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Home › Articles › You and Your Children › Protecting the Innocents

Protecting the Innocents

How to Talk to Your Kids About Disaster

By Laurie Dove

Pages:  1  2  3  

  • Visual images: A child's reaction also depends on how much destruction or death he or she sees during and after the disaster. If a friend or family member has been killed or seriously injured, or if the child's school or home has been severely damaged, there is a greater chance that the child will experience difficulties.
  • The child's age: A child's age affects how the child will respond to the disaster. For example, 6-year-olds may show their worries about a catastrophe by refusing to attend school, whereas adolescents may minimize their concerns, but argue more with parents and show a decline in school performance.
    • Behavior Problems

    It is important to explain the event in words the child can understand. But it is equally important to remain vigilant. For some children, seemingly unexplained behavior problems even months after disasters should be expected. The delay in reaction is a part of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to the National Institutes for Mental Health. PTSD is psychological damage that can result from experiencing, witnessing or participating in an overwhelmingly traumatic or frightening event.

    Children with this disorder have repeated episodes in which they re-experience the traumatic event. Children often relive the trauma through repetitive play. In young children, upsetting dreams of the traumatic event may change into nightmares of monsters, of rescuing others or of threats to self or others. PTSD rarely appears during the trauma itself. Though its symptoms can occur soon after the event, the disorder often surfaces several months or even years later.


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