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Children and Families

Disasters, natural and human made, affect children and families throughout the world. Children are more vulnerable to the impact of traumatic events because of their dependency upon adult caregivers and networks (family, school, social and recreational activities) that provide continuity and safety essential for health and normal development. Disasters can disrupt normal development, as well as important routines, relationships, and familiar environments. Separation from parents during or after a disaster can further increase distress and result in enduring health risks. Many children including adolescents that are separated from parents are vulnerable to becoming victims of criminal activities and relationships. Adolescents may also become involved in other health risk behaviors.

The impact of disasters on children can cause in a wide range of distress similar to adults that includes anxiety, depressive, and dissociative symptoms, as well as sleep problems, nightmares, and trauma-related fears. Children can also develop symptoms that may be less immediately recognizable as trauma related: repetitive traumatic play, avoidant behaviors (that may present as oppositionality), regression, and more non-specific behavioral problems, including tantrums. Children’s symptoms vary as a function of age and developmental phases. Because children frequently report that nothing is wrong, assessing symptomatology and impairment can be difficult. The experience of disaster may destroy the child’s glorified images of the parents and self, and create a foreshortened sense of future.

Irritability and stress are common in parents after a disaster, compounding a child’s difficult task of rebuilding self-esteem and meaning. Distressed parents affected by traumatic events may become distracted or preoccupied with their own emotional responses and needs. This can result in limited ability to comfort their children or to help them overcome fears and disillusionment. Children and the adults who care for them can become further stressed when disasters cause rifts in communities and families. Military children and families are especially vulnerable to the unique stresses of war which include deployment, reintegration of the family post-deployment, and in more severe situations parental post-combat stress disorders, physical injury or death.