My 9 Yr Old Is TERRIFIED of Tornados!! Help!

First off, a counselor is not going to recommend medication right off the bat. Please give them more credit than automatically medicating without developing any sort of relationship with their clients.

First, you should consider your own son's logic: there have been deaths from tornadoes in Texas in the news. In fact, imagine being your son and possibly seeing a headline like this one:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/east-texas-tornadoe...

Kids can pick up on a lot more than we give them credit for. Instead of trying to convince him that his fear is unfounded, or that you need to 'fix' him... what your son needs is to be empowered. So, make a tornado plan. What do you all do if one occurs? What's going to happen? Do you have tornado sirens where you live? Does your area do text emergency alerts? Can you sign up for something like this? These are common sense things which can be done. Make an emergency tornado plan and practice it.

Regarding going outside: last summer, my son (nine then, by the way, I do think there's something developmental about this) was freaked out about bees. He didn't want to come out and help me pick berries or play outside. I decided, fine, but you can't just hang out playing video games. I chose not to be mad at him. He had been stung by a bee a couple years before, totally random, and he was pretty scared because of the pain he'd experienced. He eventually got over it; in part because we keep Mason bees and the males don't sting, so he could hold them when we collected the eggs in the fall (we opened a few to assure they were fully adult before hibernating them). The point of this is, over time, he became more comfortable. He still keeps his distance from honeybees, but doesn't really change his behavior any longer. The point of all this: be patient. Empower him, reassure him, and then let him work it out.

Please do not be afraid to speak to a psychologist. A psychologist is not going to suggest meds right off the bat. Psychologists can't prescribe meds. When our so met with a psychologist, he spoke with me first and later with our son. He talked to me about his observations and that made another appointment (a few weeks later?) to see him again. It was only after those two appointments that he really talked to us about what to do next.

It's not uncommon for kids to have fears, even extreme fears. Our boys have asked about tornadoes often. I remind them that it has to be crazy windy and that there is usually rain. I also remind them of the tornado sirens and that we have a basement in our house, so we would be in a very safe place.

I'm guessing you've already said many of those things. Fears don't always respond to logic. Please don't be afraid of speaking with a psychologist or counselor. Your pediatrician might be able to give you ideas or steer you in the right direction. But a psychologist is not going to just recommend meds. Remember, they chose psychology, not psychiatry, so they are definitely less included towards meds, anyway.

There was a tornado that went through my parents' neighborhood last summer when we were visiting. My son heard the tornado sirens go off and saw everyone racing into the basement. He saw us standing around the television watching the live coverage of the storm's path. And he saw the damage and destruction outside after the storm, including the tree on our car. He was 5 at the time, and he was terrified for months that there was going to be another tornado. We couldn't tell him that he didn't need to worry about tornadoes because his chances of being one were slim. He had seen the reality of the situation. So we instead focused on empowering him.

* We watched recorded television coverage of another storm with him. We showed him how meteorologists can predict the path of a storm, down to the neighborhood level. We explained to him that we can't prevent tornadoes, but they rarely happen without advanced notification. And that advanced notification gives us the chance to get to safety.

* We explained to him that in our community storm sirens are tested at noon each Wednesday. We told him that this is done so that we can be certain that they'll work if there's a storm.

* We reminded him that it's important that we know where he is at all times, so that if there's bad weather we can come and get him.

* We told him that the safest place to be in a tornado is the basement, and he helped us put flashlights and other supplies in the basement.

* When he started kindergarten, he was anxious and immediately asked the teacher where the basement was. She was incredibly kind and took the time to give him his own personal lesson on what happens at school if there's a tornado.

* Whenever he talked about 'grandma's tornado', we also reminded him that after that storm there was an overwhelming amount of support from the community. People drove through the neighborhoods with chain saws and offered to help complete strangers-- including us-- with cleaning up their yards, all at no charge. It reminded me so much of what Mr. Roger's mother always told him when he saw scary things: "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

It took a few months, but he got past his fear. He now has a healthy respect for Mother Nature.

You are correct that you need to address it.

Hurricanes and tornadoes are no joke. Even here in NYC, Hurricane Sandy was very destructive and some people are still recovering from residual effects to this day.

