A friend was with her child when the earthquake struck the East Coast the other day. They were still feeling the earthquake aftershocks when the child pounded her with questions that made her more dizzy.

How do you talk to yours kid about an earthquake? If they’re not experiencing this, they can see it happening from watching news on the television, or seeing it online.

First of all, if the earthquake was something you’ve experience, the first thing to teach your child is to remain calm. Your fears can rub off on your children. They can easily pick this up and you may be trigger a trauma that will never go away. Look into the tips from FEMA for disaster preparedness.

Second, if she has any questions about what happened, be patient and answer her questions. If you are unsure about the answers, you can always tell her that you both have to find out more from the news. Watch credible updates together and from there, guide her into what is happening. Don’t overwhelm her with so much information, though. Some kids can have very wild imagination that can compound their fears.

Remind her that earthquakes are something that happen to the earth all the time, it’s just that we don’t feel most of it often. You can also teach her about the earthquake by asking her what she knows and how she feels. Ask her about what she may have picked up form school and then expound these to her even more.

As we know, most children won’t dare open a book when it’s summer time believing that their vacation is best spent playing or lounging and relaxing. Reading is basically associated with school and understandably no one wants to do that for summer.

But summer reading helps kids, especially those still trying to learn to read, to enhance their ability. The lull can affect their reading habits, which may make it harder for them to bounce back to once school starts. It’s also a great way to spend summer productively by setting at least an hour or two of reading time.

1. You can organize a kids book club within your neighborhood. Kids are usually participate more when activities are done with groups of people. Aside from reading, book club discussions help kids hone their communication skills. You can also encourage the children to be avid bookworms by exchanging books with their co-members.

2. Assign books that also have movie versions. Today, you have a lot of books to pick from where a movie or TV adaptation is also done. This makes reading activities much more fun because essentially, kids are more attuned to visual media such as movies and television. So, this may spark their interest into reading. You can set a week for reading and then culminate this with watching its movie version after.

3. Don’t limit the choices, you can also go with graphic novels. There are plenty of graphic novels with really interesting weaves in their stories and it’s something that children will particularly enjoy.

With news of destruction coming on the internet and television regularly, children are also able to get easy access to it. I’m sure many parents have had their sons and daughters ask them what is going on in Japan and for younger kids, it’s much harder for them to grasp the reality.

How do you talk to children about the sad events happening today? How do you make them understand without raising fears? Some kids tend to develop this because of pictures and stories they have seen. I know of one child who has become clingy towards her mother lately, that she refuses to enter school.

Some parents deal with this by helping kids take their mind off it and enjoy being….well, kids. Going shopping, enjoying the simple pleasures of life such as eating ice cream or taking the dog out for a walk could spark renewed hope. Then there are those that deal with the effects head on and discuss it with their children, addressing their questions and giving them a realistic picture of what is going on. I also know of other parents who let their kids, as young as six years old, get involved with donations and fund drives.

None of these coping mechanisms, of course, can be better over the other, it really depends on your child and how you handle it with them.

Observe your children and you will know the best way to help them cope.

The Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a study recently, in relation to how much kids know or spend time with technology. The results show that most children spend 7 1/2 hours in a day using their computer, watching television, texting and using their smartphone or tinkering with other digital gadgets. The situation has since changed so much since five years ago, the study said.

Many of the gadgets are easily accessible to kids. They can bring this anywhere, even when tagging along during short drives to the nearest store with their parents.

Families with children even as young as three all know too well how this situation looks like. I’ve had my friends complain they couldn’t even share computer time with their kids since they hog the technology so much.

But that is not the real problem. Many parents are worried that kids may be spending too much time in front of these digital devices, without really learning a lot.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation expert, Dr. Rich Whether, however, denying these children use of these gadget is pointless. The expert’s suggestion? “Digital media are as much a part of kids’ lives as the air they breathe. Whether this is good or bad is a moot point now—the real challenge is figuring out how to help our children benefit from high-tech tools while still making sure that they are playing and learning in the tried-and-true ways.”

In the 80′s parents were concerned about how much time kids spent time watching shows on television. What we need as parents are effective ways of adapting to these advancements and changes, because these are not going away or disappear from our lifestyle anymore.

Heidi Klum is set and looking forward to hosting a show called Seriously Funny Kids on the Lifetime network. Klum will be hosting and starring in the new unscripted (‘reality’) program early next year.

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