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Kayla Stephenson knew her four-year-old son, Jake, and two-year-old daughter, Marley, saw the wall of flames. And as she made her out of Fort McMurray, Alta., she saw it, too. ?The fire was to the right of us. We all looked out the window and saw the black smoke of our community going up in flames,? says Stephenson. ?Every now and then a huge flame would gush toward us. But we were in gridlocked traffic because the police were evacuating everybody and we couldn?t move.?
Eventually, Stephenson and her kids did manage to get out of the city, and they drove 434 kilometres south to Stephenson?s mother?s house in Edmonton. By then, they?d found out that not only had their community burned down, but their house had, too. Jake and Marley?s dad, Mark, a firefighter, had been there to see the house being swallowed by the fire. We like to think we can protect our kids from anything, but some situations are simply out of our control. House fires, car accidents or disasters happen, and suddenly everything is thrown upside down.
Whether your child is young and not speaking yet or older and verbal, traumatic events leave mental marks. ?They have a profound effect on young kids?especially around their feelings of safety and security,? says Carla Fry, a Vancouver-based registered psychologist. Even if children can?t comprehend what has happened, they feel that their environment has become unstable. ?And that causes them to feel less secure,? she adds.
That shift c...