Here are some tips that might help...

1. Try and normalise what is happening to children - explain how the earth moves in any way that seems natural to you. Nigel Latta says that the earth is farting to bring some humour to the situation - or perhaps you will talk about how the plates in the earth move - or maybe that the land is like the sea sometimes and we have waves moving in it - or maybe that papatuanuku is rolling over in her bed - try and keep it light and matter-of-fact so that your children feel like it's an ok thing that is happening.

2. Talk about how safe we are - really help your children feel the safety of this present moment. Again in a matter-of-fact light way talk about how great your house is, how strong it is, how it can move and everything is ok. If you evacuated your home in the night talk about how great it is that the sirens went off and that we are always being looked after by the people who monitor things. Again normalise everything and keep it matter-of-fact. Lots of hugs and close contact if that helps your child too - and keep pointing out all the good things you can see - the trees, plants, birds, etc are all happy and fine .........

3. Help yourself first and then your child to settle the nervous system. We have been activated again and we need to consciously settle ourselves. To turn on the settling relaxing parasympathetic nervous system we need to breath into our belly. We do this by breathing in and feeling our belly expand a little (not a huge forced breath) and then as we breath out we feel our belly empty and soften and drop. Do this breathing with your child. Make it enjoyable by lying together or sitting close to each other. Sometimes children like to put there favourite soft toy on their belly and see it moving up and down when they breathe. Every now and again do some breathing together and remind your children of how safe we are, how great it is that people look after each other - and then do something that is enjoyable together - baking, colouring in, drawing, digging in the garden - anything that takes your whole attention. I have a audio track on soft-belly breathing on sound cloud at https://soundcloud.com/user-470864527/soft-belly-breathing-for check it out and see if it will be helpful for you and your children.

4. Last one - try not to check the news too much - it's very addictive to keep checking in to see what is happening - this tends to keep our nervous system on high alert - try and limit the time you spend talking about and hearing about the earthquake - try and keep your daily rhythm as normal as possible even though the children are not a school. See if you can connect with nature in some way today - go cloud watching or find some flowers for a vase - or press some flowers in a stack of books - go for a walk around the block, anything that connects you to nature.

- Neave Ross-Wallace BTchLn(EC), Dip PPD Gestalt (Psyc)

Mindfulness Teacher & Family Therapist