Transcript for
Families who have experienced disasters (part one): Age-appropriate supports for children
Narrator (00:02):
Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families podcast.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:06):
Hi, I’m Nadia Rossi, and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. We would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia.
(00:28):
This episode contains themes of bushfire, drought and flood. If you feel this topic may bring up difficult feelings for you, perhaps give this week a miss, and join us next fortnight. Or you can find resources for support in our show notes.
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Disasters like floods, bushfire, and drought are becoming more frequent and severe across Australia and can leave a lasting impact on the families and children who experience them. This episode is part of a series where we talk with families who have experienced disasters. We’re going to hear their stories, how they supported themselves and their children, and how they navigate the ongoing recovery process.
(01:05):
Today we are speaking with Heather. She lives with her husband and three children in regional New South Wales. And as a family, they have experienced floods, drought, and bushfires. Heather knows first hand the importance of age-appropriate support for children who experience disaster, and she’s here today to talk about her family’s story and what she has learnt about the needs of children who experience disaster. Welcome, Heather. It is great to speak with you today.
Heather (Guest) (01:33):
Hi, Nadia. I’m excited to be here. A little bit nervous, but excited as well.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:37):
That’s fine. That’s fine. Heather, can you tell us a bit about who makes up your family?
Heather (Guest) (01:43):
Okay. So firstly, there’s my husband and I. Our eldest son from my husband’s first marriage is an adult child, and he hasn’t lived with us while we’ve been here. And then we have our three children together, and we have two teenage daughters, one in year 11, one in year eight. And our tweenage son, who is in his last year of primary school.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:06):
I mentioned in our introduction that your family has experienced bushfire, drought, and flood. How old were your children when they experienced these events?
Heather (Guest) (02:15):
Well, that’s actually a tricky one to answer because they were lots of different ages at lots of different times. So I’ll run through from the fire. Our first fire in 2017, the children were nine, seven, and five. Then we had drought most of the way through 2018 and 2019. So those ages, they were 10, eight and six at the beginning of it. Our second fire hit at the end of 2019, and they were 12, nine and seven. And our last one, hopefully, it was a major flood, and they were 13, 10, and nine.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:51):
And did you find that your children have different reactions depending on the events and depending on their age at the time?
Heather (Guest) (03:00):
Yeah, definitely. For the first one, there’s a lot of innocence around all of that stuff. It’s new, there’s a naivety about what’s happening. And so, in a way, some of it was a little bit novel to them because they were very young. And in that particular occasion, we weren’t actually with them when it happened. So we were away, they were staying with my husband’s mother. And so we had this disconnect of our family at a time then that we probably really needed to be together.
(03:30):
So we didn’t see a lot of that instant reaction, but as soon as we got home to them that night, there was a lot of clinging towards us and trying to be close and safe. And again, there’s always that thing with disasters where the father goes one way, the mother goes another. Harvey had tried to get back to our home to see what the situation was. I’d gone back to them. So there was always that little bit of, “What’s going on with Dad?” happening.
(03:56):
That fire had started 800 metres away from our home. So the first that they knew about it was actually they were watching the TV news with their grandmother that night, and our house was on the TV news with fire coming towards it. So for them, horribly scary to look at something like that. I don’t know how much of it they actually recognised, but I know that their grandmother would’ve said, “That’s your house.” So at that age, very scary and flipping towards being very exciting and interesting and this has never happened before. It’s new.
(04:31):
And then over time with how they’ve had to deal with multiples, it’s clearly not novel anymore. Their different ages are showing different traits and different needs. When the first one happened, my eldest child was five, he was not even at primary school yet. That was a snuggly, cuddly little kid that just needed to be held.
(04:51):
At 10, or whatever he was when the last one hit, he’s a different kid. So he was a lot more independent, a lot more involved in what was going on, things like that. So it’s so hard to try and actually really accurately answer this question because so many different ages and so many different stages that they were at.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (05:07):
Yeah. And do you find that the way that you have to respond to their needs changed? You mentioned that from wanting cuddles, as they’re younger, to then being more independent. When the children are more independent and older and know a bit more about what’s going on, maybe a hug and a cuddle won’t suffice, or maybe they don’t want that. But how do you navigate the change in age and their needs? How do you support an older child when they know so much more?