Empower your son. Teach him about tornado safety. Do internet or library research with him about tornado facts and tornado history.

Knowledge is power - if you can help your son to feel "strong" with the power of his knowledge, that is a great way to conquer his fears.

I am terrified of wind, in storms. If the winds are expected to be over 60/65 I go to my shelter because I do not think my house will withstand those high winds. Has it ever failed even in stronger winds? No. But it terrifies me to hear the wind hitting the house and making it shake even a little bit.

Tornadoes? I am already in my shelter when anything like that is near me.

There are ways you can address this. Knowledge is a good thing. I have a young friend, age 13, that is terrified of storms. She freaks out days before they are predicted for anywhere within a hundred miles of us. She has numerous weather apps on her phone and is constantly watching for storm forecasts.

I have worked with her to help her recognize storm....levels...for lack of a better word.

I take her to Intellicast.com. I like Intellicast because it does NOT show lots of yellow, orange, red, purple, etc....in the storms. It has lots of green which is mostly rain. Some radar images are violent mixes of raging colors that confuse a kid. Intellicast doesn't do that.

I show her radar of the storms coming at us. I ask her about the intense colors and how dangerous it looks. I help her to understand that it's just a storm and if it has rotation in it or not. If there is rotation, has it produced any tornadoes? How high are the winds? Is it on the southern end of the storm? (That's almost always where tornadoes seem to form near us). I ask her questions that cause her to think, reason, ponder, and figure out what the storm is probably going to be like.

You have very few tornadic storms in your area. There have been a few but most of the time they go over Oklahoma and Kansas.

Next, have a concrete safety plan.

If your family is at home and a severe storm in coming towards your area, what do you do? Do you sit around and wait to see what happens? Do you watch the TV to make sure what is going on? Do you have a storm shelter you can go to? Do you have a safe place that will protect you if an F-5 is barreling towards you and will be there in a few minutes? Do you have a friend with a basement or storm shelter that would let your family come there when a severe storm in expected? You can all go over before it even hits and watch TV of play games or hang out. Then if sirens sound you are already in your safe place or can simply walk to the safe place in seconds. This helps everyone feel safer overall. Knowing you don't have to get to your vehicle, drive somewhere in a tornado, then try to get out and go into a safe place...that's nerve wracking and scary, especially for kids.

Does his school have a safety plan? Do they have a poured in basement? Do they have a safe room? Is he safe at school? We had a tornado go through Moore OK a few years ago and it hit an elementary school directly and children died along with several adults. The movie, "Where Was God" was about it.

Overall, help him learn about storms and tornadoes and how to find the weather forecast so he can feel safe and understand that a thunderstorm/severe storm don't mean tornado. They don't even mean possible damages or anything.

Then have a plan that he knows and understands and practices. I have friends who have a tornado drill each week when the city tests the sirens. When they go off the kids drop what they're doing and run to our house and get to our safe place. They don't do this if they're at school but the school does have a poured in basement and they have tornado drills every month.

Feeling safe and knowing when he's in danger will help him work through this.

A psychologist won't prescribe medications, as they are not licensed medical doctors. A psychologist is usually a therapist who can be very helpful when dealing with fears or trauma or any difficult situation. However, in certain situations, a psychologist might recommend treatment by a psychiatrist who can prescribe meds.

My daughter's psychologist helped her with a fear by teaching her the power of being prepared. You might help your son develop a tornado preparedness plan. We had one when we lived in Kansas for a short while. Everyone had a job to do when a tornado warning was issued (unplug electronics to avoid surges, gather the bag with flashlights and batteries and essential medications which we kept in an easy-to-access place, know where the safe spot was in the house and go there, gather some water bottles and basic snacks, etc). The safe spot was a central bathroom that was secure. We also decided that if we didn't get sufficient warning we would only gather the emergency flashlight/medication bag and get to the safe spot. Nothing else mattered.

My daughter's fear wasn't of tornadoes, but still, when she realized there was a plan in place for her particular fear, and when she was part of the preparing for it and establishing our emergency plan, she felt more empowered and less fearful.

But don't hesitate to take your son to a psychologist who deals specifically with children. And participate in the sessions. You will most likely get some ideas and ways to help your son (breathing techniques, words to say and not say, etc) so be prepared to learn right alongside your son.