No Surprises

I was at a stoplight this week, waiting for the light to change, when BUMP! Someone rear ended me. The driver's companion got out after a few minutes, and he followed.

It turned out the driver didn't have insurance, and his companion asked me not to report anything because she'd already had a bad morning. Poor thing!

The couple asked if I wanted to pull over and talk, which I agreed to; but by the time I reached the parking lot, they'd gone. I hadn't gotten out of my car to get their license plates, so... here I am, without much recourse except to report the accident to my own insurance company and watch my rates go up.

I'm not bringing this up to whine, I promise. I'm bringing it up to talk about surprises, and how we handle them. More importantly, I'm interested in how we teach our kids to handle them. These days, I tend to feel a lot like the Radiohead Song, "No Surprises" -- because I've gotten more negative surprises than I wanted. Or at least, there are days it feels that way.

So, no thank you, accidents, no thank you illness, no thank you, deaths of good friends or family, no thank you, floods or divorces or burglaries. If you want to surprise me with flowers or something like that, by all means. But what do we tell our kids about the stuff nobody wants?

I'm not sure I did a good job of preparing my son for adversity; and like all of us, he has his share. Some people say the best you can do is model behavior when the bad surprises strike, to give your kid an example of how to handle things. That makes sense to me.

I remember being terrified as an eight year old when my sweater caught on a slide and I was stuck and started choking. Luckily my friend Carole climbed up behind me and broke the sweater's button to get me loose.

Carole was angry with me for getting stuck, but when I told her how amazing she was and that she saved my life, she calmed down and changed her mind. We both decided she was pretty terrific, and then forgot the whole thing. Or maybe we just pretended we did, which was okay too.

But yeah, there's going to be illness and accidents, bullies, breakups and tragedies. You can tell your kid life is like that, but until something happens, will they really understand? Maybe you can give them coping strategies when they're sad, like drawing, baking, writing stories or playing guitar.

You can also teach them to try and help people whenever possible (while telling them to be careful of strangers--this isn't easy, is it)? If I could tell a child anything, I'd say the one thing I regret - really -- is not being kinder when I could have been.

What that has to do with bad surprises, I don't know. I guess it's something we can control, instead of the surprises we can't. Maybe it holds a clue to how we interpret all the bad stuff. Because the surprises, good and bad, will always come. And the best way to handle them may be to share them, I think -- by helping each other through.

Here's a few thoughts I found from others on the web:

When Bad Things Happen
5 Tips on Talking to Kids About Scary News
How to Talk to Children About Difficult News

Girl: Alvaro


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Prepping for Zombies (and Other Disasters)

It's no secret I'm a fan of horror movies, and one of the things I like best is to vicariously live through someone's journey where all the most horrible things happen and they survive. Watching shows like The Walking Dead also make me think how completely unprepared I am for any sort of major disaster. Or even a minor one.

So that's easy--I wouldn't survive a zombie apocalypse. But what about the real stuff that could happen any old day? For example, do I know what to do if my brakes fail while I'm driving? No. Do I have an escape route in the case of (God forbid) home fire? I do, but what happens to my cat if we're not in the same room? Do I have a plan B if one of my escape routes is blocked? (I do, but God knows if that one would work).

What about a flood? Not a clue. Can I grow my own food? Are you kidding? Do I have water stockpiled in my basement in case of an emergency? Thankfully I do, but only because my husband stockpiled it. We do have a little bit of extra food down there in cans; we used to have more but it got so old I threw it out and then forgot to replace it.

Then there's emergencies like your child swallowing poison (again, God forbid) or being allergic to bee stings (as my husband happens to be). I think he told me what to do once, but I've forgotten it. Life is just so busy and it moves too fast, and though I want to be prepared and prepare everyone else in the family, I let it slide because it's not on my radar.

I'm writing this post today to remind myself that emergencies happen, and that it really, truly helps to be prepared. I know my son took a CPR course but I never did; and I never bothered to teach him any first aid skills, either.

Do you know them? Do you talk with your kids about escape routes, burglars (watching Home Alone doesn't count), first aid, water safety, growing food, finding water?

If the answer is no, but I should, then like me, I hope you are thinking it's not too late to start. I have planted seeds in gardens, and grown tiny little carrots and tasteless tomatoes, but hey, maybe that's at least a germ of what I could do if I really put my mind to it. If someone asked me what to do in case he or she was choking or having a heart attack though, I'd have no idea.

Maybe it's time to start asking those questions--and finding out where I can get some answers. I'm just thinking life is short enough already and I don't need to make it any shorter, right? Plus, kids tend to think this stuff is kind of fun, so maybe they can help with research. (If I had an 11 year old around the house, I'd get right on that.)

Couple of tips I found for learning and sharing safety information with your kids can be found here. Hope it helps you - and most of all ME - to get educated. And if you find anything about handling a zombie apocalypse, please, PLEASE. Let me know.

Kids - Ready.gov

Youth Preparedness – Children and Young Adult (Red Cross)

Getting Your Family Prepared for a Disaster

Zombie: Brad Montgomery