Heather (Guest) (05:34):
I can’t say I’ve done this right all the time, because parenting is hard work, man. But look, I think it comes down to being observant. You have to notice a lot about what’s going on with them. And my eldest child very much in that typical eldest child role in those times when we were separated because of trying to save homes or do whatever else we were doing, she took on that role of being the one in charge.
(06:01):
And that’s very much stuck with her. And so now sometimes I have to have conversations with her and say, “Do you know you don’t have to do this? You don’t need to be this responsible or you don’t need to be doing all of these things that you’re doing. You can just relax and be a kid.” And yet, on the other end, the littlest one wants all the information now. He’s full of questions, he wants to know answers to everything. So he’s very much transitioned from being the snuggly, cuddly, just needing to be held kind of thing, to being… He still loves all of that, he very much loves that kind of affection, but he loves to ask lots of questions now and wants to know lots of things.
(06:42):
Very emotionally in tune and often picking up on what’s going on with other people to be able to ask questions about that too. So that’s an interesting development as they age, their awareness of what’s going on with other people. And of course, they feel the things that we have felt or sensed the things that are not working for us or when we’re a bit stressed or whatever. A lot of it is paying attention, just seeing what they’re needing at the time, and it can change from one day to the next.
(07:07):
Often liken it to my kids go through fruit phases, and they’ll eat a million grapes, and then the next week, you go and buy grapes and they’re not interested in them anymore, and they sit on the bench and rot. Their needs change like that. At one stage, they can often be quite one way, and then all of a sudden, it changes and you’ve got to quickly adapt and go and buy the other fruit or provide whatever the other need is. So it’s a tricky one.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:29):
Yeah. So there’s a lot of adapting or thinking on your feet and knowing your child and maybe what they need at different ages, at different stages. But yeah, you’re just figuring it out yourselves at the same time.
Heather (Guest) (07:43):
Yes, as you go by the seat of your pants.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:46):
Looking back, are there things that you wish would’ve been done differently?
Heather (Guest) (07:51):
Look, how long have you got?
Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:56):
I know that’s a big question.
Heather (Guest) (07:57):
Yeah. Look, it’s been interesting, actually, thinking about this for this podcast because it’s actually given me a lot of chance to look back and think about things. And I wish I’d managed to communicate better with my kids. I did a lot of things that were holding back information because I thought it was going to protect them, but often, what I needed to do was to give them age-appropriate information that was actually going to fill the void of information in their minds.
(08:24):
I know I’m like this. If I don’t have information, I can go, “Oh, where do I go with that? I don’t have anything there. I’ll make it up. This is what might be happening.” So I found that that’s probably one of the key things for me is that being able to adapt to what information you can share with them at a given time and age appropriate for each of them. We’ve found over the years that having a family conversation sitting around a dinner table sometimes is not the way to do that. Because you think, “All right, let’s just tell everybody the same thing at the same time.”
(08:52):
And we’ve had times when those conversations have then impacted on one of our children and caused them to react in a particular way that we weren’t expecting because it was too much information for that one child. But for the other ones, it was actually perfect. So we’ve learnt to try and have some of those conversations one-on-one or two-on-one if there’s both of us involved rather than as a big family thing. You still need those conversations, but they need to be the more supportive, lighthearted connecting moments rather than the deep information moments.
(09:24):
And acknowledging that in the moments of what happens, you often don’t have a lot, but that afterwards, there’s all of the things that happen and then out of the blue, something can trigger. So I really hate hot, windy days. Hate them. And so that’s another thing that I’ve had to look at and recognise and go easy on myself for, but also recognise that that’s possibly happening for my children, is that when it’s that kind of day where you feel like it’s dry, it’s hot, it’s windy, those triggers are scary for me, and imagining what they’re like for children.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (09:59):
And that that will be an ongoing thing most likely.
