
By: Jan Isaacs Henry
Jan is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Kidpower Colorado. She is a former psychotherapist who specialized in the treatment of trauma and abuse.
The emotional burden experienced during and after natural disasters and other traumatic events can be overwhelming to both adults and children. Just as taking care of our physical wellbeing is essential, so is taking care of our emotional safety.
Children take their cues from their trusted adults during stressful times about how to respond, and our response can set the tone for our families. Taking care of our own mental health is essential for our wellbeing and crucial to helping our children learn to navigate their feelings about current emergencies and future challenges.
What to expect?
Everyone responds differently to stressful situations. Some may have reactions soon after the event; others may appear fine for a while, and then begin to struggle. Avoid the expectation that our family members’ responses will be exactly like our own. The definition of a traumatic event is a highly stressful or shocking experience that causes intense fear or helplessness. How we respond to trauma can depend on our age, developmental stage, background, how close we are to the situation, and our mental health history.
Current trauma can wake up past traumatic situations and we may find ourselves thinking of troubling events that we haven’t thought about in a long time. Understanding this can help us use tools to support ourselves and our loved ones in positive ways.
Be prepared for emotional and behavioral changes. We may see an increase in worry; forgetfulness; difficulty with sleep, eating, and concentration; nightmares; worsening of current health issues; anger; irritability; and loneliness.
Young children may respond with increased clinginess, regression in behavior or skills, and more frequent meltdowns. Older children and teens may show sadness, anxiety, or depression, but their responses can also include disrespectful or disruptive behavior. In both adults and children moodiness, and acting out behavior may be signs of underlying anxiety.
Some of us may feel it in our bodies in the form of headaches, digestive issues, fatigue, racing thoughts, muscle or joint pain, and increased startle reactions.
Children may have questions right away or much later after a disaster occurs. Welcome these questions and answer honestly but in a developmentally appropriate way. Younger children need less detailed information than older children.
So how do we protect our emotional safety?
Be gentle with yourself; there is no perfect way to navigate this. Similarly, be patient with your family members. There is no rule book for response to traumatic events. You are doing your best during an exceptionally difficult and overwhelming situation. Take time to discuss with your family how everyone may be feeling and emphasize the importance of facing this together.
Acknowledge that mistakes are inevitable under high stress. Give yourself and your kids more space for mood changes. Recognize that strong emotions are normal and develop a plan for addressing them as they arise. Allowing ourselves to be human and offering apologies when needed are valuable, lifelong skills.
Validate and name the experience and the feelings associated with it. Check in with family members often. Provide many opportunities to listen to children no matter how small their concerns may seem. In Kidpower classes, we teach parents to ask their kids periodically, “Is there anything you have been wondering or worrying about that you haven’t told me?” And then we ask parents to listen patiently and compassionately. This is one way to open up the lines of communication so that kids know their parents really care about what they are feeling.
Kids may need your help to actually find the names for feelings they are experiencing. There are many helpful, printable charts that you can find online of people’s faces matched with emotions to help young children identify feelings. Drawing, painting, writing, and music can all be excellent ways to express feelings.
Help young people express their emotions without making them take care of your feelings. Get support for your own feelings from other adults so that you can help children understand and work through theirs. When big feelings come up, try to respond to kids in a calm, consistent, and nurturing way. Kids are emotionally safest if they believe their adults are calm and in control. Reassure your child that they are safe even though this is scary or hard, and that all feelings are valid. Give extra support and reassurance.
Connect with others. It can feel lonely and isolating during a stressful event. Withdrawing during a crisis can make it harder to cope and recover. Relational engagement is a key component of resiliency. We are social beings and connection to others contributes to our mental health and overall fulfillment. Connection can also help us process difficult emotions and feel less alone. Other people can provide validation and can offer help with resources, problem-solving, or assisting with tasks.
Help children figure out their own ways to reach out to friends and family and encourage them when they make an effort to connect. Sending drawings and words of encouragement to people who need support can be helpful. Empathy fosters solidarity with others who may be affected by the crisis.
This may be a time that you relax the rules about screen time for kids. Teens may use their devices as a life-line to friends and sustaining these relationships is important. For younger children, monitor online activity and content (not all screens are alike), remind kids about online safety rules, and make sure you have parental controls in place. Take breaks for active play and true connection which is what kids need most.
Try to find alone time, too. While we don’t want to encourage isolation, each family member may benefit from alone time and breaks. We have to make intentional plans about self-care. This could be as basic as a walk, a shower, a drive, or reading a novel. If at all possible, switch off childcare duties so everyone gets a break, even if brief. Kids also need time to play or read alone, and do school work on their own.
