- Children across Los Angeles are dealing with loss and turmoil as the fire emergency continues.
- Sharing tough news isn’t easy, but parents should be honest and deliver information in a simple, age-appropriate manner.
A day and a half after Tanya Reyes and her family evacuated from their Altadena home, the mother knew the time had come: She had to tell her three daughters, ages 3, 6, and 8, that they didn’t have a house anymore.
“I was just dreading it. I had known about it all day, and I was hiding it,” said Reyes. “You want to keep your kids safe. You want to save them from heartache.” She sat the girls down together in the kitchen and told them all together: “We lost everything.”
Her youngest asked about her toy kitchen, the middle for her stuffed animals, and the oldest grabbed her journal and started writing. She titled the first page, “The day I lost my house.”
Children in Los Angeles have all been exposed to the wildfires in some way, whether they evacuated, see the news, smell the smoke — or lost their home or school. And it usually falls to their parents to have among the most difficult — and important — conversations of their young lives.
“This is going to be a shaping experience for a lot of children,” said Rebecca Parlakian, a child development specialist at Zero to Three. But the way a child processes the events of the past week can vary greatly depending on how the adults in their lives help them understand it.
How to talk to your children about the fires
A child is less likely to experience an event as a trauma — even a devastating wildfire — if they are offered an explanation, a story to understand, and emotional support from a loving, trusted adult, said Becky Kennedy, a psychologist and best-selling author of the parenting guide “Good Inside.”
“The way we talk to ourselves and to our kids during these moments has a bigger impact on how our kids will remember these events than the events themselves.”
The key to helping your child is to be honest, reassuring and to deliver the information in a simple, age-appropriate way — no matter how young your child might be.
Parents often hesitate to tell their child the truth about a potentially traumatic event, but “information doesn’t scare kids as much as a lack of information scares kids,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy recommends that parents begin by trying to regulate their own emotions, remind themselves that what they are feeling is valid, and try to access the sturdy part of themselves, however small it feels.
Thirteen deaths have been confirmed and more than 12,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed. Firefighters made more progress on containing the Eaton and Palisades fires overnight, but winds will continue to be a factor throughout the weekend.
There’s no rush — parents are likely to have this conversation multiple times, over a period of weeks or even months — and “there are no right words for situations that are so wrong,” Kennedy said. No matter their age, try to tell children directly what happened, and reassure them that they are safe now, and it is normal to feel sad, angry and scared. “Whether your kid is 2 or 22, it will be helpful to hear that you’re validating their reality.”
That said, the details a parent offers, as well as a child’s reaction, will vary greatly by developmental stage.
Advice for parents of babies and toddlers
Joey Kehoe and his 1-year-old daughter Florence barely escaped the fire that destroyed their condo on Palisades Drive. He grabbed his daughter and jumped in the car, but there was a long lineup of cars on the one road out, and the smoke was everywhere.
“I have a 1-year-old!” he screamed to the police, terrified of the smoke that his baby was breathing in. The police waved him to the front of the line. They headed down the hill, swerving around burning cars and fiery boulders rolling down the hillside, with Florence coughing in the backseat. “It felt like we were fleeing a volcano erupting,” he said. “It was just raining ash all around us.”
He finally made it to a hotel, where they reunited with their family. Kehoe wasn’t sure how much Florence had understood. But ever since, she has been unusually clingy. “She doesn’t want to be out of my or my wife’s arms,” he said.
“We often don’t think about the really little ones. But it’s important to realize that they’re having their own experience,” said Parlakian. “They are seeing the sky. They are smelling the smoke. They are feeling rigidity of our arms when we hold them. And while they aren’t processing the event cognitively, they are experiencing the fear of the people around them.”
The fires in L.A. have caused terrible air quality conditions across the county. Here are ways you can protect yourself, and your children, from the health impacts of wildfire smoke.
Parlakian said parents should expect babies who experience the effects of the fires to be disregulated, fussier, and harder to soothe. “And that behavior is coming at a time when we are also really disregulated.” Parlakian said the best way to help a baby is for the adults to regulate their own breathing so that they can “talk to baby in a calm way, so body and face are soft, and they can use a usual tone of voice.”
