Information Related to "Help Your Children Cope During Family Crises"
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Helping Your Children Cope
in Family Crises
"The parents' reaction to a crisis is likely to trigger similar behavior
in their children."
--Russell Jones, Ph.D., family counselor
By Becky Sweat
When Rhonda Blake learned she needed a serious operation, she was unsure how to
break the news to her teenage children. "I was nervous about the surgery, but
I didn't want them to worry, so I told them it was just a minor procedure,"
she says. "After I got home from the hospital, they told me they had known I
was scared and they were upset with me because I made so light of it."
After Jack and Marnie Phillips lost their home in a house fire, they were uncomfortable
talking about it with their daughter. "Whenever my daughter brought up the subject,
I'd tell her let's not talk about the fire, it's over now, let's just think about
the new house we're going to live in," Jack relates. "It wasn't until I
overheard my daughter telling a friend how scared she was in the fire that I realized
I never gave her a chance to tell me how she felt."
Most families face a setback sooner or later: a serious automobile accident, the
loss of a job, financial difficulties, a house fire or natural disaster, a diagnosis
of cancer or death of a relative.
At those times it can be hard to know what to say to your children or how much detail
you should go into. Sometimes it may seem best just to pretend the problem doesn't
exist rather than address what happened. Yet your children are going to feel the
stress of the situation, whether you help them deal with it or not.
Nobody is Immune
When any family member is facing a crisis, the tension usually spreads to everyone
else in the family. Says Russell Jones, Ph.D., a family counselor and professor at
Virginia Technical University: "Children will often mimic the behavior of their parents.
If a child sees Mom and Dad upset or screaming, it's likely that the child will react
in a similar way."
One of the biggest mistakes parents make when facing a crisis is not being open and
honest about it with their children. "Often parents try to keep the problem
from their children because they don't want them to worry," says Nancy Schlossberg,
Ed.D., professor emerita at the University of Maryland and author of Going to
Plan B. "Unless parents explain what's bothering them, their children may
think that something they did is to blame. This can be a worse burden on them than
knowing what's really happening would be."
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