Disaster Preparedness for Children

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Natural disasters can be a scary time for anyone, but especially for children. Children are often too young to understand disaster, and the world ends up just being a scary place.

Disaster Prep For Children

Disaster Preparedness for Children

Natural disasters can be a scary time for anyone, but especially for children. Children are often too young to understand disaster, and the world ends up just being a scary place.

As you are prepping your home and family for disaster, consider disaster preparedness for children. There are some ways you can involve your children, so if the time ever comes, they know that you have a plan in mind and they can feel a sense of importance that they helped.

How to help prepare children for an emergency

1. Involve them in your prepping. If they are old enough, explain to them (on their level!) why you are stockpiling or preparing. Be truthful but always keeping it on their level, as to not scare them in any way. Let them help you put together your totes, emergency kits, 72 hour kits, or whatever you happen to be putting together. Here’s a good article on talking to children about disasters.

2. Prepare for them. Make sure to place some toys, activities, or special snacks for them in your kits and stockpile. If a time of stress does come, they will have something to keep their minds busy.

3. Make sure you include their needs in your kits. Not just the extras like mentioned above, but also include their needs such as children’s medicines, diapers, formula, or other specifically children’s needed items.

4. Practice with them. If you are planning for a natural disaster, make sure you practice fire drills, tornado drills, etc in your household, so your children will know and have security in what to do if something happens.

5. Most importantly, just make sure that everything you do to prepare with your children is approached on their level. We don’t need to scare our kids, just make sure they can understand why we are doing what we are doing and how to help them be ready in their own ways.

Here are some other resources you might find useful in helping with your disaster preparedness for children.

Another resource I would recommend is the book, Just in Case. Not only does it have great overall tips for all kinds of disaster preparedness, it’s also very family friendly and has tips on how to prepare together. (You could also check out my full list of Best Emergency Preparedness Books for more info.)

No one can ever be fully prepared for any kind of disaster but at least there are things that we can do and try to be as ready as possible.

What tips do you have for disaster preparedness for children? How do you allow your kids to help with your prepping?

merissabio

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3 Comments

  1. This is a great article, as usual. Also, I wanted to access the recent post on the natural red velvet cake. I searched under desserts and cakes and could not find it. I know it was not posted by you, but is that somewhere in the archives? Will it eventually show up in your dessert recipe index? Thanks for all you do.

  2. Make a Plan: Families can and do cope with disaster by preparing in advance and working together as a team. Create a family disaster plan including an evacuation plan and a communication plan. Knowing what to do is your best protection and your responsibility.