Course The Emotional Impact of Disaster on Children and Families

The best way to reduce the emotional impact of disaster is to try to keep the family together and the parents functioning well. In this way, children can get the support and care they need.

The most important thing for the emotional health of children who experience disaster situations is to feel loved, cared for, and protected by their parents or caregivers.

The intervention for preschool-age children depends on their symptoms:

• If they become passive and listless, provide them with a routine safe place, where they can feel emotionally connected and have suitable materials for drawing, playing, or other activities. Encourage them to draw people they would like to be with, put names to those people, create a story about the drawing, and make a poster where new elements can be added.
• If they feel scared, provide supportive opportunities for them to express their fears and emotions.
• If the child is having sleep disturbance (nightmares and or fear of being alone at night), try routine calming activities before bedtime, such as reading a comforting book or telling a hopeful story.

These disturbances are usually temporary and fluctuate in severity. It is important for parents to provide gentle structure, reassurance, and some flexibility in routines.

• Regressive behaviors (e.g., thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, and baby-talk) are common responses to stress. They provide some sort of comfort to the child, are not intentional, and usually are transitory. The best manner for parents to respond is to accept this as a measure of how distressed the child is by the situation and to gently encourage her/him to return to their developmental achievements. Parents should avoid criticism, mockery, or annoyance, and should reward developmentally appropriate behavior through praise.
• Give them all the information l they need, without unnecessarily alarming them. Answer questions in a truthful but plain and simple way. Do not share descriptions of specifics of loss and trauma with them at this age as it may lead to further traumatization. If they do not understand what is going on and cannot discern their own feelings, help them understand what they feel through playing or drawing, especially if it is shared with parents or caregivers. Caregivers should also share some of their similar feelings and explain how they feel safer now. This helps the child to understand that their feelings are common responses and that they are not alone in having them.
• Children may attribute magical qualities to certain objects or situations (magical thinking) through their egocentric cognitive capacity. They may believe that seeing an object related to the emergency may cause the event to be repeated. Avoid exposing the children to the news media, especially TV. Images can be retraumatizing, and the children may not understand that the images shown are from a past discrete event rather than new disasters.
• Children separated from close relatives, even for a short period of time, may feel distressed, anxious, and irritable. It is important for parents to understand that this is also likely to be transient, and that they should try to spend more time together as a family, providing the children a safe space to express themselves.