FAMILY READY · CALM PLANS
How can parents teach children when to shelter indoors and when to leave the house during severe weather?
Severe weather guidance varies by hazard and locality. This article helps parents teach children the basic decision principles they need: listen to adults, follow local emergency alerts, know where your home’s safest room is, and recognise when a quick, calm evacuation to higher ground or an outside meeting place is necessary. Keep plans jurisdiction-neutral and follow your local weather service, emergency management office, or public safety authorities during an actual event. Use the Ready.gov, Red Cross, and CDC materials as complementary resources for family planning.
Core concepts children can understand
Simplify the difference: sheltering indoors means staying inside in a safe room away from windows; evacuating means leaving the house and going to a prearranged higher ground or shelter. Use simple phrases such as “Go inside and stay low” versus “We need to go now to our safe place.”
Emphasise listening to adults and local alerts. Teach children that an adult will tell them whether to shelter or leave, and that they should do so promptly. Introduce the idea that sometimes authorities will tell families to leave and sometimes to stay put, and both are actions to follow.
Age-flexible, low-cost teaching steps
Preschoolers (3–5 years): Use role play and visual cues. Point out the home’s safe room and practise walking there with a short story about staying together. Use pictures to show the difference between “stay inside” and “go out.”
Early elementary (6–10 years): Introduce simple alert language. Explain that certain sounds, words on the radio, or an app message from a trusted adult might say “shelter now” or “evacuate now.” Practice both short shelter-in-place routines and a calm, quick exit to the meeting place.
Older children and teens (11–17 years): Discuss the reasons behind shelter vs evacuate decisions at a high level—such as wind, flooding, or fire—and how those decisions come from local authorities. Practise packing a small grab-and-go kit and walking to a nearby meeting point if evacuation is needed.
Practising scenarios while avoiding anxiety
Use brief, non-threatening practices. For shelter drills, practise moving to the safe room and crouching low for one minute, then resume normal activities. For evacuation practice, walk the actual route to your meeting place at a relaxed pace and return home after a short debrief.
Clarity over detail. Keep explanations general and avoid vivid descriptions of damage. During practice, emphasise that these steps are routines that help families stay together and comfortable until help arrives.