IRVINE : Gulf Crisis Effect on Children Told

Children with a parent serving in the Persian Gulf may begin to show signs of confusion, anger or fear, a consultant in the Irvine Unified School District told a group of teachers Wednesday.

To prepare teachers and others for possible problems, consultant Christine Honeyman told a group of about 120 schoolteachers and administrators Wednesday how to recognize changes and what to do.

Six of the Irvine district schools serve children from the El Toro and Tustin Marine Corps air bases.

Children might retreat into a fantasy world where everything is fine, Honeyman said. Or they might withdraw into themselves or act out their anger in other ways, she said.

Not all their actions may be bad, she said. Children might become “angels,” working hard and becoming overly concerned with doing perfect work in class, she said. Those children hope that if they act “good enough” it will bring their parents home, she said.

If the deployment continues, Honeyman said, they might begin blaming others for taking their fathers away.

“They might start criticizing kids that are from the Middle East or even who look like they’re from the Middle East,” she said.

Dan Graham, principal at El Toro Marine School, a public school across the street from the base, said most children are used to their Marine parents leaving for short periods of training.

“As long as there’s no war or casualties over there, for most kids, daddy might as well be in North Carolina getting training as in Saudia Arabia,” Graham said.

Honeyman is scheduled to give a similar talk Oct. 18 to parents with a spouse stationed in the Middle East. The talk, scheduled at the El Toro Marine School, is aimed at preparing parents for ways their children might react during a prolonged crisis, Graham said. The El Toro base will provide free child care for the evening.

If the program in Irvine Unified works well, the district might use it as a pilot program to offer other schools serving military dependents, Supt. David E. Brown said.

“I think this is a national issue because there are a lot of military bases in the United States,” Brown said.