Big Fires Can Also Scar Little Minds

When the Southern California fires finally burn out -- and they will -- the recovery will begin. And it will take more than simply restoring homes and possessions.

For an unknown number of children, the memories of fire and destruction won’t quickly go away. Some kids may talk about it, others may not. But whether they experienced the fires firsthand or merely saw TV footage of roaring infernos, some children might carry psychic damage with them long after the last ember cools.

Did they lose their house? Did they lose their cat? How about some toys? Maybe none of that. But how about their sense of security?

Depending on the answers to those questions, children can require varying levels of post-disaster attention or counseling. And as these historic Southern California wildfires rage on, it stands to reason that the toll on children may be high.

That’s where people like Merritt “Chip” Schreiber step in.

A child psychologist with a practice in Irvine, Schreiber also is a key figure in a national coalition of treatment centers set up in 2001 to deal with the effect of trauma on children’s lives. Though it wasn’t set up as a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 of that year, the coalition’s arrival on the national scene coincided neatly with it.

“I talked to kids after 9/11,” Schreiber says. “Some of them thought all of New York was destroyed.”

That was a function of repeated TV coverage and, obviously, the inability of younger children to digest the news and keep perspective.

Imagine what fire must be doing to tender young minds.

Schreiber says ranking disasters serves no real purpose -- indeed, each carries its own peculiar emotional curse. As for fire, he says, “I think kids are both frightened by it and very interested in it.”

Schreiber, 48, isn’t new to the disaster business. In 1994, he was part of a group that reviewed children’s reactions several months after the Laguna Beach fire the year before.

The group found that something as basic as children knowing where their parents were at all times during a disaster can help reduce the trauma risk.

That’s why Schreiber and other experts strongly advocate that families have a “preparedness” plan for staying in touch with each other if disaster strikes.

Beyond that, the degree to which children needed counseling depended on a wide range of things, such as whether they were evacuated from their homes, whether their home was destroyed or how harrowing their escape became. Or how close they actually got to the flames.

And before those things are even added up, Schreiber says, a crucial factor was the child’s existing level of emotional resiliency. If the child already was exposed to stresses, like family discord, the child would be at potentially greater psychological risk after a disaster.

It’s not likely, Schreiber says, that a child could mask adverse reactions to a trauma. Aside from behavioral changes, a child might start having nightmares, trouble falling asleep or overreactions to everyday things.

Needless to say, this isn’t as precise as I suggest.

Nor is anyone suggesting that these fires will consign a generation of children to a psychologist’s office. Schreiber notes that “children have a very strong resilient capacity” but says it would be a mistake to assume that the passage of time would purge a traumatic memory. Or that some children won’t develop what we consider adult reactions, such as depression.

“It used to be thought that little children don’t have depression,” Schreiber says. “Now, we know they do.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana. parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.