This article originally appeared in the Feb. 10, 1986, of U.S. News & World Report.
Exploding spaceships, once the stuff of “Star Wars” movies to thrill young imaginations, now trigger childhood nightmares of death.
Cheers turned to tears in classrooms across the country as millions of students riveted to TV sets watched the shuttle explosion kill a familiar figure from their own lives, a teacher, and inflict what some see as the first ever national trauma on children.
In the aftermath, psychologists and others skilled in helping people deal with trauma and grief noted the signs parents should watch for in children.
Some youngsters suffer lingering nightmares. Damon Vasilkioti, 12, of Mamaroneck, N.Y., had a dream putting him aboard the shuttle when it blew up. “Wow! It felt so real,” Damon recalls. The very young may become afraid to sleep alone.
Youngsters may have “magical explanations” for the tragedy, says Yale child psychiatrist James Comer. “They may associate what happened with their own dangerous wishes and fears.”
A heightened concern for the well-being of parents is another symptom of trauma. “Children may be very clingy and reluctant to have their parents leave,” observes Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
To help children understand the tragedy, especially those under 11 years old, psychologists give this advice to parents:
* Take plenty of time to discuss the accident, offer rational explanations and tell children their thoughts had nothing to do with the disaster.
* Emphasize the many successes of the space program and the uniqueness of the mechanical failure.
* Make it clear that any airline “shuttle” they might take to Boston, New York or Washington is a much less complicated vehicle than the spaceship.
In many of the nation’s schools, teachers are setting aside classroom time for children to air their feelings. “They have a ton of questions,” says Luanne Kittle, a teacher at Marymount Junior School in Arlington, Va.
Some school personnel are putting to use the skills they learned when they had to explain the 1981 shooting of President Reagan. Washington-area teacher David Zahren tells pupils that their feelings mirror his as a boy when President Kennedy was killed: “I told them how scared I was and how I wanted to know that the world would be all right and that everything did turn out O.K.”
The Concord, N.H., school where Christa McAuliffe taught provides psychological counseling for any student who wants it. The school system “will do its darnedest to exact as little pain as possible from the students,” says Superintendent Mark Beauvais.
Some experts minimize the effects on youngsters. Children will learn that life goes on, says Robert Coles, Harvard child psychiatrist and author of The Moral Life of Children. “They are often stronger and tougher than we give them credit for being.”
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the time being went ahead with its Space Ambassador project, using 104 teachers who were semifinalists in the teacher-in-space program to visit classrooms and discuss space careers with students.
A day after the Challenger disaster, one of the ambassadors — David Zahren — was in the West Friendship Elementary School in Howard County, Md. “I tried to keep a fine balance between being a parent and a counselor and still being enthusiastic about the program,” he recalls.
Finally, when his talk was completed, Zahren asked students how many would like to go into space. “Every hand went up.”
More from U.S. News
From the Archives: First U.S. Space-Flight Disaster Stuns Nation
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Recalling the Space Shuttle Challenger’s Explosion
The Challenger: A Lesson in Grief for the Young originally appeared on usnews.com
