Powerful Keys to Emergency Preparedness

Emergency preparedness is so much more than plans, products, or supplies when lives depend on it. We don’t want to consider the possibility of a tragedy such as a natural disaster affecting our families. But preparing for emergencies ahead of time and talking about emergency plans with all the members of your family can help everyone remain calm and safe if disaster strikes–and could even be the difference between life and death. September is National Preparedness Month. Take this opportunity to create, revise, or rehearse your family’s emergency plans, and get tips for preparing for, responding to, and recovering from an emergency.

Preparing for an Emergency

This resource from the American Red Cross can help you prepare your children for many types of emergencies. Each potentially catastrophic event listed has suggestions for before, during, and after the event.

If disaster should strike, would you have all of your critical information handy and ready to move with you on a moment’s notice? Creating a family emergency binder with phone numbers and contact information, financial information, copies of vital documents, medical information, legal documents, and insurance information can help make a stressful time more manageable. You can use the instructions on this page to create a family emergency preparedness kit as well as an emergency plan. The resources also include downloadable forms, information on fighting cabin fever, and what you should do next.

This Homeschool Living shares some excellent resources for building your home first aid kit, and great tips for teaching basic first aid skills in your homeschool.

Responding to an Emergency

This list of five medical emergencies and how to respond can help you stay calm and provide the most assistance should you be faced with a common emergency situation such as choking, chest pain, bleeding, and more.

It’s especially important for young children to be familiar with the function of emergency responders. Yolanthe at Homeschool Creations has created a delightful preschool unit study about policemen and women, complete with lots of printables for fine-motor skills, number skills, shape recognition, and much more. This link takes you to her blog where she shares the details of how she designed and used the study with her son, and is a must read before you head over to the page with links for the free printables. In addition to preschool resources, she also has links for kindergarten pages, a police lap book, and vocabulary cards.

Yolanthe also has a printable pack focused on firefighters. As with the police unit, it helps to start with reading-related picture books.

Check out this Homeschool Living for some great resources on how to deal with a power outage.

Recovering from an Emergency

While a disaster can leave you with all kinds of questions, one of the most troubling is wondering why God would allow such a thing to happen. This article from Crosswalk.com shares four ways to praise God through natural disasters.