Don't alarm family over world crisis.

PositionAnxiety - Brief Article

Parents should not alarm their families over the current world crisis, caution Rebecca Adams and Richard Carr, who teach family relations in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, Ball State University, Muncie, Ind. They say that talking about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, anthrax mailings, and subsequent retaliation may be therapeutic, but the events should be kept in perspective.

"What we have to do is be responsible," Carr stresses. "If we talk about nothing else all the time and become obsessed by it, it will create more insecurity and instability. Life does have to go on."

Nevertheless, he indicates, families will have to learn to deal with varying levels of intense feelings. "Any time you have to live in a state of uncertainty it creates doubt which creates insecurity which creates fear."

Young people, who have grown up in relative ease, may be experiencing anxiety over how to respond, Carr points out. "There's a fine line between being concerned and being upset. Concern is an intellectual response, while being upset is an emotional response. People right now are having mixed emotions--sadness, anger, vengeance...

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