TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Experts Weigh In On Helping Kids Cope : Psychology: Responses to images on television parallel those by adults, they say. But parents should tailor assistance to the individual child’s need.

For millions of parents and other adults, the most searing thing about the carnage in Oklahoma City has been the images of the children--stunned, bloodied, cradled helpless in the arms of rescuers. The pictures have evoked feelings of anguish, fury, even fear.

But how do other children see those images, particularly the vision of youngsters so close to them in age among the dead or injured?

On a day when television screens--and the conversations of people nationwide--were filled with little else, it was virtually impossible to shield youngsters from the horrifying reality of the terrorist attack that was adjacent to a day-care center for young children.

But what does seeing such things do to other children? And what should parents say to help them cope with something that defies understanding even for adults?

The answer, according to child psychologists and other specialists, is that the responses of children will parallel closely those of older viewers but the ways parents try to help their children must be carefully tailored to the individual child.

“They are going to be afraid. And they are going to be sad. And they are going to identify with (the victims) because these are kids who look like them,” said Anne Marie Albano, a child psychologist at the Albany, N.Y., Center for Stress and Anxiety, part of the State University of New York.

“Kids between the ages of 5 and 12 are going to be very sensitive to projecting their own feelings and feeling that ‘this could happen to me,’ ” she added.

Children who want to talk about the tragedy should be encouraged to do so, many experts said. If they want to watch television coverage, they usually should be allowed to do so--but with a parent present. Parents should ask questions that encourage discussion of how the young viewers feel about what they see and to answer questions as well. It is healthy and therapeutic for youngsters to be able to express their thoughts and anxieties, specialists said.

“Children have their own self-defense mechanisms--they don’t ask things they don’t want to know,” said Jerilyn Ross, a Washington psychotherapist and author of “Triumph Over Fear,” a guide to coping with anxiety disorders.

“If they ask, or if they want to watch it on television and you deprive them of that, it might only increase their anxieties,” she said. “Children’s minds absorb only as much as they can handle. . . . And most of what all people fear is the unknown.”

Children who seem mesmerized by the events may, in fact, be viewing them much as they do horror movies or frightening fairy tales, she said.

“Kids like to watch horror movies,” Ross said. “They like being scared. Even if they get nightmares and get upset, they want to see them again and again. Children have a sense of immortality and are fascinated by gory things. Look at children’s fairy tales: the big bad wolf. There’s a sense of fear and excitement in children that adults can’t really relate to, because children can slip in and out of fantasy.”

Grown-ups seeking to reassure their offspring should take a lesson from the movies and from the way they discipline their own children, she and others said.

“It’s important to emphasize that the bad guys will get caught and punished,” Ross said. “That’s what happens in the movies and that’s also what happens to them when they do something wrong.”

Thus President Clinton, addressing himself especially to the nation’s children Thursday, stressed that theme: “What happened was a bad thing, an evil thing,” he said. “But we will find the people who did it and we will bring them to justice.”

Whether children will see the events as real depends on the age and maturity of the individual, experts said.

“Kids probably have less of a concept of death than adults,” said Dean Kilpatrick, a psychologist who is director of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center in Charleston, S.C. “Their concept of death is not as advanced as it is for adults.”

Nevertheless, “the younger the child, the more ‘real’ the movie is,” Albano cautioned. “So, no matter the age, it will seem terrifying to them.”

When a child asks why someone would do such a thing, answer honestly, but keep it as simple as possible, again, geared to the child’s age, experts recommended.

“For a younger child, you could say that the people who did this were not angry at the children, but they were mad at the other people who worked in that building, at those who work for the government,” Albano said. “For kids who are more sophisticated, you could say: ‘Unfortunately, countries get angry with one another, just the way people do, and some people are so nasty they take things out in really terrible ways. That’s why we have wars. We do our best to keep it safe, but sometimes people still do bad things.’ ”

It also can be valuable for children to “play-act” the disaster, experts said. This is exactly what teacher Candace Cooper Horn’s class in the Los Angeles City Hall child-care center did Thursday.

Horn’s 4- and 5-year-old students engaged in role-playing and then re-enacted the building collapse using make-believe structures composed of play blocks.

Horn explained to the children that sometimes “bad people do bad things” and that children need to know how to protect themselves.

“We did some role-playing, pretending the building was shaking,” Horn said. “We played ‘rabbit-in-the-hole’ and they ducked beneath the tables and covered their necks.”

Then, with play blocks, “we built a 3-story block building with little people inside and knocked it over,” Horn said. “We talked about getting up and getting out. If the doors are stuck, I had them think of ways they could help each other and get out. Children understand much more than we give them credit for. You can’t keep children innocent, in the dark.

“I thought it was important to talk about,” she added. “Some parents do shield their children, but I want to be honest. A lot of kids already knew about the Oklahoma City bombing. I can’t undo that.”

Albano said that children often will reflect in their playing whatever is on their minds. “You’ll hear this in their play,” she said. “It is a way for younger kids to work out their anxieties.”

She said one important way to help children work through their feelings is to give them an opportunity to think that “they are making a difference” by responding to the tragedy in a constructive or healing way.

“I hope, in classrooms, teachers will be talking about this,” she said. “Children can write letters or send get-well cards or make a contribution to the Red Cross, so your child has a sense of community. It gives them a feeling of control and of resolve and knowing that, in the end, people respond and take care of each other.”

Times staff writer Bob Pool in Los Angeles contributed to this story.