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SESAME STREET PRODUCING DVD FOR INJURED
VETERANS -- Is working on a DVD that will be
distributed
to military families designed to help injured
veterans
talk about their disabilities with their
children.
Rosita's father Carlos is seen on a
wheel chair during a taping of a Sesame Street production
Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007 in New York. Sesame Workshop, the
nonprofit organization that produces the hit kids' show, is
working on a DVD that will be distributed to military families.
It's designed to help injured veterans talk about their
disabilities with their children. (AP Photo / Mary Altaffer) |
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Sesame Street DVD for Injured Veterans
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
NEW YORK (AP) — It's not your typical Sesame Street episode. There are
no lessons in letters or numbers, but there are plenty of hugs and lots
of talk about feelings.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces the hit kids'
show, is working on a DVD that will be distributed to military families.
It's designed to help injured veterans talk about their disabilities
with their children.
Gary E. Knell, president and CEO of Sesame Workshop, said some of those
veterans and their families are looking for help from Sesame Street
because the workshop produced a popular DVD last year aimed at helping
military families discuss the strain of deployments.
More than a million children have parents who are in the military and
have been deployed in the last six years. And roughly 18,000 military
personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan have been wounded or injured seriously
enough to be evacuated.
In the new production, Rosita, a fluffy blue mop-headed muppet, is upset
because her father has returned home in a wheelchair. Rosita angrily
refers to the wheelchair as "that thing" and reminisces about the days
when she could dance to salsa music and kick a ball with her dad.
With encouragement from Elmo, Rosita musters the nerve to talk with her
parents about how she is feeling.
"Sometimes I feel a little sad, because things are so different now,"
Rosita says during a family outing to the park. "I wish your legs were
OK, Papi, and I wish you didn't have to go to the doctor so much. And I
just wish things could go back to the way they were!"
Rosita's father tells her that although he may have changed, his love
for her hasn't. And he persuades her to hop on the back of his
wheelchair so the two can try a new kind of dancing.
Retired Army 1st Lt. Ed Salau said it's important for families to find
new activities to do together after a parent is injured.
Salau lost a leg in a rocket attack while serving in Iraq. He said when
it happened, he immediately thought of his young children.
"I got my leg blown off," he said. "All I was thinking about was, 'Am I
going to be able to dance with my daughter or play soccer with my son?'"
Back home, Salau said he worked quickly to re-establish a physical
closeness with his children, which sometimes can be difficult for
families. "Hugging still means everything it did before you were hurt,"
Salau says.
Knell said Sesame Street is trying to model behavior and provide the
vocabulary for parents who need extra help. "In many cases, Mommy and
Daddy or caregivers may not have the tools necessary to deal with these
very tough-to-teach issues," Knell said.
Psychiatry professor Stephen Cozza of Uniformed Services University,
which trains military doctors, said a parent's injury or emotional
problem is often "a big white elephant in the room that nobody's talking
about."
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Lammey and his wife, Rose, can
relate to that. Michael was badly burned in an explosion while serving
in Guam last year.
The burns almost killed him and left him disfigured. Rose said she and
her husband initially had a lot of trouble discussing what happened with
the couple's three young daughters.
"We didn't know how to handle that sensitive issue. We just put it aside
for a little bit until we could sit down as a family and talk it out,"
Rose said in a telephone interview from San Antonio, where her husband
is still receiving treatment.
On the other hand, there can be a tendency to give young children more
information than they can handle, said Cozza, who also is an adviser to
Sesame Street.
He said the new DVD seeks to strike the right balance by showing
families how to talk openly about the changed situation they face
without frightening young viewers.
While the program doesn't directly address emotional disorders faced by
an estimated 20 percent of returning veterans, the DVD can help frame
family conversations around that too, Cozza said.
Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community
and family policy, said Sesame Street is doing something that isn't easy
for the military to tackle alone.
"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."
On the Net:
Sesame Workshop:
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/
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Larry Scott --
