Talking with Young Children About the Tsunami

That's a big positive.

I dunno, I'm a wimp about this stuff -- it was hard for me to even tell her that chicken (food) and chicken (bawk-bawk) are the same thing.

But she's always been way more equanimous than I expect her to be.

I usually mention things in the broadest terms and then go by her questions. The tsunami is a hard one indeed because I don't want her to be scared of being by the ocean. I told her about it generally -- sad thing, big earthquake, big wave, floods, people died -- and she was sad but didn't ask many follow-up questions.

One thing I think I've noticed is that the biggest indicator of how she'll react is how secure she feels, in general -- around when we were moving she'd take minor things hard.

Hmm.. I would think that ( and simply going on natural disasters here...) teaching ABOUT the weather, explaining what it is capable of and HOW it happens may help? Start with tornados for example. Explain how the weather changes, what creates a tornado and make your explaination more about what causes it then about the damage. Let the damage take backseat to the knowledge until your little girl can understand the human aspect of the damage. Hard to do when all she is hearing right now is about the pain and suffering of Sri Lanka and thier people.. but you can turn that around.
My mom used to do that with me alot. We used to live here in Austin when i was little, then we moved to New Mexico where there were alot of people missing on ski slopes due to huge snow storms, and some small avalanches.
I remember MORE about her teaching me what an avalanche was then i remember about the shock of hearing " news flash... such and such is missing and presumed DEAD" on the news.
She would approach me first before I was able to go off and stew over the news ( again.. hard to do when you dont know your child has heard about it until they get home .. ) She would come to me and say things like.. " Did you hear the news? Isnt that awful? Do you know what an avalanche is?"
ANd from there turn it into a lesson. Never IGNORING that people had died , or were missing..etc. Just re-directing a curious mind.

Well, sozobe I am with you when it comes to that. My daughter is 6 and I have not told her yet, but she may have made the connection on her own. I just want to keep her innocent and ignorant of all the ugly things that happen in the world. They have such a short period when it seems that mommy can cure everything with a hug and kiss.

The one thing is she has not voiced any concern about the ocean, or this possibly happening to her. Probably she does not realize that these things can happen to anyone. I am glad she has not thought of that yet.

Thanks, Shewolfnm that is almost how I described it. I sort of told her what an earthquake is – in very simple terms. Then explained how that caused the water to move like the waves we see in the ocean, only much much larger. She didn’t really want to know that – she wanted to know about what happened to the people and directly asked me that. I don’t think she gets too much information about the disaster part, other than what the teacher explained. When it is on TV, I always change the station, however, I noticed that even on Nick and Disney stations, they talk about the Tsunami. My daughter hears it and perks up. Luckily what they usually talk about is ways of helping those harmed rather than showing the disaster itself.