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Purdue Expert Urges Parents to Prepare Children for Disasters |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: Children will be better prepared mentally and emotionally for a natural or man made disaster if parents speak with them in advance about the threats in a realistic but calm manner, says a Purdue University child development expert. "Give children enough information that they feel empowered to know what to do in an emergency," says Judith Myers-Walls, an assistant professor of consumer and family sciences. Myers-Walls says it is important to increase everyone's awareness, but when preparing children to deal with threatening situations, it is vitally important to neither focus on nor feed fear. In an era when the Columbine shootings, World Trade Center attacks, Indian Ocean tsunami and the Virginia Tech massacre receive saturated television coverage, children already know the world can be dangerous. Because television is such a powerful presenter of information, Myers- Walls says it is important to teach children that mass media can be a helpful source of information in an emergency or it can be fear- inducing titillation. "Television news caters to human curiosity and dread when it repeatedly presents images of jumbled trailer parks, collapsing skyscrapers and wiped-out beach resorts," she says. That kind of fear helps prompt parents and teachers to instill "stranger danger" into children, making them fearful of almost anyone or anything they do not already know. Myers-Walls says providing tools and strategies for preparedness can assuage fear and increase confidence because it helps children feel more in control. We provide direct, immediate access to mainstream national media for 600 colleges, universities, medical centers, public-policy groups and other leading nonprofit organizations.
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