Heather (Guest) (10:01):
It’s an ongoing thing. It doesn’t stop. And unfortunately, in our situation we have, “Oh, there’s 100 mm of rain predicted tomorrow. Uh-oh.”
Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:08):
Sure, sure.
Heather (Guest) (10:13):
Is that going to turn into 200 or 300? It’s another thing that weighs on you. It’s just you think you’re going along fine, and then you get one of those days and you’re like, “Whoa.”
Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:20):
I think it’s just around that expectation of people in their recovery. It’s just not a clear and cut thing. And it’s different for everyone, and everyone will have different triggers. And I think that goes into what you’re saying about recognising changes or things in your children that may not necessarily be obvious. They’re having different ways of processing or having different triggers that you may not even think are linked to the disaster or the event that happened.
Heather (Guest) (10:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:48):
And so it’s just keeping that open mind around children and how they develop after experiencing a disaster and the supports that they need.
Heather (Guest) (10:57):
And then some kind of parental psychic ability to be able to [inaudible 00:11:01] exactly what it is and where [inaudible 00:11:02].
Nadia Rossi (Host) (11:03):
Yeah. But it is that education for parents, first responders, teachers, councils, communities, anyone that’s dealing with children in the years that they… School counsellors, all that, knowing that they experienced this disaster at five and so maybe at 15, this is happening because of this.
Heather (Guest) (11:21):
Yeah. And it’s interesting that there’s so much that people expect you to have moved on. And even myself, I have these expectations that I should be over that by now, I should be fine with that by now or I should not worry about that by now. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away from you. It really is that embedded trauma and it’s hard to pick.
(11:46):
I don’t know when it’s that sometimes. And then every now and then, I’m like, “Oh, why am I a crumbling ball in the corner somewhere?” It’s hard when it’s you, but it’s so tricky to pick up on cues when it’s kids and are they angry because they’re not getting their own way? Or are they angry because there’s something deep down inside them that hurts?
Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:04):
And it’s just that being able to access supports that you need as well to help them through it.
Heather (Guest) (12:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:14):
Do you have particular words or language that you would use with your younger son compared to your older daughters just that come to mind at all?
Heather (Guest) (12:23):
Given that he went from being age five to being age 10 over that course of time, five was, “It’s okay, mate. We’re going to be okay.” There’s lots of that. But of course, when he was older and he’s asking questions, you can’t just have a simple answer. For a particularly inquisitive kid, he needs more information.
(12:40):
So we would have to explain, “Look, okay, this is where the fire is. It’s a fair way away from us at the moment, but we just have to be preparing our house to be ready.” And he would be fine with that because again, it fills that void of, “I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing or what’s happening.”
Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:56):
What advice would you have for other parents and caregivers looking back on things that didn’t go quite as planned during those stressful times and what you’ve just reflected on? I’m thinking here about the importance of self-compassion.
Heather (Guest) (13:10):
I had to do this with myself just this morning, writing down a few of the things that I wish I’d done differently. What I had to remember, feeling a little bit bad about those things, is that in those moments when it’s happening… It’s different after a little bit, but when it’s happening, you don’t have the capacity. It really is just huge adrenaline, and you just are already trying to think of as many things as you possibly can.
(13:36):
And you can’t beat yourself up about those moments because they’re just almost out of your control because there’s so much going on. And as a mother, caregiver, primary caregiver type person, you tend to be the one that is taking care of all of the emotional needs for everybody. So there’s so much happening. But I think in the recovery phases and things like that, there’s also so much that you don’t know what you don’t know. I can look back now and say, “I wish I’d communicated better with my children. I wish I’d left my husband and gone to them quicker than I did. I wish I’d done all of these things.”
(14:14):
But I did what I did at the time with the best information that I had, and I can’t change that. So I think the key is forgiving yourself for what happens at the time that you don’t feel like was mainly your best parenting moments. And then, obviously, if something happened now, I’d be a completely different person to all of those times. And each time I did go through one of those, I was slightly different than the previous time.
