By Donna St. George and Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 23, 2007
Vickie Marx ticks off the markers in the life of her eldest child, 15-year-old Danny: the Columbine school massacre when he was 7. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when he was 9. The sniper attacks when he was 10. The Iraq war, which erupted when he was 11. And now the Virginia Tech shootings.
This generation of children, said Marx, 45, of McLean, has "lived with -- regrettably, sadly -- an ongoing barrage."
In a week when the nation has struggled to absorb the toll of America's deadliest shooting by an individual, many families in the Washington region faced it with a strong sense of the familiar. The Virginia massacre comes as yet another close-up horror for children who know violence through extraordinary events.
"It's been just sort of a wild ride," said Alyssa Navarrete, 18, a senior at Annandale High School. "Our generation kind of had to grow up pretty quickly. We were in seventh or eighth grade when the snipers were around. It sort of forced you to realize the world was bigger than your own back yard at a really young age. I think we're all probably stronger for it, but it does affect people for sure."
Last week, many students at Annandale High School openly grieved for Mary Read, a 2006 graduate who was killed at Virginia Tech, she said.
Coincidentally, Navarrete had put her commitment letter and $400 deposit to Virginia Tech in the mailbox the day of the shootings. "Just the way that everybody down there has come together -- that's a family I want to be a part of."
How children responded varied widely. There were questions. Sadness. Tears. Anger. Seeming detachment. Some focused on their own safety, others on grief-stricken families. Like their parents, they dwelled on why the rampage began -- its senselessness.
Joelle Griffith, 11, heard about the shootings in her technology class at Mitchellville School in Bowie that afternoon when she logged on to the computer. Since then, she has been following it closely on the Internet and on television. Her parents have been reassuring, but "it got me kind of scared about going to college," she said, "knowing that there are killers that we might not know about that might be everywhere."
Several child psychologists said that children might, for a time, worry about being alone, be afraid to go to school, fear the dark or feel concern for their parents' safety. Children with anxiety, depression or other problems might be more deeply affected, said therapist Britt H. Rathbone, whose Rockville practice treats teenagers.
There is almost certainly a cumulative effect of so many horrific incidents, said Katherine S. Newman, a Princeton University sociologist who wrote the book "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings."
"I think many Americans will look on this period as unsettled and unstable," Newman said. "These violent spectacles are very rare, but they leave deep tracks and shake our ability to judge whether a setting is safe or dangerous."
The task of shielding children from the full impact of the Virginia Tech shootings -- or even interpreting it -- has become difficult for parents in an age when the blitz of news from print and televised sources is intensified by 24-7 Web sites and instant messaging.
As Gretchen Schofield, an Oakton mother of two, said: "If it wasn't for the technology today, I probably would not have told my 8-year-old." Now, she said, "we have to tell our kids" -- or worry that someone else will do it in ways that might be more frightening.
When Schofield did tell her daughter, the child said: "Mommy, I don't want to go to Virginia Tech." She was scared. "I'm not going to make you go anywhere," Schofield recalled explaining, "but . . . it's safe to go to school. This could have happened anywhere."
Maddy Weingast's teachers did not mention Virginia Tech, but the 12-year-old knew about the shootings anyway. She had watched the television news reports at home in Vienna with her mother, and even though they have no close friends on the campus, they were drawn in: So many innocent faces, so many grieving families.
"You see their pictures on the news, and you don't really know these people, but part of you feels like you do," Maddy said of the victims. "I kept getting sadder and sadder."
On the bus and in the lunchroom, Maddy and her friends traded details about the events as they became public. She was not scared, she said, just at loose ends. "I felt like I wanted to help so bad," she said, "but I didn't know what to help with."
Perhaps most disturbing for some parents were the menacing images released late Wednesday of Virginia Tech killer Seung Hui Cho brandishing weapons and delivering a rambling diatribe on video.
Suzie Holman of Springfield tried to keep her 10-year-old son, Kyle, from seeing them, hovering as he used the Internet. She sent him from the room if the photos or video appeared on TV while they were watching together.
"It's very hard, because he's asking questions: 'How come I can't watch?' " Holman said. "I want him to be aware of what's going on, but he doesn't have to see the killer with the guns and the hammer and all that stuff."
Other parents chose different strategies for limiting the relentless news coverage. In Springfield, Susan and Eric Israel allowed their children, ages 10 and 13, to see whatever they themselves were watching or reading.
At that point, Susan Israel said, 10-year-old Jake had already asked whether his school was safe. His mother assured him and reminded him of a recent renovation that included new security measures, including an intercom for buzzing in visitors.
Said Eric Israel: "I want to know what they're hearing and seeing so I can explain or we can talk about it. No accidental info."
For the Israels and some other families, the video and pictures of Cho became the breaking point: They switched off the TV even before networks began limiting use of the images because of public outcry. "We just chose not to watch," Susan Israel said.
Suzanne Nixon, a therapist in Loudoun County, said she has been counseling parents to limit TV exposure regardless of their children's ages.
Michael and Stephanie Dwyer, 14-year-old twins from North Potomac, said they heard about the shootings on the radio, then read more online, where they later saw the photographs and video of Cho. They also had received and sent text-message chains expressing sympathy for the victims.
Even though the details of the massacre are grim, Michael and Stephanie said it is important to know what happened. "Kids should know about this stuff, because it makes us aware," Michael said.
Stephanie said that having read a lot of the accounts of Cho's mental problems, "we would see the warning signs now to prevent it from happening again."
Nancy Costa, an Oak Hill mother of two, recalled crying last week when she learned that both the killer and two of the slain students had attended her children's high school, Westfield in Chantilly. "I just feel so bad you have to go through this," she told her 15-year-old son.
She was surprised by his reply: that it was probably worse for her -- because his generation was more accustomed to tragedy.
Jennie Womble of Northern Virginia said that although her two children have asked questions, especially her 11-year-old son, she believes that they also know from experience that her assurances are reliable. "They've lived through these things before, and they come out okay," she said, "and so I think they understand that when I say they're going to be okay, they are going to be okay."
For those like Anne Bradshaw, a mother of three in Davidsonville with a student at Virginia Tech, the week's toll has been felt deeply and personally. The day it happened, she said, her 13-year-old son cried until he fell asleep. "He took it very hard," she said. "It's a real place to him -- his brother goes there. . . . His brother is his idol. . . . It was definitely closer to home for us in many ways than 9/11."
Bradshaw said one observation that has stayed with her was offered by her mother, who is 82. She told her, in a reflective time: "It's a scary time to be a child."
Staff writers Annie Gowen and Theresa Vargas contributed to this report.
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