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	PREPARING CHILDREN FOR DISASTERS *JoAnn Jordan, Bellevue Washington, Emergency Preparedness Education Coordinator, Bellevue Fire Department* Preparing children for disasters is not a new concept. Our society has been preparing children for emergencies for decades. The fire department teaches “Stop, drop and roll”. Police have been teaching “Stranger Danger”. We teach children how and when to call 911 for help. When children understand the dangers and the actions to take, they often apply the information better than adults do.
Most everyone will agree that children need to be taught safety information as part of disaster preparedness. The challenge comes in deciding what to teach children at what age. A friend of mine says “The Better You Are Prepared, The Less You Are Scared”. That goes for adults as well as children. However, it is not effective to “Scare people into preparedness”. As children get older, they too understand that bad things can happen and if you know how to be safe, you will be “ok”. For infants, toddlers and up to first grade, they don’t have enough life experience to connect the earthquake or tornado with the bad things that can happen. The noise associated with an earthquake or the reaction of their parents may frighten them in an earthquake, but they don’t connect ground movement with the dangers of an earthquake because they don’t have enough life experience to know what those dangers are. Let’s face it, the way we play with infants and toddlers would lead them to believe that every day there is a 7.1 earthquake!! Prior to age 4, the best way to prepare children for a disaster is to mitigate their environment so that the danger is gone, or if the event occurs, the child is less likely to be injured. Example: Keep matches and lighters away from children. Safely lock and store handguns. Bolt, anchor and strap furnishings so that children are less likely to get hurt in an earthquake by things breaking and falling.
It is important to remain diligent about creating a safe environment for our children. However, it is also important to incorporate safety information into the life lessons we teach our children as they grow. I believe we can start teaching children personal safety actions at about 4 years old. However, the message and method of delivery must be very simple. The instructor must have only one safety action and then reinforce that action with drills, to ensure the children know what to do when the adults/teachers give a simple command. The action must be reinforced and practiced consistently for several weeks before moving onto the next safety message. Example: Teach how to drop, cover and hold in a classroom and practice for several weeks before teaching how to be safe in an earthquake when on the playground. Children can easily get safety actions confused if the instructor teaches multiple safety messages and doesn’t follow up with regular practice
We must also teach children simple actions to take if they by themselves or away from parent supervision and they see something dangerous. Example: If you find matches or lighters, don’t touch them and go tell an adult. If you see or find a handgun, don’t touch it and go tell an adult. Much like the idea that you can’t teach multiplication before a child understands addition and subtraction, you can’t teach safety messages that are beyond the life experience of the child. Example: The fire service teaches “if you have a fire in your house, and you are in your room, feel a door with the back of your hand to see if it is warm before opening the door”. That message is appropriate for a child who is old enough and has enough life experience to know the difference between hot, warm and cool. Knowledge is empowering. That is why I believe it is just as important to teach children why disasters happen as much as what to do in a disaster. I encourage schools to incorporate safety messages when they are teaching the science of earthquakes, fire or weather.
	As children get older, they also develop a sense of altruism. They want to help. By teaching them how to help themselves and how to help each other, we will also help them psychologically and emotionally recover from the event. Children are a direct conduit to their family. We have been using children to teach adults for years. We ask them to take information home and teach their parents. I once made a suggestion to a classroom of 6^th graders that if they did a scavenger hunt at their house, they could probably find most of the items on the disaster supplies checklist. I received a call from a parent, telling me of her experience coming home after work and finding everything for a disaster supplies kit spread out on the living room floor.

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