Emergency Preparedness

I briefly touched upon this topic about 15 months ago but wanted to revisit and expand on it a bit. I recently learned that an old buddy of mine is getting a divorce. The ugly details aren’t really relevant here, but I will say he’s an awesome dad and has always been faithful to his soon-to-be ex.

His pending split got me thinking again about split families and disaster planning. The thing is, I think very few of these families have given thought as to who will handle what if there comes to pass a major disaster. Now, I fully realize she may very well be a raging sack of crazy and he probably is just as much of an asshat as you think. But the fact remains that if you have any sort of shared custody arrangement with the kids, you’ll both need to work together on this.

For example, if there’s a big emergency, who picks up the kids from school? Whose house do they go to? Are there supplies, such as bug out bags, in place at each residence? What if it is a bug out situation and the kids are at your ex’s? Can or should the ex come along?

Communication is the key here. I understand that there may be readers out there for whom the split was at least partially because of an “obsession” with what the ex calls “doom and gloom.” In those cases, this discussion probably will be harder than for others. But, it still needs to happen.

Sit down with your ex, as well as with the kids, and talk about a few different “what if” scenarios. Make the decisions now, rather than in the heat of the moment during an emergency. Keep calm and rational and actually listen to any concerns that are brought up.

Remember, just because you don’t like your ex in a romantic sense anymore, they are still part of your child’s life. Plan accordingly.

For those of us with families, the safety and security of our children is often what drives us to prep in the first place. We want to be able to provide for their needs, come what may. Part of that entails having discussion with our kids about what to do in emergencies, teaching them the necessary skills, and instilling in them certain mindsets.

We have to be careful though, particularly with younger children, so we don’t just scare the beejeezus out of them. We need to watch not only what we say but how we say it. Telling an eight year old child that there may come a day when we cannot be friends with our neighbors because we prep, they don’t, and they might want to steal our stuff is not going to sit well with the child. He or she will just be very confused, likely causing stress and anxiety anytime a neighbor does come over.

Pay close attention to how your child reacts after any conversations about the future as it relates to prepping. If they seem stressed, depressed, or just plain “off,” address it immediately. Sit down and talk to them about their concerns. You may find they just misunderstood what you had told them.

We also need to be careful about the secrecy aspects of prepping. On the one hand, we don’t want our kids telling the entire neighborhood that Mom and Dad have 85 cases of canned food in the basement. On the other hand, we don’t want them going to school and alluding to some never-to-be-spoken-of activities that happen in the home. That’s a sure-fire way to get a visit from your local child services agency. As with most other things, a balanced approach may be best.

Remember, everything you tell kids goes through this weird “filter” in their heads as they try to fit the new information into their current perspective. In my experience, more often than not this filter causes at least a bit of misunderstanding. It might take at least a few different conversations to get the points across properly.