Note: This is day 19 of National Preparedness Month. Follow this year’s campaign on Twitter by searching for the #NPM or #NPM13 hash tag.
This month, as part of NPM13, I’ll be rerunning some updated preparedness essays (like this one) , along with some new ones.
# 7790
Disaster preparedness messaging for youngsters has come a long way since I was kid, as evidenced by the Ready.gov/Kids website in the graphic at the top of this page. In the `bad old days’ of the 1950s and 1960s, preparedness meant `duck & cover’ drills, and a likely futile attempts to survive an atomic attack.
One of the more famous (and least graphic) of these early preparedness PSAs was Bert The Turtle telling kids how to `Duck & Cover’.
Starker messaging included PSAs like TARGET YOU, and the equally bleak Survival Under Atomic Attack. If it seems unlikely to you that these sorts of films were routinely presented to school children, I can assure you they were – the fear of imminent nuclear annihilation was rampant back then.
Today, our concerns are focused on natural disasters, like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Scenarios that are far more survivable than an all-out nuclear attack, and that can be approached in a more `kid-friendly’ fashion.
But the core message – that disasters happen, and we should all be prepared – hasn’t changed.
Ready.gov’s kid friendly preparedness page contains games and activities for kids along with information for parents and educators on how to teach simple, but effective preparedness lessons.
Many states have their own preparedness site for kids, such as Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Kids Get A Plan page, which provides an excellent interactive introduction to preparedness for children.
You’ll find audio-stories on topics like lightning safety, wildfires, and hurricanes along with interactive games like the one below, that teaches kids what items are needed for a disaster supply kit.
And to go along with these activities for kids, the site provides guides for parents and teachers to help them discuss these issues with kids.
Some of these stories and activities are geared for kids as young as 5 or 6, while others are aimed at slightly older children.
If you’ve got kids, or grandkids – and would like to introduce them to preparedness concepts without inducing undue trauma - this site is very much worth while checking out.
And for even more disaster preparedness for kids, you will also want to check out FEMA/Ready.gov’s preparedness for kids website which I highlighted last September in NPM12: Preparedness For Kids