Establish a routine and be okay with changing it up. Sticking to a regular schedule can be helpful because structure and consistency may be useful during times of stress. Keep regular times for meals and sleep if possible. We all can benefit from having a plan for the day and knowing what is going to happen next. However, flexibility is also equally important. Our children feeling loved, safe, and secure is more important than any set or rigid plans.
Set boundaries around media exposure including social media. While it is important to stay informed, too much media may increase anxiety for yourself and your kids. The World Health Organization recommends that people seek news updates no more than twice a day. Social media often promotes worrying information and is rife with disinformation. Be mindful of conversations between adults that kids may overhear and that may promote worry.
Identify ways that are personally helpful for you and your family to reduce stress. Allow yourself opportunities for sleep, exercise, fresh air and sunshine, breathing and stretching, meditation, music, and breaks from screens. Make a list of stress reduction and mindfulness activities that work for each family member as one size does not fit all.
In our Teenpower workshops, we teach teens skills to feel calm inside particularly in situations where they may be triggered. One of these techniques is called “getting centered”. We coach students to sit in a chair, close their eyes, and simply feel their feet on the floor. We ask them to turn inward to notice the sensations in their bodies, any tightness or tension. We coach them to pay attention to their breathing and then take a long, slow breath in through their noses, first filling their lower lungs and moving to their upper lungs. Then holding their breath to a count of “three” and exhaling slowly through their mouths while relaxing the muscles in their faces, jaws, shoulders and rest of the body.
These types of deep breathing and relaxation exercises are researched-based techniques that help us reduce anxiety and stress and improve emotional regulation. There are many available online apps that may be useful to help teach and coach breathing and relaxation techniques.
Find healthy ways that you and your family can be in control. A crisis or natural disaster can leave people feeling helpless, hopeless, and powerless. All family members can benefit from opportunities to regain their sense of control. Shift the focus to what you CAN do. This may be as simple as giving kids choices like which game to play, what direction to head out on a walk, or what to have for dinner. Research shows that volunteering is good for your health and gives you meaning and purpose.
In a disaster, gestures to both help others and show gratitude to responders on the front lines can be also helpful. Some communities put handmade signs in their windows to communicate appreciation to those people performing essential duties. We have heard heartwarming stories of friends involving their families in gathering donations for those in need, checking in on neighbors, dropping off food to elderly friends, writing letters to first responders, and volunteering. Sit down with your family and discuss a family plan for making a difference.
Make future plans. When we feel less in control, it can be helpful to think about next steps both close in and further away in time. Have a family conversation about what you would like to do in the next few days and also for the future when things get better.
Sometimes people feel guilty about planning something fun or experiencing moments of joy or peace after a crisis or disaster, especially when others have lost everything or are still suffering. While these feelings are natural, it’s important to remind ourselves that taking breaks is part of healing and helps restore a sense of normalcy and hope.
Discuss what might be a way that each family member can take a break from the gravity of the situation. Can we plan a fun walk? Can we do an exercise class together? How about a board game tonight or a scavenger hunt? A cooking project or a science experiment? For future planning, what might our family do for a vacation, a sports activity, or a reunion when we are able?
Get help when needed. While it may be uncomfortable to ask for help for yourself or your children, it is actually a great sign of strength. It may feel like you are bothering or inconveniencing others, but this is a time to be persistent in getting the help and support your family needs.
Remember that your mental health is every bit as important as your physical health. Recognize that trauma can lead to immediate and long-term psychological effects. You deserve to get the help that you and your family need. Consider seeking professional help after a traumatic event if there is ongoing distress, persistent feelings of helplessness or hopelessness, or difficulty coping with daily life. There are many effective therapeutic techniques that can help the healing process and restore a sense of wellbeing. You can be directed to resources through your own physician, your child’s school system, or mental health organizations.
Additional Resources
Many parents, educators, and mental health professionals have found these resources to be useful:
- Helping Children Regain Their Emotional Safety After a Tragedy
- 12 Emotional Safety Skills for All Ages
- Mental Health Strategies for Preventing and Healing from Trauma
At Kidpower, we are deeply committed to ensuring that everyone, everywhere has the opportunity to learn the personal and emotional safety skills, strategies, and safety plans we teach. We do this by:
- Organizing and teaching live online workshops tailored for the specific needs of families, schools, organizations, and workplaces.
- Providing in-person programs in places where we have local instructors.
- Offering self-paced video courses in our Online Learning Center.
- Providing an extensive online Resource Library of articles, handouts, posters, videos, and ebooks in many different languages.
- Training others to teach Kidpower skills through our online Training of Practitioners program.