Helping Your Family Cope Mentally and Physically in a Crisis

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Crisis doesn’t just hit the grid, the grocery store, or the gas pump. It hits the people around you. It hits your home.

And for parents, especially those with young kids, the biggest challenge isn’t the gear and supplies. It’s helping your family adjust mentally and physically to the new normal, whatever that craziness might be.

This article was inspired by a question from Dustin in South Carolina, a longtime listener who asked:

As a husband and father of two elementary school-aged kids, what are your thoughts on how to best help families cope with the mental and physical impacts of disaster scenarios… how to approach them to mentally adjust to the new normal, how to get them physically not to break down from getting involved in more physical labor than they are used to, adjustments to not having their electronics glued to their hands anymore, etc.

Great question, Justin.

Now, let’s break this down.

TL;DR Help your family handle crisis by building mental resilience, physical readiness, and screen-free routines—before disaster hits.

Start With Your Mindset, Not Theirs

Kids reflect you. If you act like the world is ending, they’ll start to believe it and act like it, too. Routinely talking about the craziness that’s happening in the world, and in many people’s cases, getting animated about it, bleeds over into others—especially children.

There’s almost nothing worse for a child’s psyche than watching their trusted adult melt down due to the stress of the situation. It makes kids feel like no one is in control and that they are in danger. If we’re emotionally charged, that’s a sympathetic nervous system engaging response. It’s that response that causes us to ruminate, become stressed, or feel angry, etc.

Unless your mind is completely hijacked by a fight, flight, or freeze response, you always have the opportunity to calm down your CNS (central nervous system) response. It’s a choice. Do we choose to stay in the mindset that has hijacked our emotional well-being? Or, do we choose to acknowledge that we’re emotionally overwhelmed to some degree and make a decision to do something about it?

That’s what we, the people whom others will turn to, need to work on. You’re here because you want to be better prepared. Unlike buying equipment and supplies, working on this is free, but it does require effort. It requires you to catch yourself in the moment and disrobe yourself of your negative and less effective emotional response.

Help Your Kids Feel Normal

When it comes to prepping for our loved ones, our goal is to maintain their sense of normalcy. If the situation doesn’t feel like a big deal, they won’t take it as such.

In other words, in all but the most urgent of scenarios, you should force yourself to behave as if whatever is happening with your situation is just a change in routine that everyone is handling together. The fundamentals of how you approach things are still the same. So, everything is normal, just a bit different.

If you work on maintaining your composure now, you’ll maintain it better when it really matters. As you get better at that, the people around you will pick up on that too, and they’ll feel better for it.

You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to be the steady hand on the wheel.

When you stay calm, you set a good example for them to follow. When you stress out, they stress out. Prepping isn’t just beans, bullets, and Band-Aids. That’s the easy stuff. The hard work of prepping is the side that has to rise above when the world really sucks and people are depending on you.

Make Routine Your First Line of Defense

Structure and predictability help people feel safe. Knowing what to expect, even in stressful times, makes those times less overwhelming. While times are good, mix up the routines from time to time so people get used to occasional change.

Don’t just spring it on them. Talk with them ahead of time so they settle into the idea. When you’re working with mindset, slow, micro movements that build over time are key to doing it right.

With that in mind, even if your world gets turned upside down, it won’t be as shocking to re-establish a new daily rhythm. Meals at the same time. Jobs to do. Breaks. Play. Quiet time.

What also helps is to let everyone know what’s happening the next day at the end of each day. Most people, including kids, thrive on knowing what to expect.

In a crisis, having a predictable life is a form of stability and comfort. And that is peace of mind.

Use Small Wins to Build Confidence

Confidence is contagious. Let your kids help. As part of their daily routines, give them meaningful jobs, not busywork. Filling water bottles. Cleaning your home. Organizing supplies. Feeding the pets. Real contributions.

Then say this out loud:

Thanks for doing that. It really helped.

That’s the kind of feedback they remember and need, and which builds confidence. It’s the kind of feedback you should give to everyone who does their best to help out. This support is essential during both good and bad times.

It tells them: You’re part of this. You’re valued. You’re an important part of our team. It will pay off dividends later, when they have the confidence to handle what comes their way, thanks to your positive efforts.

Ease Them Into the Physical Side

Here’s the truth: Most of us (not just kids) aren’t physically ready for a long-term grid-down scenario. If something big happens, it’s going to be tiring. Painful. Manual. Frustrating. So don’t wait. Start now. Slowly.

• Weekend hikes.
• Garden work.
• Washing the car by hand.
• Doing manual work that includes SHTF skills (even if it’s just practice).

Make it normal. Make it fun. Let them see you sweat. Teach them that good effort work feels great when completed.

When it comes to work, if the time should ever come when the grid crashes and everyone is working as if it were 1859, then you’ll want to manage people’s expectations. That expectation should be that those who haven’t had to do much physical work will take a bit to get into shape for hard physical work.

As the parent or the de facto leader, you are their personal trainer and fitness guide. Overworking and injuring people who aren’t accustomed to the workload may seem expedient in the short term, but in the long term, they could harm them and your effectiveness. Don’t break people because you have a predilection for the work harder, not smarter philosophy. 

When it hits the fan, any injury is a problem. Injuries limit your group’s capability in both manpower and possibly required supplies. Therefore, don’t needlessly get people hurt. 

Be smart and scale work based on the person’s current physical condition, rather than unrealistic expectations.

Breaking the Screen Habit

If you wait until the lights go out to separate your kids from their devices, you’re setting yourself up for a meltdown. Ease the transition now:

• Screen-free hours in the evening.
• Board game nights.
• Outdoor time with no phones.
• Projects that take hands and minds (woodworking, sewing, cooking, etc.)
• Download games onto their devices that you keep charged with your preps.

Don’t rip the Band-Aid off all at once. Shift the culture inside your home before a crisis forces your hand.

Turn Preparedness Into a Family Culture

Kids don’t need to hear lectures about EMPs or government collapse. What they need to see is:

• Mom and Dad are working together.
• A home where preparedness is part of life.
• People working together.

You can teach them:

• How to secure your home’s doors and windows.
• In case you have to evacuate your home, where are the meeting points?
• What to do if someone’s hurt and you’re not right there.

All of that builds the “preparedness mindset” without unnecessary stress. That’s the goal.

The Bottom Line

You can’t protect your family from every storm. But you can build them into the kind of people who weather it well.

• Keep your head clear.
• Give them structure.
• Let them contribute.
• Train now, not later.

Preparedness isn’t about being the hardest person on the planet. It’s about being the person who recognizes preparedness is a 3D chess game. It’s the kind of mindset that will help build the type of family that can face hard things—and still laugh around the dinner table at the end of the day.

What did I get wrong? What did I get right? Tell me in the comments below.