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Found an article by Breslin about the trauma of children from 9/11. Seems by interviewing this one kid, all kids are fine. I certainly wouldn't take Breslin's word that my child suffered no trauma. The subject of Breslin's story doesn't seem like a typical child either, rather quiet, so who knows what's going on in his head. Who knows how much the child locks away so he doesn't have to deal with it. It mentions in the story, for hours, he didn't know where his mother was. She had been taken by boat from the Battery to New Jersey, but the boat was not allowed to dock because the Jersey cops were afraid of a bomb. It was hours before she got to a relative's house and was able to call.

When my son witnessed me driving my car as a thirty foot oak tree fell on the car, it took him a good week or two before he could even talk about it. Even though I was completely fine and he watched me walk away from the totaled car.

Here's a link and and the last few paragraphs.

He left that alone for a minute. He drank soda but did not keep the ice jammed in his mouth. Then he came out with what had been on his mind from the moment he picked up his soda for the first time.

"I want to go to space camp in July," he said, "You get in a simulator. They're going to have a space launch at Cape Canaveral while I'm there."

"Why do you want to go?"

"I want to be an astronaut. So much to know. It's cool."

He had the father and mother trapped in front of a table of friends and relatives. How could they say no? Simple. They could not. This young child, supposedly so hurt by a dastardly explosion that he needs a rest home, will instead mend all his woes at the space camp he has wanted to go to for more than a year.

You don't ignore trauma this large in small children. They may be have trouble with it, they may not, the parents need to find out not ignore it.
Shame on Breslin.

I'll meet your "Breslin" and up the ante with a "Paul Krugman" from the NY Times editorial page:
"Dick Cheney . . . remains in charge of energy policy. And that scares me more than terrorism. . . . Osama bin Laden can't destroy Western civilization. Carbon dioxide can."
(Some people in New York deserved..........never mind.)

My favorite news snippet of the week: For two months a suspicious, itchy rash has spread through schools throughout the Northeast. No medical cause has been identified. Finally, this week, a school in Indiana stopped the rash dead in its tracks. Not one student complained of itching all week. What did they do? The school stopped sending home the kids who complained.

Indeed shame on Breslin, I hope he's not planning of practicing child psychology. It could be the child has been thinking about what could have happened, or what could still happen, and he just wants to fulfill his life's dream before it's too late. I'm not saying that is what the child was thinking, but it certainly is a possibility. I'll bet that never occurred to dingbat Breslin.

I sure hope he doesn't have any children. I could see him telling a child who had just witnessed a beloved family pet getting hit by a car to get over it. (maternal rant/)