Additional resources
And as much as parents are dealing with the chaos of the moment, Parlakian said they should try to stick to a baby’s everyday routine, and try to make time for fun moments of singing, play and stories, to help give their child a sense of normalcy.
For toddlers and even babies, Kennedy said it’s important to offer a simple explanation of what happened and reassure them they are safe. Try using two blocks, or even two water bottles to explain, “We were here. And then we all went so fast in the car all the way over here. And now we’re safe and we’re going to stay here,” she suggested.
Tips for talking with preschool-aged children
Kehoe and his wife took their two young daughters to Temecula to stay with his parents, but his 4-year-old daughter is not herself. “It seems to be hitting her now, and she’s acting strange. She knows she doesn’t have a home,” he said. “I told her we can’t go back there right now. We might not be able to go back.”
Usually “the smiliest, happiest girl in the world,” Jeanette has been somber and wanting to play alone. She keeps asking him to show her pictures of what their beloved home looks like now.
Dr. Gregory Leskin, a psychologist and program director with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network at UCLA, said for preschoolers, it’s best to focus on providing concrete facts but avoiding graphic details.
“It was a big fire, and we had to leave to stay safe, and we’re safe now,” he offered as an example. Avoid abstract descriptions like “destruction of homes.” Children who don’t have basic information may fill in the blanks themselves, and some even end up thinking they had a role in what happened. “We want to emphasize reassurance and safety,” he said.
Since many young children may not really understand what a fire is, beyond the candles on a birthday cake, it may be helpful to offer a few specifics. If a house has been lost, for example, a parent might specify, “the fire burned our couch, and the fire probably burned the kitchen table.”
It’s also important to pay attention to the questions they might ask and the stories they are telling themselves about the event, said Parlakian. After 9/11, she said, they often saw young children building towers and then flying toy cars or planes into them to process what had happened. After the fires, she expects to see more play about fire engines or a fire in a dollhouse.
Instead of rushing into their game to remind them, “everything’s OK,” Parlakian recommends joining in as helper. “You can say, ‘I’m coming from another fire station to help you out! You’re not alone.’” And the old Mr. Rogers advice to “look for the helpers” in a time of trouble can help ground a child in feeling safe, she said.
Preschool-aged children are likely to have changes in their behavior, Kennedy added. They might be more clingy, wake up frequently at night, or suddenly become picky eaters. “Let them sleep in your bed. Let them be clingy,” she said. And if they want pasta every night for two weeks, its OK to say yes.
How to talk to elementary school children
Tanya Reyes said her 8-year-old daughter has been watching the video her husband filmed of the burning remains of their home over and over again on the iPad. “I don’t think there’s a right way to process,” but the repeated viewing made her nervous, she said.
Leskin said it’s important but difficult to limit media exposure for older kids. He recommends parents keep the news off around children and try to limit the graphic exposure to fire images, especially if the child is feeling upset.
Experts in processing grief and trauma say there’s no right way to comfort a friend during a time of devastation. The most important thing is that you reach out.
Older children are also likely to be sharing information with one another at school or on social media, and it’s important for parents to help them understand and interpret it. Parents should listen for any information that is not accurate and correct it. But it’s important to let them lean on their peers, and allowing kids to connect with and reassure each other.
Reestablishing routines like bedtimes and family meals is also key for older children to help create a sense of predictability and security. Some children might regress to an earlier stage of development, becoming afraid of going to school and leaving their parents. It’s important to acknowledge these feelings. “Reassurance goes a long way,” he said.
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1. Sloane Whitman, 10, and Everly Whitman, 8, stand in front of their Altadena home days before it was destroyed in the Eaton fire. (Cody Whitman) 2. The Whitman family had just moved in three weeks before the home was destroyed by fire. (Cody Whitman)
But children may experience these events in a wide variety of ways that may change over the days and weeks ahead.
Cody Whitman and his family had lived in Altadena for only three weeks when their new home was burned to the ground. His daughters, ages 8 and 10, had been in their new school for just two days.
So far, he said, there haven’t been any tears, but they keep asking about what started the fire. “For them, the traumatic bits feel a little exciting,” he said. “What’s going to be harder is in a week or two weeks, trying to make it as normal as possible. We need to figure out a place to live and get them back into a school.”
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
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