Children's symptoms may include excessive fears, unwillingness to go to school, nightmares, and increases in regressive behaviors such as bedwetting and thumb sucking. Give your child an opportunity to ask questions, and respond in age-appropriate ways. Reassure your child by increasing physical contact, keeping in touch, and making plans to do things together. People can take steps to help themselves, family members and each other cope with stress reactions.
Experience your thoughts and feelings You have the right to have thoughts and feelings even if you were not directly affected and remind yourself you are normal and having normal reactions. Talk about your thoughts and feelings Even when the trauma is something that is being talked about publicly, it is important to talk to others about how you are affected. Talk to someone who feels safe to you. Be sure to do some regular exercise and be more attentive when driving.
Take time Be good to yourself—spent time with people you care about and do things that make you feel better. Take breaks, schedule pleasant activities, engage in positive distracting activities such as sports, hobbies and reading.
Have empathy Each person experiences trauma differently and that you and others may have different needs at different times, try to be flexible. Remember that when under stress you may not react in a manner you would normally expect. Moderate your news intake If the trauma is widely publicized, be mindful of how the media reports affect you.
While having information is helpful for some crisis, some people may want to limit how much they read, listen to or watch the news. School and work If you are having trouble concentrating in class or work talk to your professors or boss about how to handle your workload and still give yourself time to recover. Take action While you do not want to make big life changes in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, find ways to express your thoughts and feelings about the trauma. Seek support From campus and community resources.
Consult a mental health professional if you need assistance or want to gauge your reactions. Mourning and recovery are more difficult for surviving family members, regardless of their age. Many, if not most, survivors will be in denial of the tragedy, some for a very long time. In general, the loss of a parent, sibling, relative or friend will mean a loss of sense of security for a child. Also, while pre-schoolers have difficulty understanding that death is not temporary, older children, between the ages of five and nine, begin to experience grief more like adults.
Children express grief in a variety of ways, including appearing to be unaffected. But, no matter how a child appears on the outside, there may be grief beneath the surface.
Here are some common ways children respond to a death:. The more sudden and unexpected the death, the harder it is for people to express support. Remember, the more tragic and unexpected the event, the greater the need for support. You may want to make an appointment with a mental health professional. Kids who live in the track of the hurricane felt firsthand the threat of danger to themselves and those they care about. However, children in North Carolina may be re-living the fears from previous hurricanes such as Floyd or Fran.
Such behaviors as bed-wetting, thumb sucking, baby talk, or fear of sleeping alone may worsen in young children or reappear in others. Children may complain of stomach cramps or headaches and be reluctant to go to school. They are afraid and their feelings are real.
Adolescents often try to downplay their worries. When adolescents are frightened, they may express their fear through acting out or regressing to younger behavior. Coping with the Tragedy The following article was included in an e- newsletter from the Mental Health Association in North Carolina North Carolina is no stranger to hurricanes and the devastation they can cause, but Hurricane Katrina has proven to be one of the largest humanitarian tragedies the U.
Here are some tips for coping with stress: Talk about it. Surviving Sudden Loss The death of a loved one is painful enough but sudden loss is shocking.
It can take them a long time to recover from a loss. Expect their grief to revisit in cycles as strong reminders, such as the anniversary of a death, reawaken grief. Children grieve not only for the person but also for changes in the household and environment of family and friends. Help the child plant a tree or dedicate a place in memory of the person who died. Give children a chance to talk about their feelings. Children, like adults, need time to grieve and be upset. Let them know you are ready to listen and provide reassurance when they express their feelings.
But, only offer details they can absorb. Here are some ways to help yourself: Do your mourning now. During his press conference following the Boston Marathon bombings , President Obama denounced the perpetrators as "evil" and "cowardly," contrasting their behavior with the heroic first responders who rushed to aid the injured: "What the world saw yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the explosions were stories of heroism and kindness and generosity and love.
Obama's words echo those of George W. Bush speaking on September 11, : "Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could. We are motivated by love, kindness and generosity; they feel nothing but hatred.
Leaders in other countries no doubt rely on similar language to comfort their people when facing an existential threat. It encourages unity on the home front and inspires patriotic feeling. It identifies the domestic goodness worth defending and mobilizes aggression against the enemy. While personal or political squabbling might dominate during times of peace, we put our differences aside when we face an external enemy.
True, but citizens in many other nations "come together" in the same way when facing a crisis. During wartime, or in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack, the normally complex world becomes much simpler for most people, wherever they live: it's good-versus-evil, us against them. A view of reality that reflects sharp divisions between good and bad, with feelings of love and generosity on one side and hatred on the other, relies upon the psychological defense mechanism known as splitting.
Splitting normally works to resolve unbearable ambiguity: when we feel unable to tolerate the tension aroused by complexity, we "resolve" that complexity by splitting it into two simplified and opposing parts, usually aligning ourselves with one of them and rejecting the other. The result is the kind of black-and-white thinking that underlies the fundamentalist world view or extreme political partisanship.
On the emotional front, splitting comes into play when we feel hostile toward the people we love.
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