Building resilience in children during weather events

Today the blog is being taken over by my eldest daughter, Cass, to speak on the importance of language and communication within weather events 👇👇👇

- By Cass Hewett

👋👋👋 Hello, everyone. You may recognise me from previous years assisting during cyclone updates on Wally's Weather. Today I want to share with you the long-term effects of our language used with children during weather events and how we can positively impact our children's experience of these events.

Our children are like sponges, and what they consume at a young age has long-term effects on their behaviour, decision-making and mental health. Reducing the consumption of negative and hyped communication during weather events can reduce the risks of vicarious trauma. This trauma from the exposure to consistent dramatised news segments can be significantly detrimental to future experiences with weather events from stored emotions and anxiety within the body associated with those events.

So what can we do to assist young kids?

Children ages 3+ are often very open to communication around the weather. By taking away overexposure to the media as parents, we can create a safe space for them to ask questions and have insight into how these events make them feel.

An activity I love to utilise daily with my children, even outside of weather events, is affirmations to encourage them to familiarise themselves with their self-expression and emotions so that they can then utilise these later on in the conversations as a family where there are feelings of confusion, sadness or anxiety.

As a mother of three children, I developed a simple card deck of affirmations to familiarise children with kind words for themselves, words to express their feelings and even some prompt cards for you to utilise with them to encourage them to voice what is important to them. For example: "I feel safe when....".

Utilising affirmations with children from a young age has many benefits, including

• encouragement of healthy communication

• encouragement of self-expression

• reduced anxiety

• support for the nervous system and emotional regulation

• increase in confidence

• release of stored emotions

• improvement in mental health

By utilising these cards with your children, you also open a safe space for them to communicate with you. These cards are an excellent activity to pass the time when the electricity is out during weather events.

Pre-orders is open for these until this upcoming Saturday, February 25th, and there will be a second pre-order in august for those who want Christmas gifts 🥰

Children's decks are $25 each + postage or free local Townsville collection. Arrival expected early-mid March.

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