Parents
Tips for Parents and Teachers
Introduction
Helping Children Cope
Keeping Your Family Safe and Well
Other Helpful and Informative Sites
Introduction
- You should be the healthy filter of information for your child.
- Find out what your child thinks and feels.
- Little discussions make it easier for the child to digest.
- You can explain that you just don't know.
- Reassure your child.
- When children feel overwhelmed, confused, sad or fearful, they will often "regress." And so do adults.
HELPING CHILDREN COPE
- Not all children will react to traumatic events in the same way.
- Your child will sense emotional intensity around them and will mirror your emotional responses and interpretations.
- Don't let your frustration, anger and rage be misdirected.
- If you feel overwhelmed, or if you see persisting problems with your child, don't hesitate to reach out for help.
- Realize that children are most afraid that the event will happen again, they will be left alone, or someone will die or be injured.
- Spend extra time with your child. Provide extra love, comfort and HUGS.
- Explain the importance of tolerance when terrorism or disaster occurs.
- If a child's behavior does not improve after a few months, seek professional advice.
KEEPING YOUR FAMILY SAFE AND WELL
- The goal is to decrease the power of trauma.
- The sooner there is a familiar structure and predictability to your child's life, the sooner she or he will feel safe.
- Ensure that the family and home are safe.
- As much as possible, following a traumatic event, resume normal routines, e.g., eating times, bedtimes, athletics, social activities.
- Create a disaster preparedness plan, e.g., post important numbers, make sure that children memorize their phone number and address.
Other Helpful and Informative Sites:
National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
NASP and its National Emergency Assistance Team (NEAT) have gathered practical strategies and coping techniques that can be easily understood and used by parents, teachers, mental health professionals and members of the faith-based community and used to assist children as they try to understand and deal with the terrifying events that have taken place in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. NASP has also posted a special set of disaster counseling resources at this site. This includes a link to the handout for parents entitled "Disaster: Helping Children Cope".
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
NIMH has a number of resources posted at its site. One of the options is a report entitled "Helping Children and Adolescents Cope with Violence and Disasters". This report includes recent research findings related to counseling following a disaster.
Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS)
CMHS is part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). CMHS has a menu of relevant documents which can be downloaded from its web site: "After Disaster: A Guide for Parents and Teachers," "How to Help Children After a Disaster," "After a Disaster: What Teens Can Do," "After a Disaster: A Guide for Parents and Teachers," "Older Adults, Mental Health Aspects of Terrorism," and "Disaster Counseling." Most of these articles are also available (from that site) in Spanish versions.
For those in need of counseling, the CMHS Mental Health Services Locator can provide links to the nearest mental health organizations as well as addresses, phone numbers and information on services available: www.mentalhealth.org/cmhs/emergencyservices/index.htm
National Education Association (NEA)
NEA's web page, "Crisis Communications Guide and Toolkit," includes separate sections on "Being Prepared Before a Crisis," "Being Responsive After a Crisis," "Moving Beyond a Crisis," and a "Hands-on Assistance Tools for Educators."
American Psychological Association (APA)
APA's Helping web site includes a web page entitled How Therapy Helps: Managing Traumatic Stress: Tips for Recovering From Disasters and Other Traumatic Events that contains information on What happens to people after a disaster or other traumatic event? How do people respond differently over time? How should I help my family and myself? How do I take care of children's special needs? When should I seek professional help? and How may I use APA as a resource?
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)
‘Facts for Families' series includes downloadable fact sheets on Helping Children After a Disaster. Note: these documents are NOT specific to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
PTA has prepared a document - "Helping children cope with tragedy." Links to other materials are also provided.
National Child Care Information Center (NCCIC)
NCCIC has put together a list of resources on "Helping Children Cope with Violence, Terrorism, and Grief" on its Web site.
UCLA School Mental Health Project / Center for Mental Health in Schools
For details on responding to crisis with children, see "Quick Find" on this website; go to the "Center Response" section and scroll to "Crisis Prevention and Response." One of the things you will find cited is the resource "Responding to a Crisis at a School" which contains specific guidelines for responding and follow-up in the weeks to come. You can download this with a click and print off the relevant materials. NOTE: this site is non-traditional in that you link directly to the search page, rather than the more usual home page. Nonetheless, there is a wealth of helpful material here, as well as technical assistance.
PrepareRespondRecover
This site has some great developmentally appropriate activities for teachers and caregivers. This group's mission is to provide safety planning and disaster response and recovery support to individuals and small-to-midsize businesses. Right now their site is dedicated primarily to information and ideas to help deal with the WTC disaster.
Family Education
“Preventing Hate in the Face of Terrorism”, plus other helpful links to promote discussion with your children.
Sesame Street Workshop
Sesame Street Workshop has developed a website entitled 'Tragic Times, Healing Words" with resources on helping children cope with disaster. The site provides useful tools for parents and teachers
Talking with Kids About Tough Issues
"Talking with Kids" teams up with Nickelodeon in a national initiative to support parent-child communication about "tough issues" like sex, violence, drugs and respect. The partnership kicks off with the release of data from a new survey of kids age 8-15 and their parents. This site focuses on the needs of parents and kids. It has responded to the terrorist attacks with new materials and provides a wealth of resources, including possible questions and some thoughts in response.
KidsHealth
From the site description: "KidsHealth is one of the largest sites on the Web providing doctor-approved health information about children from before birth through adolescence. Created by the Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media , our mission is to provide the best children's health information on the Internet! KidsHealth has separate areas for kids, teens, and parents - each with its own design, age-appropriate content, and tone. There are literally hundreds of in-depth articles and features."
The Learning Network
The Learning Network's mission is to be an online consumer network of the world's best learning and information resources, personalized to help parents, teachers, and students of all ages take control of their learning and make it part of their everyday lives. Parents can find practical guidance, grade-specific information about their children's school experience, strategies to get involved with their children's learning, free email newsletters. FamilyEducation brings together leading organizations from both the public and private sectors to help parents, teachers, schools, and community organizations use online tools and other media resources to positively affect children's education and overall development.
The Parent/Professional Advocacy League
The Massachusetts state chapter of the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, The Parent/Professional Advocacy League (PAL) provides support, education, and advocacy around issues related to children's mental health.
National Center for Children Exposed to Violence
The National Center for Children Exposed to Violence (NCCEV)
at the Yale Child Study Center has a publication: "Parents'
Guide for Talking to their Children about War." (PDF) (MS
Word Version)
Bayview Associates Professional Counseling
Bayview Associates Professional Counseling, a program of
South Shore ( Massachusetts ) Mental Health, has a publication, "A
Partner for Parents: Resources for Healing." (PDF) (MS
Word Version)
The Cooperative Extension Service at Purdue University
The Cooperative Extension Service at Purdue University is one of the nation's largest providers of scientific research-based information and education. It's a network of colleges, universities, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, serving communities and counties across America . Their web page, "Terrorism and Children," provides publications and resources to help children cope.
