What affects children’s responses?

Why do children respond as they do?

The child’s responses to an incident depends on their individual characteristics. The social and economic circumstances of the child’s family, their community, and the availability of local resources are also significant.

This means that some children are more vulnerable.

Parents, carers and other significant adults have an important role in helping children by providing emotional and practical support.

The following specific factors may affect children’s reactions

• Prior exposure to a disaster or other traumatic events, such as being removed from a birth family because of abuse.
• Pre-existing mental health and, or attachment difficulties and, or learning disability affecting children or adults.
• Having a strong reaction to a previous disaster.
• Direct exposure to the major incident. This includes being evacuated, seeing injured or dying people.
• Belief that a loved one might die.
• Loss of a family member, close friend, or pet.
• Separation from parent or carer.
• Pre-existing physical illness or injury.
• How parents or carers respond.
• Family difficulties including parental separation.
• Repeated exposure to mass media coverage of the incident and aftermath .
• Ongoing stress due to the change in familiar routines and living conditions.
• Family resilience.
• Cultural differences.
• Community resilience.

Supporting your child

As parents or carers you are the best people to help your child, even if you might doubt your abilities. The fact that you are reading this information is a good clue that you have the desire and the motivation to do so. Hopefully this course will give you some further tools and information which you will find helpful.

Your responses to a major incident can have a big influence on the way your children learn to cope. A calm approach is key. This type of response acts like a safe container in which you hold and accept their most difficult feelings. By composing yourself and your own feelings you are giving a message to the child that you are in control, and that things will return to normal. You are rebuilding their trust in a safer world through their relationship with you. This means that over time they will come to realise that their world is generally safe and that they can overcome their anxious feelings.

Some parents or carers may feel they have the inner resources to do this, whereas others may feel that they need additional support to manage their responses. The important thing is to take care of yourself by recognising if and when you need help. Then you might want to seek some additional support for your child from another trusted adult. The most beneficial type of support would be where there was room for you to be helped as a whole family as well as on an individual basis. Remember in an emergency you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help anyone else.

There are of course exceptions to this, if you have been so adversely affected that you know you are unable to manage this for whatever reason then you can still help by securing support for the child from another trusted adult.