{"id":26875,"date":"2025-06-30T10:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T10:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26875\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T10:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T10:27:14","slug":"how-to-help-your-kids-deal-with-thunderstorm-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26875\/","title":{"rendered":"How to help your kids deal with thunderstorm anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) &#8211; During a severe weather event, such as thunderstorms, kids\u2019 anxiety can increase. Psychologists at Sanford Health say that having a plan during a thunderstorm can help reduce stress and anxiety significantly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIf we hear sirens, we know this is our safe place to go in the house to keep ourselves safe,\u201d said Dr. Katelyn Mickelson, Sanford Health. \u201cHave examples of people who did those things and kept themselves safe, and can be reassured that they\u2019ll be ok if the storm does hit again.\u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sanfordhealth.org\/parenting\/help-calm-your-childs-fears\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/news.sanfordhealth.org\/parenting\/help-calm-your-childs-fears\/\">Common signs<\/a> of fear or anxiety during a thunderstorm or at any time, for that matter, can be nausea, stomachache, crying, or heavy breathing. The type of talk that you should have with your kids should also depend on their developmental skills. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBe more transparent with kids in the developmentally appropriate age,\u201d Mickelson said. \u201cSo the story grows as the child grows, so at a very young age if I\u2019m working with a 2 or 3 year-old, I might say \u201dyup there\u2019s a scary storm outside and we\u2019re going to be in the basement and it helps keep us safe if there\u2019s really heavy winds and we need to be safe. Whereas a 12-13-year-old, you might be more open about the weather pattern we\u2019re seeing, how far away this is, and so we\u2019re going to be in the basement for that reason.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">During a severe weather event, having your kids be on some type of electronic device can also be beneficial. While daily screen time can vary by age, having the screen during the entire event can be beneficial. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat would be a very appropriate time to have the screen so that they can have something to distract themselves,\u201d Mickelson said. \u201cOr have some toys in your weather preparedness kit so they can have something they can play with and be special during that time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For the night of Friday, June 26, the Valley News Live weather team is tracking severe storm risks. More information on up-to-date storms can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.valleynewslive.com\/weather\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.valleynewslive.com\/weather\/\">here. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KVLY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) &#8211; During a severe weather event, such as thunderstorms, kids\u2019 anxiety can increase.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1736,23443,23442,210,251,517,3880,23440,23441,23439,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-26875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-anxiety","9":"tag-cass-county","10":"tag-fargo","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-kids","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-north-dakota","15":"tag-sanford-health","16":"tag-screentime","17":"tag-thunderstorm-anxiety","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114771843435513826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}