Communicating with Children about Tragedy

The catastrophic flooding in Texas on July 4, 2025 is a tragedy that is close to home for many of us. So many children and families who live in the Houston area travel to the Hill Country for family vacations, church trips, or to attend one of the many summer camps located in the area. Families may have vacation homes or grandparents who moved to central Texas for retirement. Sadly, many people reading this blog will probably know someone directly impacted by this tremendous loss, and many others will know someone who knows someone. Many of us have connections to people and memories that personalize this tragedy. When the tragedy is personalized, and especially when children and families are involved, it can be especially challenging to know how to talk to our children about the tragedy and aftermath.

Let children know it is OK to talk to you, a trusted adult, about the tragedy. Explain that it is OK to cry when we feel hurt, afraid or confused. State this directly and model it through your behavior. Often children don’t want to talk to parents about grief because they don’t want to make their parent cry. Let them know it is OK to talk, and it is OK to cry.  “Mommy’s heart hurts when I think about the children and families who were hurt in the flood. It’s OK to cry when our heart hurts. It helps to talk about it with you, even if I cry. I want you to still talk to me about it.”

Let children ask questions. Children, and adults who are grieving, will likely ask the same questions over and over. Be patient with them, and don’t feel like you need to give a different answer every time they ask. Just answer truthfully and with developmentally appropriate information specific to their question. You don’t need to elaborate. If you answer their question, the child will ask more questions if they want to know more. This helps the child absorb the information a bit at a time. And it is OK to say, “I don’t know. This is hard for anyone to understand or I don’t have that information right now.”  

This tragedy is so unbelievable and so unexpected, adults are struggling to process what has happened.  Developmentally, children and adolescents are still learning about the world and they are doing so with incomplete cognitive and language skills. They ask questions and try to connect novel information to something that is familiar. For example, when trying to understand that a family has lost their child or a friend’s parent has died, your child may relate to that by saying, “my dog died when I was four.”  It is normal for children to relate what they know about a tragedy to something in their life, and sometimes - to other people- this connection may seem inconsequential.  Understand that in your child’s world, it matters. Honor that in your response to the child.

The existential question that we all struggle with, adults and children alike, is “why?” Why did this happen? Why did one member of a family survive when the others died? Why would God allow so many children to die?” 

Logically we understand that we may never have a clear answer to the Why questions. I doubt there are any words that can make this tragedy make sense and certainly no answer will make it feel OK. So our challenge and goal is to help ourselves and help our children develop tolerance for living without those answers. This is an essential aspect of grief, and for many people, it is an opportunity to incorporate faith and spirituality into the conversation.  

Somehow, the more we ask the hard questions and stay open to talking about those things which are beyond our understanding, the better we begin to feel. With children, let their questions ebb and flow at their own pace, and expect that in between segments of this ongoing conversation, they will play and laugh or argue with their sibling and often act like nothing has happened.  Allow them the opportunity to do so, and take care of yourself. Make sure that as the trusted adult in a child’s life, that you too have a source of support. 

Please remember that therapists and counselors, and spiritual leaders, are excellent listeners who willingly engage in those hard conversations.  

Stay connected and engaged, and we’ll get through these hard times together.