When television screens are filled with bombs flying over Iraq, children need to know why their favorite cartoon show isn’t on for them to watch.

Linda Derscheid, associate professor in family, consumer and nutrition sciences, said parents need to take the initiative to talk to their children about war. The amount of information they give them should depend on the child’s age, as younger children will have more difficulties understanding.

In some cases, preschool-age children may act up based on violence they see on television. At such a young age, they cannot process or make sense of what they see, so parents need to be cautious of what their child views, Derscheid said. As they reach ages 7 to 9, children realize that it is not so much pretend, but it is real and it becomes scary.

“Kids are going to personalize things,” Derscheid said. “They will be worried about their own safety and the safety of their family.”

Daryl Bettcher, a senior English major and mother of three, said her children are not necessarily worried about their own safety, but they have asked if their uncle, who is overseas with the American troops, is going to die. She said her 8-year-old son asks the most questions about the details of the war.

“I try to be honest with them without giving them too much information,” Bettcher said.

Derscheid said parents need to be careful in responding to their child’s questions about people being killed in the war.

“I think there is always a caution that we want to have about talking about killing anyone, evil or not,” Derscheid said.

Her suggestion is to tell children we are working to put evil people away so they cannot harm other people.

Algonquin resident Connie Ramirez said her three children, ages 5, 7 and 10, have seen some of the war coverage on television, so she and her husband talk with them almost every day about what is going on. Like Bettcher, her 7-year-old son asks the most questions about why everything is happening.

Ramirez said her children had more of a surprising reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks, probably because she has reiterated to them that the war that is happening right now is far away and they knew that the Sept. 11 attacks were in New York.

All three of her children have participated in practice disaster drills at their schools, and while they have wondered why they did that, they all have expressed to their mother they feel safer because they “have a plan” in case something bad were to happen while they were in school.