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Children's Voice Article, Vol. 4, #4
Children and Disasters: What Caring Adults Can Do
Empower Children Before Disaster Strikes
- Make sure adults and children know what to do and where to go during earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and other disasters.
- Practice emergency procedures with the children.
- Post emergency phone numbers.
- Teach children when to dial 911 and how to recognize fire alarms and other warning systems.
- Let children know that you care about their safety.
- Stock up-to-date safety kits (first aid, bottled water, batteries).
Protect Children During a Disaster
- Don't leave children alone.
- Ensure children's safety as you implement your emergency plan.
- Reassure children that you will protect them and that they are prepared to cope.
- Contact state and local emergency authorities.
Help Children Recover After a Disaster
- Check damage and pick up broken glass or fallen furniture. Involve older children in clean-up activities.
- Reassure children with your caring presence.
- Praise them for how well they coped and answer their questions about the event.
- Provide structure and limits.
- Don't hurry children through activities.
- Defuse children's fears of disaster, injury, death, separation, or abandonment. Encourage and accept emotional venting.
- Recognize posttraumatic stress in children and which children may need intervention.
- Post numbers of child and teen hotlines.
- Care for yourself so you can care for others: sleep, eat, and talk out your feelings.
After a Disaster...
Young children may:
- Fear sleeping alone, loud noises, rain, storms, attending school, etc.
- Fail to fall or stay asleep
- Experience nightmares
- Develop aches and pains
- Become more active, restless, aggressive, or irritable
- Become quiet, withdrawn, unwilling to speak about their worries
- Regress to sucking their thumbs, wetting the bed, asking for a bottle, clinging to adults and wanting to be held
Older children may:
- Demand "me first" (It's natural to think of ourselves during a disaster)
- Experience flashbacks
- Feel insecure, anxious, moody
- Repress memories of the event
- Develop aches and pains
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