How to Teach Your Kids About Natural Disasters

Knowing how to teach children about natural disasters has never been more a topic of conversation perhaps than in the days, weeks and months after the earthquake in Haiti, the volcanic eruption in Iceland or the floods in Tennessee. Young children can be shielded from a lot of the more horrific images of such disasters if parents are vigilant in their control of what kids see on television. But for older children, the likelihood that they will be informed one way or another about such gigantic tragedies is highly likely. How can parents respond? For the most part by using common sense.

First the disasters are large enough on their own without parents over dramatizing the events or spending a disproportionate amount of family television viewing time glued to the whatever the current disaster footage happens to be. Try to limit your viewing to the least graphic stations you can find and certainly keep the remote in hand so that you can edit should content become too much for kids to deal with. Also viewing difficult footage too close to bedtime just isn't a good plan for anyone, but especially children.

Solid television reporting can help you center our approach and help to determine som eofwhat you do teach your children about natural disasters. Television can be helpful you just have to be selective in what you watch and when you watch it. And of course you need to be there watching with your kids to offer explanation along the way.

On line sources, magazines and newspapers can also be great sources for trying to walk through a natural disaster explanation with your children. The obvious advantage is that you can review the available material beforehand and sift out what you feel will be helpful as you try to teach your children about natural disasters.

As a teacher i have found that learning the facts of any issue always helps to promote understanding and meaningful discussion. Repeatedly noting how horrible natural disasters are only promotes anxiety but by pursuing the facts of any disaster with your children you not only give them the information they need to make judgments but in the process you give them a little sense of order in the midst of confusion.

The knowledge you share when teaching children about natural disasters can be of several kinds. In most cases it is helpful with children to share the geographic setting of the incident. Taking out a world map and finding Haiti or Iceland or Tennessee. and then locating the child's home town or state puts the whole disaster in some type of perspective. The child knows where the disaster is in relation to home and sometimes that is very helpful in reducing stress.

Scientific knowledge on a very simple level can also be helpful in reducing stress. Giving the most basic explanation of how and where volcanoes erupt or earthquakes take place can give children a less dismal view of what has happened and allow them to sleep without fear that a volcano is likely to erupt down the street before morning. Factual knowledge undermines fear. Taking time out of our own adult schedule to provide that knowledge and frame a natural disaster for your child can mean a more relaxed household for everyone

Finally children seeing the results of a disaster like the recent floods in Tennessee have a natural inclination to want to help. While the effort to connect with victims of natural disasters can sometimes be taxing for parents, helping your kids to help others confronted by shortages of food, water, clothing or shelter can give your children a positive feeling about themselves.. Helping kids to find a proactive response to disaster can take the energy they might otherwise be using to worry about what is happening to children elsewhere and convert it into positive relief activity no matter how small it may be.

Natural disasters are here to stay. You can respond to those disasters by putting together a plan for teaching your kids about natural disasters that includes use of media, scientific and geographic knowledge, and proactive aid ideas . In doing so you may find a little less stressed yourself.