Who is at Risk?
Children who have been directly exposed to a disaster, evacuated their home, observed injuries or death of others, experienced an injury themselves, or feared
for their life, are at risk of developing depression or difficulties recovering from the event. They may experience loss or grief if a close family or friend dies or is
seriously injured during a disaster. In addition, children continue to have ongoing stress long after the disaster occurs due to secondary effects of the disaster.
Secondary effects could include living in temporary housing, loss of social network, property loss, parents being without jobs, and costs the family will have to pay to return to normal. In most cases, these responses are only temporary; however for those directly exposed to the disaster, certain reminders of the incident, such as high winds, smoke, and sirens may trigger responses.
Child’s Emotional Needs
It is important to provide the child with guidance that will help reduce his or her fears. How adults react to an emergency provides children with clues on how they are supposed to act. Parents need to make sure the child is heard. If the child asks questions about the incident, those questions should be answered honestly but not in a way that could scare them. If the child is afraid to talk about what happened, allow him or her to draw a picture or reenact the scenario with dolls or action figures.
If parents are going to allow their children, especially young children, to watch TV or use the Internet after a disaster, then they should be present with the child. This will ensure that if images of the disaster are shown, parents can communicate and provide explanations to the child. Limiting a child’s exposure to additional trauma, including news reports, is encouraged.
After a disaster occurs, children are most afraid the event will happen again and someone they know will be killed, or that they will be separated from their family, or that they will be left alone.
Helping the Child
In order to feel safe, children need to be reassured that everything is going to be okay through compassion and understanding.
- Hold and comfort the child.
- Calmly and firmly provide factual information about the recent disaster.
- Encourage the child to talk about their feelings and the parent should be honest about their own feelings as well.
- Help children learn to use words that express their feelings, such as happy, sad, angry, mad, and/or scared.
- Parents should spend some extra time with children at bedtime.
- Parents should also reestablish a schedule for the child involving school, work, play, meals, and rest.
- Assign the child specific chores so they feel as though they are helping to restore the family or community.
- Allow the child to assist in developing or revising the family emergency plan.
- Make sure the child knows what to do in case they hear smoke detectors, alarms, and local community warning systems (horns, sirens).
- Praise the child for their help and recognize responsible behavior.
- Reassure the child that the disaster was not his or her fault.
- Understand the child will need time to mourn his or her own losses.
If parents have tried to create a reassuring environment and the child still exhibits stress or appears to worsen over time, it may be appropriate to seek professional help. Professional help is easy to obtain. Parents can talk to their child’s pediatrician or family doctor, a school counselor, a mental health provider specializing in a child’s needs, or a member of the clergy.
Common Responses Children May Exhibit
Infant to 2 years
- Young children retain images, sights, sounds, and smells that occurred during an event.
- Infants may be irritable, cry more than usual, and want to be held/cuddled.
- As the young child grows older, he or she may act out elements of the event that occurred numerous years earlier that were seemingly forgotten.
2 to 6 years
- Preschool aged children often times feel helpless and powerless. They may feel fear and insecurity due to their lack of size.
- Preschoolers cannot grasp the concept of permanent loss. They see consequences as being reversible.
- Preschoolers may play out activities that involve aspects of the event in the weeks following the event and may reenact this incident many times.
- Some children may revert to thumb sucking, bed-wetting, clinging to parents, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, fear of the dark, regression in behavior, and withdrawal from friends and routines.
8 to 10 years
- School aged children can understand permanent loss.
- Some children become very preoccupied with details of the event and want to talk about it constantly. This preoccupation can interfere with the child’s concentration at school thus resulting in a decline in his or her academic performance.
- Children may lose trust in adults because they were unable to control the disaster.
- Children may display a wide range of reactions to a disaster; some consist of guilt, feelings of failure, anger, or fantasies of playing the rescuer.
- A child may change from being quiet, obedient, and caring to loud, noisy, and aggressive.
- A child may change from being outgoing to shy and afraid.
- Some children may experience irritability, aggressiveness, clinginess, nightmares, school avoidance, poor concentration, and withdrawal from friends and routines.
11 to 18 years
- As children grow older their reactions become closer to that of an adult.
- This age group combines childlike reactions with adult responses.
- This stage of life focuses on preparing the child for adulthood, and after experiencing a disaster, the “real” world may seem unsafe and dangerous.
- A teenager may feel overwhelmed by intense emotions but may still feel uncomfortable discussing their feelings with relatives.
- A teenager may have feelings of inadequacy or helplessness or spend an unusual amount of time fantasizing.
- It is not uncommon for a teenager to become involved with more risk-taking behavior (alcohol, drug use, reckless driving) or to have the opposite effect and
become fearful of leaving home.
- Teenagers may experience sleeping and eating disturbances, agitation, increase in conflicts, physical complaints, delinquent behavior, and poor concentration.
