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Helping Children Cope with Crisis Situations

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Dr. Ted Feinberg: Probably the best thing that I can advise with regards to preventing crisis situations is really to build into a school program, clear recommendations for prevention opportunities, and that includes, having part of the school curriculum address issues of prevention. An example would be one of the things that we have tired for many, many years to do is to help school children understand that if they hear, see, or sense that there is a problem that may be coming up that they need to let a responsible adult know about that. And we have found that in those communities where this has taken place, we have prevented, we have altered the outcomes of situation that could have been terribly tragic had they not been discovered. And so, we want to help reduce or eliminate what we have referred to as the conspiracy of silence among children. Often times, children know about plans for crisis situations well in advanced of adults. And so, we want them to partner with us so that if they hear something at the bus stop, if the hear something in a locker-room, if they know that there is something that is in the planning stage, even if they don t know all of the facts, letting responsible adults, their teacher, their principle, a coach, a good friend know about this can really help to save lives and to prevent these events from taking place in the first place. Clearly we have no capacity to control for things like earthquakes or tornadoes, although maybe with increased scientific work on the part of agencies like the Nova Agency which helps to predict hurricanes that may be we can have some lead time, but as it was the case in Katrina, they knew it was a big, big storm they did not know how much damage it was going to creat. So, with regards to what parents can do to prevent these things from happening, probably not a lot as it relates to natural disasters, but encouraging your children to help responsible others, make sure that not only they are safe, but that their friends, and siblings and teachers are safe as well. That would go a long way towards helping to prevent some of the more tragic violence related issues that have taken place.

Expert: Ted Feinberg

National Association of School Psychologists

www.nasponline.org

Email: tfeinberg@naspweb.org

Dr. Feinberg has over 30 years of broad-based human services experience in the mental health field. He has extensive background in consultation and counseling with children, adolescents, adults and families. He has worked in both the public and private sectors. In August 2000, Dr. Feinberg assumed his current position as Assistant Executive Director for Professional Development for the National Association of More »