Children’s attachment-related narratives following US Gulf Coast hurricanes: Linkages with understanding and teacher stress

The central focus of this study was the perceptions of emotional security among 64 elementary school-aged children exposed to the hurricanes that affected the US Gulf Coast in 2005. Specifically, we examined the representational qualities of attachment, exploration, and caregiving as assessed with a narrative story-stem task in relation to parental reports of children’s exposure to the hurricanes, their knowledge of hurricanes, and their teacher’s exposure to the hurricanes. Knowledge of hurricanes was assessed with a new narrative method representing hurricane conditions wherein children were asked to tell stories about what hurricanes are and what damage they could do. Children’s narrative representations of attachment, exploration, and caregiving were unrelated to parental reports of their children’s exposure to the hurricanes but were significantly related to their knowledge of hurricanes, specifically the effects of hurricanes on people, and to teachers’ reported loss of property related to the hurricanes. The findings suggest that a core component of children’s representational models is the capacity for empathy for the experience of others.