'WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?'.

Back in the days of the Great Washington Sex Scandal last year there was gnashing of teeth. "What should we tell the children?" worried parents asked. It wasn't an idle question. What strikes me as strange, however, is that nobody asked the same question this year during the war in the Balkans.

As many as a million people were uprooted. Tens of thousands were killed. A nation was laid waste. Now the bombing and the "cleansing" have stopped, but revenge killings continue. Our kids have had as much access to these horrors as they did to Monicagate. Many Americans were distressed, even sickened, by the reports from Pristina and Belgrade, but nobody, it seems, has focused on what these reports might be doing to our children.

Do we think that children are more vulnerable to messages about sexual escapades than they are to the terrifying violence of war? Were they more troubled by whispers of high-level dalliance than by pictures of mothers cradling dead bodies?

Only a few months ago, commentators scrambled to define parameters for discussing with children the lurid sexual details of the Starr report. Some members of Congress asked for a national dialogue on truth telling and family values. Children, the chorus said, are hearing and reading about things they aren't ready to handle. Do they think children can handle war?

Consider: As children watch an ongoing war they see their most horrifying fears come true-fears of loss, of violence; fears that the monsters of their nightmares may become real-life monsters of the day. To assure our children that their inner struggles can be safely resolved, we tell them fairy tales with happy endings. The wartime news presented a different reality. "If it can happen to that little boy in Kosovo," kids wonder, "can it happen to me? Why not?" Just saying "No, it can't happen to you" isn't enough.

It's useful to try to see events and issues the way children see them- useful for the kids and at least as useful for us grown-ups. If we could gain that perspective we might spend a lot of time explaining, or trying to explain, war and other things that don't make sense to them. Maybe we'd have a national dialogue on homelessness: "Mommy, why can't they have a place to live like us?" Or on disability: "Daddy, I saw some kids making fun of a boy with mental retardation. Why would they do that?" Or on meanness: "Grampa, all the time on TV they say such mean things about politicians and famous people. Is that okay?"

In wartime, if we looked through the eyes of children, we'd have an emergency dialogue, at least in our own homes, on violence and the fear and trembling over human hatred fully unleashed in war. "Why are those people killing each other?" kids ask. "Why are we doing it? It scares me an awful lot." It would be good for us to try to answer, if we didn't pretend that such questions are easy or the answers are simple. By trying to answer as best we can, we tell the children that they've been heard, and that their questions matter. This leads us to questions of faith and issues of justice, things that matter to children. You may have heard children exclaiming (screaming), "It isn't fair!" They're sometimes right.

In our house we say prayers at night before bed, and each child gets to say his or her own prayer. When my son Tim was four he said the same prayer every night: "I hope the army and the navy and the air force will not use their guns and will not go to fight anyone and will not get in any wars." My eleven-year-old daughter Rose prays for her grandmother, who lives alone. Sam, six, always prays for my cousin who died in an accident more than a year ago. And one night during the war, five-year-old Kathleen prayed for all the people in Kosovo. But she didn't pray that it wouldn't happen to her. She prayed that it would "stop right now so the moms and dads and kids can be happy again."

Besides wanting to have their fears addressed and their questions answered, children want to see something done about the horrors they hear about. Not miracles-kids can be pretty realistic-but something. So, besides listening to our children's inner voices and responding, we must act on whatever scale is possible. Let's expect our schools and our political and religious leaders to pay attention to the children when terror reigns, whether in Littleton or in Kosovo. Let's listen, but let's also respond with simple deeds like fundraisers for refugees and school-based programs to support the social and emotional needs of children. Let's show our solidarity in action and prayer with those who suffer.

Last year all of us had to endure a great deal of "deepthink" psychologizing about what to tell the children. This year's news has confronted them, and us, with something more serious. Surely we should be thinking about what to tell them. It would be wise if we also attended to what they have to tell us. When I listen, I hear this: "Stop the killing. Give the refugees a place to sleep, food to eat. Give the sick people medicine. Show us that you care and we'll feel safer."

Timothy Shriver is president and chief executive officer of Special Olympics, Inc. This article was written before the accident in which the author's cousin, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Kennedy's wife and sister-in-law, lost their lives. He asks prayers on their behalf.