Thursday, October 6, 2011

Emotional stress over flooding affects children

Wayne Today in North.Jersey.com: Emotional stress over flooding doesn't just affect adults. Children are also influenced by disasters, but keeping them focused ahead of time could be helpful. According to a resource website started by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as an impending storm approaches, children tend to worry about the future, unsure of what to do or what they should think about. Holly Harrington, who manages the site, acknowledges that communication between parents and children is vitally important.

...The website — "FEMA for Kids," located at www.ready.gov/kids — was instituted two years ago and speaks directly to youngsters on their level and also provides offshoots for adults advising ways to prepare children when disaster is about to strike. Kids learn what disasters are and how to prepare for them through various types of activities and games on the site. There is also a segment for teachers, offering ways to teach emergency preparedness.

And with the start of school arriving not long after Hurricane Irene hit, Connie Venturelli, school nurse at Ryerson Elementary School, emphasizes that structure was a positive way to divert kids' attention away from the negative goings on as the floods ensued.

...After the hurricane, the amount of loss across the township has been too great to put a number on, as residents continue to clean out their homes. Venturelli says the unity around the school has been tremendous despite a very difficult situation...

FEMA photo of children playing in floodwater from Tropical Storm Erin in 2007, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma

2 comments:

JS said...

Imagine the distress caused in children by climate alarmism in its more gross forms! That alarmism, based as it is largely on computer models incapable of reproducing the past let alone the future, is particularly reprehensible when it is directly targetted at the young in order to produce 'little climate activists'. I wish more adults would accept responsibility for protecting the young from the morbid speculations of alarmed and unbalanced individuals.

Brian Thomas said...

For what it's worth, the government website doesn't appear to mention climate change anywhere. The focus is on disaster preparedness. Not that this will put a dent in your tinfoil hat.