A day and a half after Tanya Reyes and her family evacuated their home in Altadena, her mother knew the time had come. I had to tell my three daughters, ages 3, 6, and 8, that they no longer had a home. .
“I was just scared. I knew about it all day, but I hid it,” Reyes said. “You want to keep your children safe. You want to save them from heartache,” she said in unison as the girls sat together in the kitchen. “We lost everything.”
The youngest son asked about the toy kitchen, the middle one asked about where to put the stuffed animals, and the eldest picked up his diary and started writing. She titled the first page “The Day I Lost My Home.”
Every child in Los Angeles has been exposed to wildfires in some way, whether they were evacuated, watched the news, smelled the smoke, or lost their homes and schools. And it’s usually the parents’ responsibility to have the most difficult and important conversations in young children’s lives.
“This will be a formative experience for many children,” said Rebecca Parlakian, child development specialist at Zero to Three. But how children process the events of the past week depends largely on how the adults around them help them make sense of it.
How to talk to children about fires
Psychologist and best-selling author Becky Kennedy believes that when children are provided with explanations, stories to understand, and emotional support from loving, trusted adults, they can survive even the most devastating wildfires. They say they are less likely to experience the event as traumatic. Author of the parenting guide “UTZ CERTIFIED.”
“How we talk to ourselves and our children in moments like these has a greater impact on how children remember the event than the event itself.”
The Reyes family’s daughters, Solana (8 years old), Moani (6 years old), and Kiri (3 years old), lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire. Tanya Reyes said Solana has watched videos of the burning house over and over on her iPad.
(Tanya Reyes)
The key to supporting your child, no matter how young, is to convey information in an honest, reassuring, simple and age-appropriate manner.
Parents are often hesitant to tell their children the truth about potentially traumatic events, but “information doesn’t frighten children as much as lack of information frightens them,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy starts by helping parents take control of their own emotions, remembering that what they’re feeling is valid, and accessing the strong parts of themselves, no matter how small they may feel. I encourage you to try it.
There’s no need to rush. Parents are likely to have these conversations many times over the course of weeks and even months, and “there are no good words to describe a situation that could go so wrong,” Kennedy said. Regardless of their age, talk directly to your children about what happened and reassure them that they are safe now and that it is normal to feel sad, angry, and afraid. “Whether your child is 2 years old or 22 years old, it will be helpful to hear that you acknowledge their reality.”
However, the content provided by parents and the responses of children vary widely depending on their developmental stage.
Advice for parents of babies and toddlers
Joey Kehoe and his 1-year-old daughter Florence narrowly escaped a fire that gutted their apartment building on Palisades Drive. He picked up his daughter and jumped into the car, but there was a long line of cars on one side of the road and smoke was everywhere.
Janet Kehoe, 4, and Florence Kehoe, 1, were playing in their home before it was destroyed by the Palisades fire. Her father, Joey Kehoe, narrowly escaped with Florence, but the baby has since become extra clingy. Janet seemed uncharacteristically gloomy and asked to see pictures of what their house looked like now.
(Joey Kehoe)
“I have a one-year-old child!” he shouted to the police, fearing the smoke the baby would inhale. Police waved him to the front of the line. They raced down the hill, dodging burning cars and fiery rocks rolling down the hillside, Florence coughing in the back seat. “It felt like I was running away from an erupting volcano,” he said. “There was just ash falling all around us.”
I finally made it to the hotel and was reunited with my family. Kehoe had no idea how much Florence understood. But since then, she has become unusually persistent. “She doesn’t want to leave my arms or my wife’s arms,” he said.
“We often don’t think about really young children, but it’s important to recognize that they have unique experiences,” Parlakian said. “They’re looking at the sky. They’re smelling the smoke. When we squeeze their arm, they feel the stiffness of the arm. And they cognitively process that event. While they do not, they experience fear for those around them.”
Parlakian said parents should expect babies who experience the effects of a fire to be less regulated, fidgety and difficult to soothe. “And that kind of behavior is happening when we’re not really regulated.” Parlakian said the best way to help a baby is for adults to regulate their own breathing and “to protect their bodies and faces.” The aim is to make sure that the child’s voice becomes softer and that they can speak to the baby in their usual tone of voice.
And as much as parents are dealing with the current disruption, Parlakian said, they should also try to maintain their baby’s routine and create happy times for singing, playing and telling stories. Ta. normal.
