Emergency Workers and Their Children

Many thanks go to those people who filled out the short questionnaire conducted by Lesley Tunnecliffe. Lesley was interested in the impact of work in stressful occupations, such as emergency personnel, and the way they interacted with their children. Results were presented at the 1999 International Critical Incident Stress Conference in Baltimore, USA.

The study was concerned with some myths about the family life of emergency workers. This showed in behaviours such as:

• not talking to their children.
• not treating their children according to the needs and skills of their age
• allowing their children to get all their information from TV
• different emergency services attract different types of people
• gender differences between workers and how they treat their children.

Who responded to the questionnaire? 58 people responded. Half were police, the rest were ambulance, fire & rescue and SES. Over 80% were males. Just under 80% were permanent, the rest were volunteers. They had children ranging in age from babies to young adults.

1. What questions did children ask?
   Many children asked for specific information, but many asked socially `What did you do today?', especially adolescents. Some were prompted by specific events, often reported on the media or in rumours.
2. What information was given to the children?
   Questions were answered, with editing of the information at all ages. Editing was usually to remove gory aspects, but also to teach a value or moral.
3. Do your children tell others about your work?
   Most children told their friends, with a peak in the early primary school. In adolescence, over half of the children were talking about their parent's job. This was occasionally encouraged by parents. A similar number of parents discouraged this, mostly with adolescents because of confidentiality issues. This pattern of encouraging or discouraging seemed more a matter of the style of the worker, and did not change regardless of the age of their children.
4. Do you tell your child about an event if you are likely to be on TV?
   Two-thirds of workers would tell their child beforehand. 10% would have their partner (the child's other parent) present at this time. Almost half would provide extra information beyond the TV coverage, though the level of detail varied, and most of these were to correct `inaccuracies' in the coverage. This pattern persisted because of the style of the worker, not the age of the children.
5. Does your behaviour towards your children change after a stressful event?
   One-third to one-half were aware of playing or talking more and becoming more protective. Only a few played or talked less, often as a quiet time before joining in family activities. Some got their partner to tell the children if they had been to a very stressful event. Individual comments pointed to the awareness of importance of values and feelings, and the importance of family after these events. However, most were conscious of trying not to take work stress home, and talking to their work mates to defuse or wind down.

Conclusions:

1. Most emergency workers do respond age appropriately to their children's queries.
2. Emergency workers do talk to their children and answer their questions. The type and amount of information given was often influenced by the style of the worker (which may reflect their personality or value systems)
3. Emergency workers often correct TV versions and place an emphasis on morality.
4. Parenting styles did not noticeably change across types of emergency worker Observed differences probably reflect personality differences.
5. There was no noticeable gender differences in parenting. Observed differences probably reflect personality differences.

A comment on one of the responses... "Parenting is the hardest job of all."