Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman are two of the parenting experts I respect the most and I believe this article can help many parents support and guide their children when natural disasters or other global tragedies happen. This information will be especially important right now with so many sad and frightening images coming from Japan.
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| Thomas Haller & Chick Moorman |
Explaining World Tragedy to Children By Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman |
Your six-year-old has just seen video footage of devastating destruction including collapsed buildings, crushed cars, and homes under water, all vivid images resulting from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Your teen sits transfixed watching the numbers of dead and injured mount. At the dinner table your fifth grader asks, "Can anything like that happen to us, Dad?"
How is a parent to respond under such circumstances? What should you say? What should you do? How do you deal with your children's fears without increasing them? Is it possible to reassure them at a time when you, yourself, are horrified by the images of intense pain and grief you see on the faces of parents halfway around the world?
Yes, you feel empathy for the survivors who have lost loved ones, homes, and jobs. Yes, you are extremely grateful that your children are safe in your comfortable home as the horrific images continue to flow from your television screen. And, yes, you can use this tragic situation to help your children learn lessons of love and compassion and about the indestructible nature of the human spirit.
Once children have seen the images of tragedy and suffering, debriefing is essential-the sooner the better. By debriefing, we mean answering their questions, providing information, asking questions, and reflecting their feelings.
Provide the scientific information they're asking for. Tell your children in age-appropriate language what you know about how nature can create an earthquake, tidal wave, tornado, hurricane, or volcanic eruption. Keep this part factual. You can even use books or magazines to assist you in providing information.
Tell your children the effects of the natural disaster. Talk about the destruction that was created by nature's fury. This is a good time to make the connection between cause and effect. Limit what you say to what your children actually saw on TV, and provide answers to their directly asked questions. Too much information at this point can increase their fright and worry. The goal is to be brief and accurate and to provide them with the specific information they're looking for. If you fail to give them information, if you fail to debrief, children's brains will fill in the blanks. Better to fill in those gaps yourself with factual knowledge than to have your children fill them with their imaginations.
Concentrate on feelings. Your children will be seeing a wide range of feelings expressed during TV coverage of such events. They will see sadness, panic, grief, relief, joy, depression, frustration and desperation. As a result, they will personally experience unexpressed and often unrecognized feelings.
When you sense they are feeling empathy, sadness, or pain, say so. Tell them, "You seem deeply saddened about this," or "You sound afraid that this might happen to us." Children are starving for feeling recognition and this is a great time to supply it.
When strong emotion is shown on TV, honor it by talking about it. Acknowledge the extreme sadness and grief that people are experiencing. Refrain from being an adult who ignores the grief of others and refuses to acknowledge it. Do not treat hurting human beings as if they are invisible. Talk about your own feelings. Tell your children about the sympathy and pain you feel for the losses others are suffering. Allow your children to hear and see you express feelings. By doing so, you're helping them acquire a feeling vocabulary they can use their entire lives.
When you communicate your own feelings and honor the feelings of your children for people around the world, you teach them important lessons about the human condition. You help them appreciate how we are all more alike than different. You help them see that we are all connected, no matter how distant we seem. You help them learn that we are all one.
As you go through this debriefing process, encourage your children to look for the helpers. Helpers always come. There are always people who step forth to help. In the case of a major tragedy, there will be many helpers playing out a variety of roles. Point them out to your children. Then, when small problems occur in their own lives, they will have learned to look for the helpers. There are helpers at school, on the playground, in the mall, and on the highway when our car breaks down. Learn to look for helpers and they will be more likely to show up when you need them.
Discuss with your children how you as a family can be helpers during this tragedy. Perhaps you can send money, give blood, say prayers, send love, or call the Red Cross to see what kinds of items you can donate. Choose one or more ways to be helpers as a family and allow your children to participate in implementing those choices with you. Pray together. Let them observe as you give blood. Take them shopping for the toiletry items needed by the Red Cross. Let them help you address the envelope that sends the check. Get them involved in the process of being a helper. Let them see and be love in action.
The scope and depth of the pain and heartache of catastrophic tragedies are not measurable. Yet, those horrific events can serve a useful purpose if we use them to help our children learn about feelings, look for the helpers, and appreciate the connectedness of all human beings and the beauty of one heart reaching out to another across continents. We can help them learn that around the world is a long way away, yet still very much a part of our neighborhood.
Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of Parent Talk Essentials: How to Talk to Kids about Divorce, Sex, Money, School, and Being Responsible in Today's World. They are two of the world’s foremost authorities on raising responsible, caring, confident children. For more information about how they can help you or your group meet your parenting needs, visit their websites today. www.thomashaller.com or www.chickmoorman.com
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Welcome to my world! I am so glad you stopped by and felt comfortable enough to join the conversation. I hope you will come back often - the weather is always sunny here (mostly), and the views are... well, whatever your reality makes of them.
Sandie