Supporting Children and Teenagers After the Crans-Montana Fire: A Grounded, Compassionate Guide for Parents

In the aftermath of the Crans-Montana fire in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, many families are grieving and living with shock, uncertainty, and strong emotional reactions. I wish to extend my deepest condolences for those affected by this tragedy.

Many may feel helpless and confused how to support their family members. Reflecting from the psychological therapy framework called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) perspective, the following ideas are offered here as a reassurance: there is no “right” way for children and teenagers to respond to a frightening event. What matters most is how safe and understood they feel in the days and weeks that follow.

1. Understand trauma responses as normal reactions:

Children, teenagers, and adolescents may show distress in different ways depending on their age, temperament, and prior experiences. You might notice anxiety, irritability, sleep difficulties, clinginess, emotional numbing, physical complaints, anger, withdrawal, or risk-taking behaviours. These are not signs of weakness or pathology but the the nervous systems’ attempts to try to do their best to adapt after a threat. Fear, sadness, confusion, and anger are understandable responses to what has happened. From an ACT perspective, we should not try to avoid eliminating feelings.

2. Create safety through presence, not pressure:

You do not need to have perfect answers. What children and adolescents need most is calm and attuned presence.

• Let them know you are available to listen, without forcing them to talk.

• Use simple, honest language, avoiding graphic details.

• Reassure them about current safety, while acknowledging uncertainty when it exists.

Teenagers and adolescents especially may oscillate between wanting closeness and pushing it away. This is normal. Staying emotionally available without interrogating or minimising builds trust.

3. Help them make room for difficult emotions:

ACT teaches us that fighting emotions often increases suffering. As a parent, caregiver, or as an adult in any other supportive role, you can model emotional openness by naming feelings gently:

“It makes sense that your body still feels on edge after something so scary.”

Encourage children, teenagers and adolescents to notice emotions as experiences that come and go, rather than something wrong with them. Younger children may express this through play, drawing, or movement; teenagers may prefer music, journaling, or silence.

4. Support the nervous system with grounding activities and routine:

After a crisis, the body needs signals of safety. Small, practical steps matter:

• Maintain regular meals, sleep routines, hobbies, activities, and school attendance when possible

• Encourage gentle physical activity (walking, stretching, time outdoors) and fresh air, connect with nature

• Practice grounding together: slow breathing, noticing five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear

• Physical contact, hugging, holding hands, cuddling on the sofa, wearing soft and comforting clothes, having a hot bath, tucking under comforting blankets, can contribute to a sense of safety.

These actions can to help regulate the nervous system and contribute reducing ongoing stress reactions.

5. Reconnect with values and meaning:

Traumatic and scary events can narrow life around fear. Ideas from ACT framework, can help widen it again by reconnecting with values and what matters even in hard times. As a family, you might gently explore:

• “What kind of people do we want to be when things are difficult?”

• “How can we show care, courage, or kindness right now?”

This might look like helping a neighbour, expressing gratitude, maintaining friendships, or simply taking care of one another.

6. Know when to seek professional support

If intense distress persists for several weeks, worsens over time, or significantly interferes with daily functioning, professional help can be essential. This includes persistent nightmares, panic, emotional shutdown, self-harm, or major behavioural changes. Trauma-informed therapy can provide a safe, structured space for processing what happened and restoring a sense of agency.

You do not have to carry this alone, and you do not have to be perfect. Showing up with steadiness, honesty, and compassion towards your child and yourself is already a powerful protective factor. Healing after a critical incident or a crisis event is not about erasing what happened, but about helping young people learn that even after fear and loss, life can continue with connection, meaning, and hope.

About grief and grieving

It is also important to remember that grief and grieving are normal human experiences, not medical conditions. After events like the Crans-Montana fire, children, teenagers and adolescents may grieve many things at once, in addition to the loss of a person:  a sense of safety, the future events without the person or imagined futures, familiar places, and shared routines. Grief does not follow a straight line, and it does not need to be “fixed.” Most human beings are inherently resilient when they are met with understanding, stability, and care.

A crucial part of this support lies with adults’ willingness to reflect on their own comfort with strong emotions. Children often need us not to rescue them from sadness, fear, or anger, but to contain these feelings without becoming overwhelmed, dismissive, or avoidant. When adults can tolerate and hold another person’s emotional experience with steadiness and empathy, children learn that difficult feelings are survivable, can be shared, and do not have to be faced alone.Therefore, it is vital that adults and parents also attend to their own wellbeing. Supporting children, adolescents, and teenagers, or any other person in general, through crisis, requires emotional energy, regulation, and patience. These resources can be harder to access if and when adults are depleted or overwhelmed themselves. This may mean allowing yourself to grieve, seeking support from trusted others or professionals, limiting exposure to distressing news, and tending to basic needs such as rest, nourishment, and moments of calm. When adults acknowledge their own limits and care for themselves with compassion, they model healthy coping and create the emotional steadiness that children and teenagers rely on for safety and reassurance.

Communal rituals also play an essential role in grieving and recovery, especially after shared traumatic events. Rituals can help make loss visible, offer structure when words are insufficient, and remind children, young people and adults alike that grief is held collectively, not in isolation. This may include community and social gatherings, moments of silence at school, lighting candles, creating memory walls or drawings, planting trees, writing messages or letters, or participating in cultural or faith-based ceremonies. Remembering victims through stories, shared symbols, anniversaries, or acts of care allows grief to be integrated rather than avoided, and affirms that those affected and those lost continue to matter within the living community.

Lastly, focusing also on the good and recognizing helpers after a crisis is vital for psychological recovery, community resilience, and moral. Recognizing collective action and mutual support strengthens social bonds, and also, reinforce the sense that the community can face adversity together. These perspectives can balance and foster hope and aid the healing process.