How are your children coping with what they are seeing on TV about the Haitian earthquake? Ever since reports first surfaced about the devastation left behind after the 7.0 quake, it’s almost impossible to watch TV or surf the Web without seeing pictures of the disaster or seeing the horrific toll that it has taken on Port-au-Prince.
The pictures and reports out of the quake zone can be hard for even adults to comprehend. They can be frightening and scary to younger children. Nine-year-old elementary school student Nora Trevillian told a reporter, "I get very, very worried about an earthquake striking my house. It could happen anywhere, right?"
Nora is right. Haiti hadn’t seen a severe earthquake in over 200 years. Major disasters can seem very unlikely, but they can happen just about anywhere. What can you say to a child who sees a tragic natural disaster somewhere in the world and fears the same thing could happen where she lives?
Many child psychologists say those fears are natural reactions for children (and for adults, as well) after seeing troubling pictures, like the ones coming out of the earthquake’s aftermath. Children can frequently find it hard to go to sleep, even to have lights turned off at night, if they internalize fears of a possible disaster.
That’s why a number of child and parenting experts recommend that parents be very cautious about what they allow their children to see on TV and where they go on the Internet, whether there is tragedy in the news or not.
Social Services counselor Maria Carrillo says, "They’re watching those images about children and their families being hurt and bloody." She adds, “Of course, that’s going to instill fears in them. So it’s important to always monitor what they are watching, and be willing to talk to them about it, if they have questions.”
Nora’s mother, Tara, agrees. She says, "I just don’t think that’s something they need to sit in bed worrying that’s going to happen to them."
Carrillo says parents like Tara need to be careful about how they answer her daughter’s questions about her fear of disasters. She says parents should answer their child’s questions, but only those questions. The answer should be a simple one that emphasizes the child is safe, and will always have her parents, other relatives or other adults, like teachers, to turn to for help.
Doing that may not always be easy, especially as more injured orphans and adoptive children are brought back to the United States and become the subject of news stories that children see. Children seeing Haitian survivors their own age can make the disaster seem more real, and more possible, to them.
The counselor says parents should skip any extra details that could lead children to ask more troubling questions, and possibly cause more worry. Carrillo says, "Do not offer any more information to a worried child than what they need to know."
She says that both parents need to get on the same page when a tragedy, like the Haiti earthquake, comes up and causes questions from children. Carrillo suggests keeping answers as simple and personally comforting and reassuring as possible.
The thing that parents should avoid doing, when a difficult topic like this comes up, is to ignore the topic altogether. Carrillo says, "We, as adults, get scared, too. So you don’t want to be sheltering them. can have some long term effects that will keep the child’s fears alive longer."
If your child seems to be overly traumatized by the pictures from Haiti, or in fact, by any disaster or tragedy they see or hear about; there are ways you can help them take some control over that fear.
Many schools and youth groups have turned their concern about Haitian quake survivors into action, by raising money or collecting donated items to send to the island. Suggest your child take part in one of those relief drives or seek out an area charity that is volunteering to help.
Even a few hours collecting money or helping to package relief supplies can be a powerful lesson in how to react to a tragedy. In addition, they can see other neighbors, or even other children turning their feelings of helplessness into positive action to help those affected by a disaster. That can make a difference to a child’s outlook, no matter who they are or what neighborhood they come from.
A report in the Palestine Telegraph newspaper in the Gaza Strip of Israel reports, "Palestinian families, and their children, mounted their own Haiti relief effort, even though they have little to give."
Several dozen families collected toys, toiletries and sweets that they put into packages, and gave to a local Red Cross representative, in hopes it could be sent to Haiti. One of the drive’s organizers, Jamal Khudari, says, “It’s a symbolic donation for the people of Haiti, to tell them we feel their suffering.”
Khudari says all the children in the effort were anxious to find something they could offer to the children they saw in Haiti. He says the children told him they felt better, knowing they were doing something to help and feeling that others would help them, if they were to face a potential disaster themselves.