(14:37):
But now that I can look back on my children growing into young adulthood and seeing things that have happened, it’s probably even more poignant, I suppose, because I can see some of the ways in which things have affected them. But yeah, go easy on yourself. It’s a tough job and nobody wants to do it.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (14:55):
Was there any time to care for yourself or in the recovery how you give yourself space as a parent or caregiver?
Heather (Guest) (15:04):
Yeah. Look, in the moment, no. It’s a really simple answer. There is no time. You’re just responding. You’re in survival mode, and it’s just one foot in front of the other and do whatever it takes next. But afterwards, yeah, I think that the airline saying of, “Put your own mask on first and then help others” is a really important one. I think with our first fire, I didn’t do that very well, and probably 18 months after it, I crumbled. And obviously, then that affects everybody because I wasn’t there to be the glue.
(15:36):
But I’ve subsequently got good help, got a good psychologist, regularly see them. And it’s essential. If I don’t have that now, then I can’t support my children. And often now my conversations with my psychologist are about, “Well, this is what my kids are up to these days. And how do I help deal with this?” But at the same time, that’s also helping me feel equipped and prepared to have conversations with them that are a bit trickier or help them in other ways. So I think it’s so natural for a mother to put everybody else first.
(16:08):
It’s so unnatural because we’re all taught that it’s selfish to put ourselves first, but it’s not. It’s so caring about others. If you know that if you look after yourself, you’ll be able to do a better job with them. And that’s what I would want for anyone who’s out there who’s in this situation. Take care of yourself. You can’t do it all. Without you… having the supports in place that you need as well.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:29):
Thank you, Heather. Thank you for sharing that. I’m wondering about first responders, and if there are first responders listening today, what would your advice be to them about supporting children through disasters?
Heather (Guest) (16:44):
Yeah. Look, during a disaster, not really a whole lot they can do. They’ve got other jobs to do. The key for me is the before and after. And again, a lot of it comes down to communication. If those people have children, what would they want for their children? If they could put themselves in the place of that child and think, “What do they need right now?” I think about the big community gatherings that happen after these type of events. They’re all only aimed at one audience. They’re all aimed at the adults.
(17:13):
And so I think there’s opportunities, therefore… Not necessarily. It can be first responders, it just depends. In our case, it was in one of our situations and not in others, but councils and community groups and things like that, that pull things together. What’s in there for the children? What’s going to be communicated to them? Are they going to be expected to turn up to an event that’s explaining what’s happened across the community and listen to the adult version of that? Or is there actually something that’s more targeted for them?
(17:43):
I think that’s a big thing that I would probably want to see a little different in the future, that there’s ways for children to have their own version. For adults, a lot of the time, that’s information-gathering and then debriefing afterwards with all of your community and chatting. The kids need their own version of that. And there is that in that if there’s other kids there, they’re going to play with those kids and there’s some of that. But perhaps it’s about just having a little bit of a framework around communication with children after events.
(18:15):
That is the important part. We still want them to go and play and do the things that kids do, but we want to be able to give them information that they can work with as well and not have to absorb the information that the adults are dealing with. At that early stage, we get to set the tone for our children. And how do we set that tone? Do we set the tone that ignores them? Or do we set the tone that includes them?
Nadia Rossi (Host) (18:39):
What support was available to your family during these events? Did it change? Because I know it spanned years, so I’m wondering if things changed over the time.
Heather (Guest) (18:47):
Yeah. Well, not necessarily got better I don’t think. It’s funny because the first fire that we had was not deemed to be part of… I can’t remember the classification for it. But there’s a classification for how a fire affects a community. And basically, if you don’t lose community buildings and you don’t lose blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you don’t get any funding. So our first one was like that, and so we were, as a community, very much on our own.
(19:16):
And the main organisation that I remember coming into us is Red Cross. And I love Red Cross, they are an amazing support network. So we had somebody from the main Red Cross head office that came, and then also they brought local volunteers. Those local volunteer ladies have been coming back out to see us every opportunity they get. And seven years later, still every chance they get, they pop out to events that we have or try to be involved in things that are going on here.
