Helping Children Understand Disaster

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How Disaster-Related Stress Affects Young People

Disaster related stress affects young people in several ways:

• Damage, injuries, and deaths that result from an unexpected or uncontrollable event are difficult for most young people to understand.
• Following a disaster, a young person’s view of the world as safe and predictable is temporarily lost. This is true of adults as well.
• Young people express their feelings and reactions in various ways, especially in different age groups. Many are confused about what has happened and about their feelings. Not every child has immediate reactions; some can have delayed reactions that show up days, weeks, or even months later, and some may never have a reaction. Children’s reactions are strongly affected by the emotional reactions of their parents and the adults around them.
• Young people can easily become afraid that a similar event will happen again and that they or their family will be injured or killed.

How Young People Show Stress

It is normal for young people to show signs of stress after a disaster. Young people show signs of stress differently at different ages or school levels. This article looks at three age groupings:

• Preschool years.
• Elementary and middle school ages.
• High school and teenage years.

Signs of Stress—Preschoolers

Signs that a preschool age child may be experiencing normal, but high levels of stress may include:

• Waking confused and frightened from bad dreams.
• Being reluctant to going to bed or refusing to sleep alone.
• Acting and showing behaviors younger than their actual age, such as whining, thumb sucking, bed wetting, baby talk or fear of darkness.
• Clinging to adults more than normal.
• Complaining often about illnesses such as stomachaches.
• Not having fun doing things they normally enjoyed.
• Being irritable.

Signs of Stress—Elementary or Middle School Age

Signs that an elementary or middle school age child is experiencing normal, but high levels of stress may include:

• Ongoing concern over their own safety and the safety of others in their school or family.
• Irrational fears.
• Becoming extremely upset for little or no reason.
• Having nightmares and sleep problems.
• Experiencing problems in school, such as skipping school or misbehavior (e.g., loss of interest, withdrawal, and excessive need for attention).
• Complaining of headaches or stomachaches without cause.
• Not having fun doing things they normally enjoyed.
• Disruptive behaviors-outbursts of anger and fighting.
• Being numb to their emotions.
• Experiencing guilt or shame about what they did or did not do during the disaster Signs of Stress—High School Age.

Signs that a teenager may be experiencing normal, but high levels of stress may include:

• Feeling self-conscious about their feelings concerning the disaster.
• Feeling fearful, helpless, and concerned about being labeled “abnormal” or different from their friends or classmates (this may lead to social withdrawal).
• Experiencing shame or guilt about the disaster.
• Expressing fantasies about retribution concerning people connected to disaster events.
• Not having fun doing things they normally enjoyed.
• Difficulty concentrating.
• Impulsive behaviors.
• Emotional numbing.
• Seeing the world as an unsafe place.

Helping Young People Understand a Disaster

Disasters can hit young people hard. It is difficult for them to understand and accept that there are events in their lives that cannot be controlled or predicted. When facing an unknown and potentially dangerous situation, young people usually look to adults for answers and help.

Talk with your young person at a level in line with their age. Children handle information differently at different ages. Preschool age children cannot handle as much information as teenagers.

Before you as an adult can help young people cope with a disaster, it is important for you to recognize your own natural feelings of helplessness, fear, and anger, if these exist. Until this occurs, you will not be able to give the young person the full emotional help they need. Nothing is wrong with letting young people know that you do not have all the answers. Things that can be done immediately include the following:

• Let young people know how you see the family situation improving, for example, your plans for their school, your work, and family housing.
• Communicate a positive “I’m not helpless” attitude, stressing that “we can get through this together.”
• Ask for parenting or other help if the situation gets beyond your abilities and control.