Posted by dr-gwenn on October 9, 2007 at 03:49:55 PM

There was a poignant line in Brothers and Sisters last night. Senator McCallister's campaign director felt he needed to be more positive and asked suggested he stopped attending funerals of soldiers. At the end of the show, McCallister turned to his campaign director and said: "To answer your questions about when I'll stop going to funerals. I'll stop when the last soldier is home." 

It is easy to forget that the Iraqi conflict is about real people and real families but that is what we have to keep our focus on. The show last night aired some serious issues about the battles soldiers face when they return home - the medical and emotional issues and the toll on the family including the lost feeling they feel.
Sesame Street last week announced that they are developing a DVD to help children whose parents have been injured during war. In the DVD, Rosita's daddy loses a leg and comes home an amputee and is seen in the DVD in a wheelchair. The children of soldiers are soldiers themselves and I applaud Sesame Street for recognizing the special and unique emotional issues young children have when grappling with the tough issues that war creates for their family. 

Developmentally, kids relate to furry creatures and pretend words often better than their own parents. Having a tool such as Sesame Street to help these children understand what is occurring in their world will be a great asset to parents struggling to explain to young children a situation where words become difficult. In fact, as the AP story points out, parents often use too many words which can be overwhelming to kids. According to the experts interviewed in the AP story,

"There is no more credible voice for 3- to 5-year-olds than the voices of Elmo ... and parents trust him too." Arsht said. Army Maj. David Rozelle agreed. An amputee who spends time counseling others, Rozelle was injured in Iraq before becoming a parent to two young children. "These little people our kids trust so much can explain limb loss and help kids cope," he said. "We don't do it very well ourselves."

This is not the first DVD Sesame Street developed for military families. Last year they developed a DVD on deployment, an issues that has touched over a million children over the last 6 years. With the amount of issues military families are dealing with, it is very reassuring that the military has found resources to meet the needs of all it's members and is willing to think outside the box. 

Image: AP Press on Yahoo!