No matter where you live you can’t avoid experiencing or hearing about the many disasters that affect families. Your first defense is to minimize your child’s exposure to televised coverage whenever possible. It is very tempting to keep the television tuned to minute by minute coverage when you live in an area that is threatened by a disaster or when you have relatives and friends that may be. However, if you have young children, a periodic news check when your children are occupied elsewhere eliminates a great deal of stress for you and your children.

Some children may be easily distracted and don’t seem to be bothered by what is going on in the rest of the world. Others worry those disasters will eventually destroy the world they live in. They will ask their parents numerous questions hoping to get the assurance that nothing will happen to them. Children who live through disasters may continue to live in fear for months afterward. Regardless, parents need to be aware of how their children are processing disaster exposure and take steps to minimize their child’s fears and maximize their ability to feel safe and secure.

Sally James , MA, LPC, who specializes in working with children and their families, suggests the following tips that may help your child cope with traumatic events.

DO:

• Tell them they are safe
• Reassure them often
• Provide them with routines and limits
• Tell them you will keep them safe
• Let them know you love them
• Let them know you are able to hear about their worries
• Let them talk at their own pace and provide drawing materials
• Respond to their fears with comfort such as soothing music, flashlight, etc.
• Allow your child to talk about how they feel
• Try to be calm and maintain healthy routines
• Look after yourself so you can support your child
• Accept your child may be acting differently
• Spend time with your child
• Let them play and relax
• Reduce and monitor television, news and movie content
• Provide education and information for personal and group safety
• Have a written family plan for action steps during a storm/event
• Engage your child in a small volunteer task such as a shopping trip for hurricane survivors
• Seek professional counseling for excessive reaction such as anxiety, depression, etc.

DON ’T:

• Tell your child to forget it ever happened
• Tell your child not to talk about it
• Get upset every time your child talks about events
• Minimize or ignore your child’s fears and concerns
• Force your child to discuss events
• Express your own worries, fears, or negative feelings about events

Sally James is a Licensed Professional Counselor at The Counseling Center in The Woodlands, TX. Office phone: 281-419-1080 or direct line: 281-536-9223.

The Red Cross offers these suggestions in the event your family needs to evacuate the area:

• As an adult, you will need to cope with the disaster in a way that will help your child avoid developing a permanent sense of loss.
• How you react to an emergency gives them clues on how to act. If you seem overcome with a sense of loss your child may feel losses more strongly.
• Children’s fears may also stem from their imagination, and you should take those fears seriously. A child who feels afraid is afraid.
• When talking to your child, be sure to present a realistic picture that is both honest and manageable.
• After experiencing the mass evacuations in South Texas recently, it is also a good idea to prepare for long evacuations by bringing lots of water, extra food, and toys that are appropriate to play with in the car, such as books, drawing materials, electronic hand held games (with extra batteries), music provided by head phones and maybe a favorite stuffed animal.

Bottom line – Your reaction has a great deal of influence on how your children will respond to natural disasters or other traumatic events. Take care of what needs to be done to minimize damage and focus on helping your children feel safe and secure.

PARENTING CHALLENGE:

We continue to get questions from parents who struggle with their children at bedtime. Here are a few tips that may help:

• Set up bedtime routines. It doesn’t matter what order tasks are completed from family to family. What does matter is whatever routines your family adopts should be followed consistently. For example: If your child bathes right after dinner, then brushes his or her teeth, then has a half hour or so for television, then goes to the bathroom and hops into bed for a story or a few minutes of one-to-one visiting with Mom or Dad, then that is the order that things should be done every night. There will be exceptions on occasion, but when your child can rely on the routine they will tend to be more cooperative.

• Make your bedtime request once - then act. So often parents make many requests before they finally get aggravated enough to enforce the request. Your children learn they can procrastinate until you get aggravated. When they discover you mean business they follow through with your request. To eliminate bedtime procrastination shorten the time between your request and your actions. Ask once - then act. Get up from your chair, or move into the room where your child is occupied. Turn off the TV or put toys away while stating “It is bedtime.” When your child persists with excuses your conversation may sound like: “I understand, but nevertheless, its bedtime.” It may be a struggle for a few nights, but eventually they will understand you mean what you say.

• Offer encouragement or positive motivation. If your child enjoys reading time offer one extra short story when they get into bed on time. Or you can offer five extra minutes of Mom or Dad time. Find something that will motivate them that will not excessively interfere with bedtime.

• Give a five minute warning. Some children function more efficiently when they know what to expect. Let your child know that you expect him or her to be in the bed in five minutes (you may want to change this to ten minutes if they brush their teeth right before bed.)

Regardless of which method you choose to minimize bedtime hassles, be sure to give that method time to work. Give it a try for at least one week. When you give it one shot and then try something else you only contribute to the chaos.

Do you have a parenting challenge that you would like to see addressed in this newsletter? If so, please email deborah@parentingpartnerships.com. Sharing this information will be helpful to others who may be addressing the same challenges. Confidentiality is guaranteed.