CHILDREN IN THE MIDDLE OF DISASTER

In the late of last year, The National Commission of Children Protection (KOMNAS Perlindungan Anak) reports disclosed that almost 40,3 million child in Indonesia have been disregarded their rights during 2007. About 33,9 million among them because of their education slighted, and another 6,36 million didn’t get an adequate health-care and experience exploitation.

Nowadays, after various catastrophe and infectious diseases which cause widespread deaths, we have another embedded potency to completing our failure in fulfilling children rights; which is provide a secure and stable environment for our child.

With those consecutive disaster that happened and experienced by child, we failure to guarantee, provides and also manages a peaceful world for them. This failure becomes enough crucial, because negative impacts which possible emerge do not as clear as physical impacts that usually seen after disaster.

It’s because disaster could trigger, in children thought, an interpretation about inhospitable environment which do not give them safeness to grow up. Disaster not only causes a physical damage, but also has possibility to result in an emotional impact as convinced as psychical ruination.
          
          Basic Assumptions Crumble
Several study of the psychological impact of catastrophe, according to Dr Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, psychologist from University of Massachusetts, finding that natural disaster holds something in common in its psychic impact with what may seem a minor crisis, such as witnessing a brutal crime.

One of those emotional impact is ‘the sense of benign world’ collapsed. This sense is the feeling about a world which full of friendliness and kindliness, can be controlled and fair. And refer to Erik H Erikson’s stage of psycho-social development, a foremost psychoanalyst; this feeling is the part of basic trust, that is forms during early life, as early as the first two or three years of age.

This sense of basic trust attributes the feeling that the world is a predictable place in which good things will come to you. And from that the child comes to see himself as worthy of that kind of care. These beliefs are at the core of a person’s most basic sense of himself and the world.

Children with a sense of ‘inner certainty' experiences the social world as a safe, stable place and people as nurturant and reliable. Children learn to trust external world, as well as learning to trust themselves. But, being victimized directly by disaster could interrupt these developmental processes.

Catastrophe, unexpectedly, causes the most basic assumption about us and the world are undermine. Its attack our deeply held beliefs; basic trust and sense of inner certainty. Suddenly all the world seems malevolent. Our sense of invulnerability crumbled. And because the two beliefs are so intimately linked, said to Dr Janoff-Bulman, we lose not only our sense that the world is safe for us, but that we are worthy of that safety.

Another negative impact when children victimized by disaster is because this incident could leads children to ask, 'why me?' Children may start looking at themselves, and try to find something to blame it on; to justify and make this horrible fate seems reasonable in their mind. That leads them to highlight the negative aspect of themselves, and at the same time can lower their self-esteem. In a few serious case, its cause syndrome of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and victim may undergo a diminished sense of self-worth for ten or fifteen years.

In fact, for professor Erikson, the behavioral consequences of that seriously defective development of basic trust are acute depression in infants and paranoia in adult. Both consequences that we don’t expected.
          
          Reduce Negative Impact
Professor Erikson’s theory of psycho-social development consistent with the epigenetic principle, which is postulate that crisis and developmental stage at childhood are not happened and resolved at that moment. Each development stage, and any crisis of it, not permanently left; it’s reappears at each successive stage of development, and forms the dynamics of personality.

Thereby, psychological recovery process to deal with ‘crisis of basic trust’ at child which victimized by disaster, is a worthy act for development of mental health of our child in future. As recognized to most psychologists, the sense of basic trust is the cornerstone of a healthy personality.

Whenever child becomes victimized by a disaster, they feel the most helpless and passive when confronted by overwhelming danger, and require psychological assistance to reestablish their mental equilibrium. This psychological recovery, which properly done by professional and voluntary help (from para-professional and volunteer), is also significant part to the entire recovery process after disaster.

Our manifestations to foster the psycho-social development of our child are not only through better understanding to the possibility of psychological breakdown after disaster, but also our responsibilities to returning and creating better world for our children. It’s quite helpful, if we look after our environment constantly, producing and also improving an ecological awareness to reducing disaster appearance which is frequently cause by our carelessness.

Even though disaster become unavoidable incident, the important awareness that we ought to kept is to ascertain those disaster not emerge a fatal impact, both physical and psychological, to us and especially to our children.