How to talk to your kids about the Hill Country floods

As harrowing images from the Hill Country floods pour in, some of the hardest to look at are pictures of teddy bears, summer camp trunks, and children’s clothes covered in mud.

For adults, these images can feel traumatizing not just for them, but for kids as well – many of whom have gone to summer camps like these. Many have expressed fear, anxiety, or perhaps been in tears over the news.

How do we talk to the kids?

Dr. Stevie Puckett-Perez is a pediatric psychologist at Children’s Health Medical Center in Dallas and an assistant professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She spoke with Texas Standard about how to talk to children about the tragedy. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: Some may be wondering why we should even be talking about this with kids at all, but I know they’ve seen school photos of some of the kids who lost their lives at Camp Mystic shared online. One daughter of a friend said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said, “I don’t know any of these people, but I can imagine myself as one of them.”

How do you begin to respond to that obvious sense of grief, trauma and loss?

Stevie Puckett-Perez: That is a hard one, but you are exactly right that kids often have access to this information and will come across it one way or another. And so we have to think about that.

We have to think about the access and exposure that kids get, and we preferably want that filtered through a trusted adult like a parent.

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I think some people may feel that their child is too young to even broach some of these heavy issues. Is there a line that you would draw, or are we talking about all kids?  

I would say there is a line that I would draw, not specific for one perfect age range, but for very young children who are not going to be directly impacted by this or have not lost a family member or friend and do not have easy exposure to this, I would not bring up this subject or offer information on this because young children don’t have the cognitive lens to process this information appropriately. And so, if it isn’t necessary, I wouldn’t bring it up.

Now, for school-age children, those kids are going to know other people who have been impacted. They’re going to hear teachers, they’re going to hear peers, they’re going to hear family members in community centers, churches, and everywhere talking through this stuff. And so those are the times we really need to bring it up even if it’s difficult, or even if your child is sensitive, because we really want a safe place for them to process this information with a trusted adult.

And then for those older teens and kids who are going to have even more information, we can’t limit their access to news or social media or some of those things because that’s part of their normal life. And so what I recommend in those situations is watch the news with them, talk through this with them, and go through ingesting some of that media and some of that exposure with them, so you can help them process it as it comes up.

How do you offer comfort though? You hug them, right? But then how do you begin to describe or explain in a way that has meaning and significance to that person?

Maybe as adults we try to fix things, and maybe that’s part of the impulse that we have to resist as adults.

100% accurate. In our world, in caring for children, we really think a lot about holding a safe space for them and that actually being the most powerful thing we can do.

What we don’t want to do, which is usually where I’d like to start, is we don’t want to say, “Hey, don’t worry about that. You don’t have to worry about that. You’re safe. You’re okay. Don’t even think about it.”

We don’t want to minimize any of those fears or worries. Because when we do that, that says, “Your difficult feelings, your fears, your worries, your anxiety is too big for me. So let’s shut it down.”

So instead, we don’t want to try to fix it or shut it down, we want to allow space for it to exist. Let those hard feelings be hard feelings.

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There are going to be a lot of folks listening whose kids will have known some of these children, or will know someone who knew the children. Maybe they lost a classmate or a friend, or they know someone who has.

Is there any way to help them in particular? Does the conversation change? Does it need to be different somehow?  

In some ways, the conversation changes because I think some of the big things that come up in these situations, when we know victims or it directly impacts us, then our primary feeling is sadness, loss, helplessness. And when we don’t know these victims, many of the children’s primary feeling is “Could that happen to me?” — fear, worry.

And so I think we need to kind of step back and identify where our children are in that — and they may be feeling both of those ways — and respond accordingly.

For those children and families directly impacted by loss of these lives, I think, almost trauma triage, taking care of the basics and having a good routine in their day-to-day lives and having safe space where they are processing those feelings, and also giving them lots and lots of opportunities to say the names of these people and share memories and stories.

Oftentimes in these situations we don’t know what to say, so we want to not say anything, and that’s the opposite of what we should be doing. Children especially need to tell these stories and have these memories or talk about those people frequently and repeatedly, so they can process that and work through those experiences.

We’re only halfway through the summer, and there will be kids that are scheduled to go to summer camp. This could be an issue, especially for those families where a child is expected to go off and may be feeling fearful or not know how to deal with that.  

And you know what? There is not one right answer in that scenario.

I’ve talked to families who have made this decision to change plans, but most families are deciding to persist. And that’s for many, many reasons, and that can be a very good thing.

But, you know, for many of these families, for many Texans, those camp experiences are vital parts of their childhood, and they carry so much positivity and meaning for children and families. And we know that persisting through normal routines, activities and expectations sets a tone of safety, reassurance, and wellness for kids.

And so, for families who feel comfortable doing so, navigating that and persisting with their plans I think can be a really good idea, but talking about that and talking about any fears openly, you know, ahead of that, I think is really important.

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