Children and young people can many times convey their feelings
about traumatic events through drawing and painting even if they
can't or don't want to talk about them. If you find your child
has difficulties in expressing feelings about a bad event, try
encourage him/her to draw. Drawing alone can be a means to
cope, but you can also ask questions about the artwork, and that
might help you two to discuss these complex emotions.
You don't need any special training or equipment to use this idea
with your own children - or with you yourself. Just whatever
means you have at your home to create pictures is enough.
"Children tend to draw the part of the trauma they don't
understand − the part they're "stuck" on. Like adults,
sometimes what they're saying is not what they're feeling. When they
draw, they put it all out on paper," says Suzanne Silverstein,
president and co-founder of the Psychological Trauma Center at
Children and 9/11: Art Helping Kids Heal
See also a children's art photo gallery on that page.
In the days and months immediately following September 11, 2001, New York area children created compelling works of art expressing their feelings about the terrorist attacks. The artworks not only reflect the emotions that the events of 9/11 brought forth in children, they are also significant historic documents, presenting and preserving the testimony of our nation's youngest witnesses to this cataclysmic moment in the history of New York City. You can see hundreds of these art works at The day our world changed - Children's art of 9/11. Another page with a sampling of children's creative responses to the events of September 11, 2001 is PapaInk Curation Team's Gallery.