The one thing that I experienced as a child that had a major impact on my development as a child was a natural disaster. When I was in 5th grade our house burned down. We had electrical wiring issues in our home and that caused a fire to start and travel through the walls. If it had not been for our dog, we probably would not have survived the fire. Since the fire was in the walls, and the fire was at 2 AM, we were sleeping and did not detect or smell the fire burning. Our dog was barking uncontrollably and woke my mother up. She was just going to lock her in the laundry room and figured that she was just barking at her normal nothing. This time that was not the case. She had the urge to just walk around the house and make sure that everything was okay and when she turned the corner to enter into our living room, a huge blaze greeted her eyes. It was full above our fireplace and she became very alarmed. I was still upstairs in my room sleeping. She was screaming upstairs for me to get up while she tried to dash water on the fire. Finally, after many attempts of trying to awake me she finally woke me up and I came down the steps. I saw the huge blaze and immediately grabbed the house phone and called 9-1-1. I gave them our address and in the process I ran around the house and opened all of the doors so that some of the smoke could leave the house. I was so afraid and scared and had never experienced anything to that multitude. Our house was ruined. When the firemen finished, the smoke and water damage had completely destroyed our home. We had to stay in an extended stay for a month. All of my clothes smelled of smoke. As a 5th grader, I was still young and this had a tremendous effect on my day to day life. We no longer had a home and lived in a hotel , not to mention everyday I went to school smelling like smoke, and the even bigger hurt was what if we did not wake up? That would have been the end of our lives. I am so thankful to God for sparing me, my mother, and our dog and for giving us the senses that were needed to escape that horrible disaster.
Sri Lanka was the part of the world that I wanted to research when looking at natural disaster's and the stress on children. The people of this country have been victims of tsunamis. A high prevalence of PTSD can be expected within the Sri Lankan children who
have been affected by additional traumatic events; Indeed, the prevalence of
PTSD in Sri Lankan children affected by both the civil war and a natural
disaster was as high as 40% after the Tsunami (2008). The impact of the natural disasters not only effect the children mentally but also imposes stressors for survival. There is a lack of resources, a lack of food, a lack of communication, lost family member, and a host of other long term effects.
Catani, C., Jacob, N., Schauer, E., Kohila, M., & Neuner, F. (2008). Family violence, war,and natural disasters: A study of the effect of extreme stress on children's mental health in Sri Lanka. BMC Psychiatry, 8, 33-33.
