Talk to children at time of disaster, violence
Donya Betancourt, Pediatrician, drdonya@hotmail.com
Disaster and violence can have a deep affect on children. The desire to hold our children is a fundamental reaction of parents to news of a disaster.
Though our own feeling of shock, numbness and a sense of disbelief may cause us to have trouble concentrating, act very disorganized and be forgetful also parents may find it impossible not to act irritable, anxious or restless.
What does one say to children about events that we can't understand ourselves? How can we help our children?
* Talk to your children. Assume that the children know. Even children as young as three or four know that something has happened.
* Try and make it easy for them to understand. Children need to understand that these acts are extreme and very bad.
* Reassure them. Tell them that our government has promised to find the people responsible and that the bad people will be punished and that they are doing whatever they can to prevent it happening again.
* Comfort them. Explain that its OK to be afraid and that we as parents always try to protect them from such bad things happening to them.
* Talk to your children some more. A child's anxiety may linger or grow as new developments occur. Therefore, its important to keep an open line of communication with the child. For example ask them how they feel? If they heard anything new today that they want to talk about? A one-time talk is not enough.
Most important is for parents to realize that children are more affected by their immediate environment than by a distant catastrophe, no matter how awful it is. The younger the child, the more the family is their world.
Parents need to be aware of their own reactions and expressions of anxiety, grief or rage. A parent's calm and sense of resolve will allow children to initiate their own coping mechanisms.
Television coverage is nearly constant and extremely vivid. When parents watch the television with their children, they can see their child's reactions, give them comfort and initiate discussion.
A child's age and level of understanding will affect how he or she responds to a disaster. A young child may demonstrate a need for security by wanting to sleep in the parents' bed. Parents should be direct and confident in reassuring young children that they are safe and that they can and will take care of them.
Young children need clear, black-and-white reassurance. Older children, ask tougher questions such as is the parent going to be safe. Adolescents' ask questions about the nature of evil, why terrible things happen to good people, what the degree of safety really is, etc. Parents should respond based on their own values and beliefs. It will be during these very adult discussions that we may learn more about our own vulnerabilities and beliefs.
Disaster, whether the cause be by Mother Nature or extreme evil, tends to bring out the fear in us all. Our children will watch how we react and will embrace our behavior into their own memory body. This impulse of our children to want to be just like us puts an even a greater importance on parents to be clear on their own feelings and emotions.
There is no prescription for courage, understanding or forgiveness. However sanity does go hand in hand with acceptance. There is no permanence in life, we all die and everything has an ending. There is good and evil in our world and we have no control over either. What we do have control over is how we live our own lives today, now, this moment. We have the choice to laugh or cry. We have the choice to be happy or sad. We have the choice to love or hate. How we choose to react to trauma and disaster will have long lasting effects on the children who depend on us for guidance. Lets do our best to live in acceptance and fill our everyday minutes with love and laughter.
Note: My sincerest well wishes go out to all of the families of my dear friends who passed away in Bali.