Mr Kennedy said it was also important to briefly explain to young children and babies what happened and reassure them that they were safe. Try using two bricks or two water bottles to explain, “We were here.” Then we all got in the car and headed here at high speed. And now that we are safe, we are going to stay here,” she suggested.
Tips for talking to preschoolers
Kehoe and his wife took their two young daughters to Temecula to stay with her parents, but the 4-year-old is not her own. “Right now it’s like it’s hitting her and she’s acting strange. She knows she doesn’t have a home,” he said. “I told her I can’t go back there now. I might never go back.”
Tanya and Antonio Reyes and their three young daughters – Solana, 8, Moani, 6, and Kiri, 3 – lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire.
(Tanya Reyes)
Janet, who was usually “the smileiest, happiest girl in the world,” was always gloomy and wanted to play alone. She keeps asking him to show her pictures of what their beloved home looks like now.
Dr. Gregory Reskin, a psychologist and program director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network at UCLA, says it’s best to focus on providing concrete facts and avoid graphic details for preschoolers. Said it was the best.
“It was a large fire, so we had to evacuate to ensure safety, but we are safe now,” he cited as an example. Avoid abstract descriptions such as “house destruction.” Without basic information, children may fill in the blanks themselves, and some may even believe they had a role in what happened. “I want to focus on safety and security,” he says.
Many young children may not really understand what a fire is, any more than a candle on a birthday cake, so it might be helpful to give them some concrete explanations. For example, if the house was lost, a parent might state, “The fire burned the couch, and the fire probably burned the kitchen table, too.”
Tanya and Antonio Reyes and their three young daughters – Solana, 8, Moani, 6, and Kiri, 3 – lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire.
(Tanya Reyes)
Parlakian said it’s also important to pay attention to the questions they may ask and the stories they tell themselves about the event. After 9/11, she said she often saw young children building towers and flying toy cars and planes into them to try to sort out what happened. After the fire, we hope to see more play related to fire trucks and dollhouse fires.
Parakian recommends stepping in as a helper instead of rushing into the game and reminding players that “everything’s fine.” “You can say, ‘I’m here to help you from another fire station!'” And in times of trouble, Rogers’ old advice to “look for someone to help you” can help give your child a sense of security. she said.
Kennedy added that children in preschool are more likely to see changes in behavior. Your dog may become clingy, wake up frequently during the night, or suddenly become picky. “Let them sleep in your bed. Let them hold on,” she said. And if they want to eat pasta every night for two weeks, it’s okay to say yes.
How to talk to elementary school students
Tanya Reyes said her 8-year-old daughter keeps watching the video her husband took of her burned home on her iPad. “I don’t think there’s a right way to handle it,” she said, but seeing it repeatedly made her uneasy.
Leskin said limiting older children’s media exposure is important but difficult. He recommends that parents avoid broadcasting the news around their children and try to limit their exposure to graphic images of fire, especially if the child is upset.
Older children are more likely to be sharing information at school and on social media, and it’s important that parents help children understand and interpret it. Parents need to listen to inaccurate information and correct it. However, it is important to have peers to lean on and help children feel connected and safe with each other.
Reestablishing routines, such as bedtimes and family meals, is also key to creating predictability and a sense of security for older children. Some children may regress to an earlier stage of development and become afraid of going to school or being separated from their parents. It is important to acknowledge these feelings. “Feeling safe goes a long way,” he said.
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1. Sloane Whitman, 10, and Everly Whitman, 8, stand in front of their Altadena home days before it was destroyed by the Eaton Fire. (Cody Whitman) 2. The Whitman family had just moved in three weeks before their house was destroyed by fire. (Cody Whitman)
However, children may experience these events in different ways, and this may change in the coming days and weeks.
Cody Whitman and his family had lived in Altadena for only three weeks when their new home burned down. My daughters, ages 8 and 10, had only been at their new school for two days.
So far, she has not shed any tears, but she continues to ask questions about the cause of the fire. “For them, the traumatic part is a little exciting,” he says. “What’s going to be more difficult is trying to make it as normal as possible after a week or two. We have to find a place to live and get them back to school.”
This article is part of The Times’ Early Childhood Education Initiative, which focuses on the learning and development of California’s children from birth to age 5. To learn more about this initiative and its philanthropic funders, visit latimes.com/earlyed.
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