Parents Can Help Child Surmount Crisis or Disaster

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How do children react to crises such as serious illness or death in the family, divorce, or such disasters as fires and floods? What can parents do to help the children surmount a crisis so that it will not have long-range effects on his feelings and behaviors?

Frequently parents feel they should shield children from knowledge of some disastrous happening. However, an unwillingness or inability to discuss a distressing event may actually result in an effect opposite to what the parent intended. Adult concealment or evasion may increase a child's apprehension and anxieties.

At any moment of crisis, a child turns to her parents for cues not only as to how she should behave but also as to how she should feel. If the parent abandons his role as guide and source of support, the child finds her world topsy-turvy. Young children rarely react to disaster news directly. When a crisis arises, children react largely to the attitudes, emotional responses, and tone of voice of persons around them. Hence, if adults are able to avoid feeling needless alarm and irrational panic in times of crisis, children seldom miss the cue.

Although a child should not be burdened with details of illness or misfortune which he can't comprehend, he should be given a simple explanation adapted to his age and ability to understand. The ideal time to discuss a child's worries is when the child brings them up and wants to talk about them, not when the parent gets around to it.

Ronald Pitzer
Family Sociologist

Originally published in October, 1983

College of Human Ecology in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Extension Service

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