What to expect when your child is coping with natural disaster (Part II)

Also, children at different stages of their development experience trauma and uncertainty in different ways. Here is an age specific overview of what parents and teachers can expect from children who are touched by disaster and trauma.

Children under 3 years of age
 
Infants and toddlers are very sensitive their parent’s emotions and routines and even very young children can sense that something is wrong especially when their parents are feeling stressed, upset or depressed. Before children can walk and talk they can only show stress through the language of their behavior. And their behavior is most likely to be effected around eating, sleeping and toileting times. They may experience a loss in appetite, difficulty sleeping and if the parents are particularly stressed toddlers can go back to using diapers or a bottle for a short time. Children under 3 years of age are already prone to nightmares and fear of being separated from parents, this insecurity may increase during times of family stress. Young children have a simpler view of the world, and may have a great deal of difficulty understanding why people are dying if there are other people there to help them. They also do not yet understand that death is permanent, and so can be confused by the news of so many people dying and what that means. 

 

Children 4-7 years of age
 
 Children of this age likely know and understand more about what is happening than their parents may think, but children of this age do not have a complete picture of the events and may misinterpret information and images. They will not fully understand that some of the pictures they see are of dead people and that those people will not ‘magically’ be able to come back to life. To children of this age the images on the news are not that different from the images in fantasy (movies and cartoons). But they do understand that their parents, teacher’s family and friends are quite upset and worried, and this will be very disturbing to them.  They will try to understand what is happening by asking lots of questions like;
“Will I be okay? Will you be okay? Will everyone I love be okay? Why did this happen?” They may also start to include traumatic events in their imaginative play, and in general may talk more frequently about death and disasters. It is important that parents do not overreact to this type of play, and provide honest developmentally appropriate answers to their questions but avoid graphic and disturbing images and details.
 
Children 7-12 years of age
 
By this age can understand what is real and what is permanent, especially in terms of death and destruction, but they lack experience to understand all of the political, social, financial and religious repercussions of the disaster.
Developmentally they can now empathize with the people who have lost their homes and families, but may not know what to do with their feelings of sadness and frustration. They may become fascinated with images of rescue, because they still see the world in simple terms of heroes and villains, and may use stories of heroism to help them to understand what is happening. At this age children may start to focus on the fact that bad things can happen to them or their family and friends and this may create a lot of new uncertainty in their lives. They will ask complex questions like: “Why did this happen to them and not us?”
“Why didn’t anyone rescue those people? Why didn’t God save the children?”

They may experience an elevated sense of fear and may talk about and relive past stressful events. All of this uncertainty may manifest in problems concentrating at school problems, increased aggression, anxiety, sleeping problems, complaining and general anger. They may engage in post traumatic play, living out injuries, disasters and scenes of death in their play, while they try to understand their new feelings of uncertainty they may be experiencing.

Children over 12 years of age   
                                 
Tweens and Teens will learn about the event on their own and may not want to discuss their feelings with their parents. Developmentally they are moving away from home and the influence of family, and seeking other sources of information and comfort. But they still need the comfort, support and patience of their parents and teachers. At this age they are often more emotionally volatile than when they were younger and the added stress may mean that they can become overwhelmed by their emotions. When emotionally overwhelmed teens may exhibit extreme emotional reactions; especially more anger, frustration and depression or they may become unusually emotionally indifferent and more prone to risk seeking behavior.
 

 
 
ChildUp is the only company in the world offering exclusive parenting courses broadcast live on the internet by world experts. You can learn about multilingual development, child behavior management, early maths learning and much more directly from your home or office at very affordable prices.
 
ChildUp has only one goal in mind: helping parents mentor their children into exceptional people. Each learning session is filled with practical advice and dozens of games and activities for you to play and learn with your children.
 
Visit www.ChildUp.com to start having fun!


Content Provider: Tina Stephenson (Child Behavior Management Specialist)