(19:48):
They were really the primary one from the beginning, and again because they’ve shown up again and again and again, that’s been a really powerful support. And they were probably the only one that really had anything that was targeted towards children. So they have their knitted teddy bears. I don’t know if you’ve seen those. So I don’t know how many of those my children have. Way too many. And then not long after that, then they booked their Pillowcase talk to the school, which is where all three children were going at that stage.
(20:19):
And so they had specific things that were for children. None of the other agencies really catered towards children in terms of their emotional or for mental health and wellbeing needs. So we got donations of clothes for a community that the only people who’d lost their homes were older people. So it’s often a bit hit-and-miss what happens. So for the other disasters that are all declared natural disasters, we supposedly had all of these resources and funding, but in a regional area, which is not very far away from a major regional centre, we didn’t get a lot of support at all.
(20:53):
We had to do a lot of the community recovery type things by ourselves. Again, those Red Cross ladies were there, it was the volunteers, it wasn’t the organisation that turned up. The next time, it was the volunteers, which is fine, but it just showed a different level. And things like councils and other community groups and charities and government agencies just don’t know how to deal with children and don’t know what to do for families.
(21:16):
They just come in and deal with the practical side of things, which again, often the mum is the one that gets dragged into. If it’s go and sit in the Centrelink van and fill out forms, it’s mum who does that. So it’s not great. Wish I could say it was better.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:33):
Well, what supports and resources do you think are missing? Have you thought about any specifics? I know we’ve touched on it, but what is missing for families who have experienced disasters?
Heather (Guest) (21:44):
Yeah. Look, I think, to be honest, and this is going to sound biassed, but a lot of it is supporting the mum because ultimately, they’re looking out for things that are a bit off, not quite right about kids. If they’re not feeling right or they’re not great, it’s going to be the mum that’s got time and the attention to notice. It’s going to be the mum that’s looking for, “How do I support this child?” It’s the mum that’s doing a lot of the running around. It’s the mum that’s doing the sorting out insurance, it’s the paperwork, it’s the everything. Not everything, but lots of things.
(22:21):
So I think resources that help, maybe primary caregivers that help them work out what things to look for in children. So a great friend of mine, who actually went through that 2017 fire as well, it took her a little while and I think it was probably more than a year to work out that her son had PTSD because she didn’t know what to look for. And she just thought that he was having some funny reactions to some things, and got him to talk to a counsellor and worked out what it had actually all stemmed from.
(22:50):
So it’s hard to know when you’re going through kids that have got hormonal changes and emotions that live on a roller coaster already, what triggers are we looking out for? What kind of things are we trying to see? And then what do we do with that information? Once I’ve seen this in my child, where do I go from there? Who can I access?
(23:08):
We already know that there’s shortages of psychiatrists and psychologists and all that kind of stuff. So how do you get your child in to see somebody that they need to see? So those kind of information resources, I think, are incredibly valuable to support the primary caregivers in those situations.
(23:25):
And obviously, my second point is that the secondary caregivers, or the dads, or whoever it ends up being to support that primary person in their emotional needs is key because you can’t carry that forever. That mental load is big, and you can’t carry it on your own and for a long time. So yeah, it’s a case of lots that could be done, but really, it’s so valuable to look after that primary person who’s in that role.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:51):
It’s that wrapping around that primary caregiver and so you can look after your children and have the space to see what’s going on. And it’s that education around the recovery process last years and years.
Heather (Guest) (24:04):
Those exact materials around what that process actually involves. How long is it? I know it’s a case of how long is a piece of string because it’s not the same for everybody. But that kind of guidance around what to expect. Okay, you’ve been through this parent workshop on what to expect now that you’ve been through this. And what are your children likely to be experiencing? What are things that might scare them now? What are things that might help them now? Things like that that give a parent some real practical support.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:31):
Heather, I’m wondering are there any positives that have come out of experiencing these times as a family?
