We are devastated by the horrific bushfires currently wreaking havoc across the country. It’s common to experience feelings of helplessness, despair and anxiety when faced with such overwhelming images and evidence of the events unfolding on a seemingly unending loop. With this in mind it’s important to take what precautions we can to minimise the likelihood of ongoing traumatic effects on our children who are also experiencing these extreme events in their dramatic and unfiltered reality.

The following recommendations are based on the ‘Bounce Back’ program – a research based social and emotional learning program aimed at enhancing resilience and social-emotional learning in the primary years.

Focus on small positive things in the present. Reassure that we are safe right now, list some of the things about today that remain normal.

Helping kids cope in the moment

- Try to stay calm and reassuring. Kids mirror the emotions they see in the adults surrounding them. Feelings of nervousness and fear transmit down to our children and influence how they perceive their world.

- Focus on small positive things in the present. Reassure that we are safe right now, list some of the things about today that remain normal.

Helping with anxiety

- Everyone feels upset and anxious at times. By identifying when your child is feeling upset / anxious / sad / angry / frightened you can encourage them to talk about what’s troubling them and show you understand how they feel.

- Name the emotion in words your child can understand. Are they ‘worried’, ‘scared’, ‘a bit frightened’ or ‘sad’?

- Help them understand it’s normal to feel these strong emotions and help them to sit with their feelings.

- Finish with a hopeful or optimistic statement they can do something to help make things feel better. This may include something physical (such as going for a walk or throwing a basketball through a hoop), something that creates positive feelings (like playing with a pet or friend, or drawing), or doing something kind or helpful for someone else.

Resilience is the capacity to bounce back after hardship.

To help your child bounce back, try and communicate that:

- Life is mainly good but now and then everyone has a difficult or unhappy time

- Although things aren’t good now and it might take a while to improve, it’s important to stay hopeful and expect things to get better

- You will feel better and have more ideas about what to do if you talk to someone you trust about what’s worrying or upsetting you

- Unhelpful thinking (“our lives are never going to be the same again”) isn’t necessarily true and makes you feel worse

- Helpful thinking (“it might take a while for things to settle down again but it will happen”) makes you feel better because it is more accurate and helps you work out what to do.

Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by these fires. We have strong family connections in some of the fire affected areas and we feel powerless. As a result, we are donating 15% of all proceeds from the clinic from the 5th – 10th Jan to the Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery fund.

HOW CAN YOU HELP & MORE INFORMATION

You can donate to help those devastated by the fires through the Red Cross

Further info on the Bounce Back education program

Excerpts for this blog were sourced from The Conversation

The emotional haze. Helping children through climate anxiety