Talking to kids about this
Sep 13, 2001 | 1:59 pm
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Join Date: Feb 2001
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Talking to kids about this
From FEMA, some quidelines on what to watch for and how to talk with your kids about tragic events (clearly not tailored to these attacks, but hopefully valuable nonetheless).
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Talking to children about terrorism can be particularly problematic since providing them with safety guidelines to protect themselves from terrorism is difficult. According to psychologists, questions about terrorism are teaching opportunities. Adults should answer questions about terrorism by providing understandable information and realistic reassurance. And children don't need to be overwhelmed with information, so less is better than more in terms of details.
Children may exhibit these behaviors after a disaster:
What to do:
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Talking to children about terrorism can be particularly problematic since providing them with safety guidelines to protect themselves from terrorism is difficult. According to psychologists, questions about terrorism are teaching opportunities. Adults should answer questions about terrorism by providing understandable information and realistic reassurance. And children don't need to be overwhelmed with information, so less is better than more in terms of details.
Children may exhibit these behaviors after a disaster:
- Change from being quiet, obedient and caring to loud, noisy and aggressive or may change from being outgoing to shy and afraid.
- Develop nighttime fears, have nightmares or bad dreams.
- Be afraid the event will reoccur.
- Become easily upset, crying and whining.
- Lose trust in adults. After all, their adults were not able to control the disaster.
- Revert to younger behavior such as bed wetting and thumb sucking.
- Not want parents out of their sight and refuse to go to school or childcare.
- Have symptoms of illness, such as headaches, vomiting or fever.
- Worry about where they and their family will live.
What to do:
- Talk with the children about how they are feeling and listen without judgment.
- Let the children take their time to figure things out. Don't rush them.
- Help them learn to use words that express their feelings, such as happy, sad, angry or mad.
- Assure children that you will be there to take care of them. Reassure them often.
- Stay together as a family as much as possible.
- Let them have some control, such as choosing what outfit to wear or what meal to have for dinner.
- Encourage the children to give or send pictures they have drawn or things they have written.
- Help children regain faith in the future by helping them develop plans for activities that will take place later - next week, next month.
- Allow the children to grieve losses.