Heather (Guest) (24:38):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I don’t want to go back and do them again, but there’s some things about it that I wouldn’t change them. But there’s really valuable things that have come out of it together. We bond together particularly well, especially when there’s tough time because we’ve all been through it, we’ve all gone through together.
(24:57):
The resilience of my children is astounding. They have been through over and over and over again, and I’m really hopeful that for their future, that sets them up in a way that when tough times come, even when they’re not at home with us anymore, that they know they can get through tough times. And I think most parents would want that for their kids. They just don’t want them to go through natural disasters to get it. But sometimes you can’t be choosy. So that’s one of the greatest things I see.
(25:28):
My eldest daughter is now an RFS volunteer. My second daughter is the most… She’s a people carer. My eldest is a get down and do the practical stuff like Dad. They’ve all developed these traits that were in them anyway, but have been heightened by the fact that they’ve been through these things and they’ve seen how they can help and how they can support other people.
(25:49):
I wouldn’t trade that for much really to see your kids like that. It doesn’t mean it’s always been easy. My eldest has had some issues with anxiety and things like that, but she’s worked through those and so that again, gives her that resilience. She knows that she doesn’t stay in those spots, that it changes and that there’s… that at times come through. So I think that’s probably the biggest one for us is just seeing our kids have that resilience and have that strength that they can do hard things.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (26:17):
Heather, before this podcast, you spoke with your children and asked them this question that we gave you, because we always feel like it’s great to try and incorporate children’s voices and hear directly from them and their experiences. So you asked, “What advice would you have for other adults listening today about what kids need to feel… comfort and support during and after disasters?” Can you tell us what your children said in response to that?
Heather (Guest) (26:44):
Well, I only got an answer out of one of them because one of them’s away.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (26:48):
That’s fine.
Heather (Guest) (26:48):
It doesn’t directly answer this question, but it probably answers the question that I asked her, which is that she said she wanted adults to know how scary it is when you’re doing things like… They seem like simple things, but even when you’re doing things like packing your go box, when you’re putting your important paperwork there. Now, we do that well in advance of anything happening. So that’s often at a time when it’s not necessarily around a disaster.
(27:13):
That’s obviously something for her that’s a sign, it’s a trigger that’s, “Is there something that I should worry about?” So I think her key point was understanding what it’s like for a child to be in that situation. Could be packing their pillowcase with all of the things that they love and care for. But that’s a really scary moment for them.
(27:33):
And yeah, it is. It’s a scary moment for adults, but we’ve got the developed emotional capacity to be able to think it through and work through it, and our children just aren’t there yet, so they need our support to be able to help them get through those scary times.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (27:48):
Yeah, that’s such an amazing insight because I think more would be thinking about the actual disaster being scary. And while it is, but it’s giving that perspective or having that time to really think about what the packing and the preparedness and the prepping does to a child, and how that they may be processing that. It’s not just putting their special things in a box. It’s what they’re thinking about, why they’re doing it, and what this means.
Heather (Guest) (28:13):
And again, it comes down to that communication, doesn’t it? Being able to talk them through it rather than just… Even though we’ve had these conversations multiple times, when you’re actually in that act of doing it, being there for them and being able to talk them through and answer their tricky questions and that kind of thing.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (28:27):
I have one final question just to wrap it up. But Heather, to families that have experienced disasters, what advice would you have for them as they try and find their way through that difficult time?
Heather (Guest) (28:38):
Keep talking to each other. That’s the key. Find the levels at which you can communicate about what’s going on. Understand that different children need different amounts of information and different types of information, but ultimately, keep communicating with each other and letting each other know that you’re there.
(28:55):
If you’re a hugging family, do lots of hugging. If you’re a sit down and have a big chat together, then do lots of that. Find your unique family way to make sure that that connection stays there and keep that communication going.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (29:08):
That’s some solid advice. That’s great. Thank you so much, Heather, for speaking with us today.
Heather (Guest) (29:13):
You are so welcome.
Nadia Rossi (Host) (29:15):
Thank you.
Heather (Guest) (29:16):
It’s my pleasure.
Narrator (29:20):
Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.