Usually 10 p.m. finds me getting ready for bed, hopefully reading and not scrolling — but that wasn’t the case earlier this week. A few days ago, 10 p.m. found me in a closet under the stairs, with my kids huddled around me in a pile of blankets and pillows, while a tornado passed through our Illinois town.
As you can imagine, my young kids were pretty scared and upset. They find thunderstorms scary, so a tornado escalated the emotions to a whole new level.
I comforted them by praying, among other things, and fortunately the tornado passed us without incident. But after we put the kids back to bed, I found myself thinking about parents around the world faced with the challenge of comforting kids in the midst of potentially scary situations like a blizzard, a flood, a thunderstorm, or some other natural phenomenon.
Of course, the first step in these situations is to take safety measures, whether that means evacuating, sheltering in place, or whatever else is recommended. Once that’s taken care of, here’s what I did to help my kids feel better when we were sheltering in place from the tornado.
1
Pray together
We prayed a decade of the Rosary as a family, and then we prayed aloud for God’s protection. The kids seemed to find it helpful to hear that God is stronger than the tornado.
2
Sing together
My kids love to listen to me sing the Salve Regina, which they find very soothing, so of course I sang it to them. Your family’s favorite songs would be comforting, and I bet kids would especially like funny songs to lift spirits and get them laughing!
3
Tell stories
Whether it’s telling your kids a story, reading a book, listening to an audiobook, or bringing along books for the kids to look through, listening to a good story is a sure fire way to boost morale. One of my kids said that what helped most during the tornado was reading Harry Potter under the stairs with a flashlight, because “I could pretend I was Harry in his bedroom under the stairs!”
4
Look for the helpers
Mr. Rogers supposedly once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
I found that it helped my kids feel better to focus on all the “helpers” — the people working to make the situation better.
We heard an ambulance go past at one point in the night, and the next day I heard from a friend that her electrician husband had worked through the night restoring power to homes throughout our town. Medical workers and electric workers and so many others work tirelessly to help people and keep them safe in a crisis.
My five-year-old told me that what helped her most to feel better was “When Daddy showed me the tornado was gone on his laptop.” Seeing that the tornado had passed us on the radar gave us all a welcome relief, making us grateful for the weather reporters, too.
5
Give thanks
After the tornado passed by us with no damage, we were so grateful. Whenever I think of it, I try to say out loud that I’m grateful to God for things like this so that my kids can hear me. And we have so much to be grateful for. I hope I would have done the same even if we had faced damage, in my ongoing effort to do as the Eucharistic liturgy instructs us and “always and everywhere give [God] thanks.”
And today we celebrate...