The worst thing you can say to your child during a cyclone

Schools are warning parents to consider their children’s anxiety levels during the impending cyclone, with experts advising the best way to protect kids - and what not to do.

Schools are warning parents to consider their children’s anxiety levels during the impending cyclone, with experts advising the best way to protect kids is by preparing with a sense of calm.

Letters are being sent out to parents across the southeast advising them of potential school closures, while offering advice on how to keep worries at bay.

Parenting expert and co-author of ‘Raising Anxiety’ Dr Judith Locke said the most important thing to remember was that children will take their lead from parents.

“Parents need to manage their own anxieties. Kids are very good at picking up what their parents are feeling, so now is the time for you to exhibit calmness,” she said.

“If schools are cancelled, keep them productively engaged throughout the day, crack open the Monopoly board.

“We don’t know what is going to happen so there is no point in worrying yet about what might happen, children being a little nervous is understandable but that doesn’t mean it’s a problem.”

Parenting expert Dr Judith Locke. Picture: Jamie Hanson

Dr Locke said involving your kids in preparations for the cyclone was a sure-fire way to get them out of their heads and into the present.

“Now is the time to go outside and see all of the things they can pick up … they could be filling water bottles up, making sure the dog bowl is filled with water and helping prepare for it, but not in a dreadful way, in a matter of fact way. There is nothing else we can do but be prepared.”

Dr Locke said it was important parents didn’t bring up the cyclone independently unless your child brought it up.

“But if your child does mention it, we should listen, empathise and normalise,” she said.

Even if children are very young and can’t help in a meaningful way Dr Locke said they should still be involved in the “theatre of help”.

“Rather than sitting and feeling nervous, let’s be sensibly prepared – we don’t need 30 rolls of toilet paper,” she said.

A help sheet prepared by the Australian Psychological Society, and disseminated by some schools, said people could be psychologically prepared by using four steps:

1. Anticipate that the situation will be stressful

2. Identify your typical physical and emotional responses

3. Manage your feelings and thoughts with simple breathing and self-talk

4. Engage meaningfully with at least one trusted person

The help sheet also recommends that caregivers consider the way they talk about the cyclone in front of kids, limit media exposure, encourage them to talk about how they’re feeling and to reassure them that they are safe and being looked after.