your perspective and reassurances about their safety in the threat of potential terrorism and impending war. Answer their concerns honestly and assure them of their immediate safety. And after they are satisfied, move on to another more peaceful and relaxing subject.
• Enjoy life as a family. Now is an excellent time to make a point of having fun together. Decide with your spouse and family how you can make some quality, family time. See a happy movie together, or go as a family to bowl or play miniature golf. Rent videos and have a pizza and movie night. Laugh together. Anything that allows you and your family to have engage in a relaxing time together will greatly lessen stress.
• Relax together. Have a family massage night or rub your child's back before she goes to sleep at night. Let your children listen to peaceful music while they are doing their homework or before bed. Consider meditation or yoga as a family activity. Work out together. Increased physical activity is proven to release stress-reducing hormones in the brain.
• Assess your child's fears. It is natural for children to have a certain amount of fear in this ever-present global situation of threat of terrorism and war. Yet, if your child's reaction is undermining it's worth a trip to your pediatrician or a child psychologist. With a child who is unable to go about his normal routine, a trained therapist can help your child to put what is happening in the world into a more manageable perspective.

Happy Children
With just a few changes it is possible to reduce children's stress about war and terrorism. And with these changes perhaps children's lives can return to what they deserve to be-happy.

Excerpted from In Children, Stress, and War--Real Ideas to Help Children Cope, you will get real information, ideas, and easy-to-do activities to help your children deal positively with their reactions to the current high-stress global situation, enabling them to live happy, productive lives in this, or any other, situation. Contact caron@inspiredparenting.net.

Caron Goode, Ed.D author of Nurture Your Child's Gift draws her insights from her fifteen years in private psychotherapy practice and thirty years of experience in the fields of education and therapy. She and her husband live in Tucson, Arizona.