Navigating The One Year Anniversary: Supporting Yourself and Your Children After the Palisades and Eaton Fires

As the one-year anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton Fires approaches, it’s common for emotions, memories, or stress responses to resurface—for both adults and children. For many families, these fires were traumatic experiences involving fear, disruption, and loss. Anniversaries can act as trauma and loss reminders, bringing memories, emotions, and physical stress responses back online, even when life in the present feels safe.

Why Anniversaries Can Feel Hard (for Adults and Kids)

Anniversaries of traumatic events can activate the brain and body’s internal alarm system. Trauma is not stored only as a memory or story—it is also encoded as a sensory experience: the sights, sounds, smells, body sensations, and emotions present during the event. Because of this, the nervous system can respond to reminders—like dates, seasonal changes, or conversations about the Palisades or Eaton Fires—as if the danger is happening again, even though the present moment is safe. The body may tense, the heart may race, or feelings of fear, worry, or sadness may arise automatically, before the thinking brain has a chance to catch up.

If this is happening in your home, you are not doing anything wrong. Your nervous system is simply remembering, and your brain is doing what it is naturally designed to do: protect you.

Common Trauma Anniversary Reactions

Anniversary reactions can look different across ages and individuals.

In adults, this may include:

• Increased anxiety, irritability, or emotional sensitivity
• Sleep disturbances or persistent fatigue
• Heightened vigilance or worries about safety
• Physical symptoms such as muscle tension, headaches, or stomach discomfort
• Feeling emotionally flooded when reminded of the fires

In children and teens, reactions may show up as:

• Younger children: clinginess, separation anxiety, tantrums, regression, or physical complaints (stomachaches, headaches)
• School-age children: withdrawal, irritability, difficulty concentrating, increased worry
• Teens: mood swings, avoidance of reminders or conversations, heightened perception of risk or danger

These responses are not signs of weakness or failure—they are common and understandable reactions to a traumatic anniversary. Those struggling with PTSD may also experience flashbacks, intrusive memories or thoughts, and upsetting dreams.

How to Support Yourself

Children look to the adults around them for cues about safety and coping. Supporting your own nervous system is one of the most powerful ways to help your child feel secure.

Strategies for self-support:

• Have a plan in place: Anticipate that emotions may rise around this anniversary. Consider simplifying schedules, reducing demands, and building in rest. Some families also choose activities that create meaning or connection, like spending time together, donating to a charity, or lighting a candle. Preparing ahead can make reactions feel more manageable.
• Ground the body: Trauma often shows up in physical sensations. Slow breathing, stepping outside to walk, stretching, or planting your feet firmly on the ground can signal safety to your nervous system.
• Orient to safety: Actively noticing safe objects or using grounding exercises like 5-4-3-2-1 (5 things you see, 4 you hear, 3 you feel, 2 you smell, 1 you taste) helps your brain recognize that you are safe in the moment and that the danger has passed. You can also place a hand on your heart and say: “I am safe. The fire was then, and I’m safe here and now.”
• Limit re-exposure to triggers via media: Reduce exposure to fire-related news, social media images, or videos that intensify stress. Staying informed is okay – staying flooded is not.
• Lean on connection: Spend time with people who feel steady, understanding, or calming. Shared routines, companionship, and feeling understood help the nervous system settle.
• Practice self-kindness: Strong emotions don’t mean you’ve “moved backward.” Healing isn’t linear. Meeting yourself with patience and compassion models healthy coping for your children.

How to Support Children and Teens

1. Prioritize self-regulation.

Children look to adults for cues about safety. When a parent is calm and regulated, it signals to a child’s nervous system that the environment is safe. This is called “co-regulation”—a steady presence helping a child regulate emotions and physiology.

2. Keep routines steady and flexible.

Predictable routines help children feel safe, while flexibility allows space for extra rest or emotional needs. Both structure and gentleness support regulation.

3. Re-frame the Behavior

Children’s anniversary reactions often appear as tantrums, irritability, anger, clinginess, avoidance, or physical complaints. These behaviors are not intentional misbehavior. A helpful reframe is:

“My child isn’t giving me a hard time. My child is having a hard time.”

During trauma anniversaries, children need connection, understanding, and support—even if they can’t ask for it—not more discipline.

4. Talk About It Gently and Explore the Family Story from a Resilient Lens

Children need warmth, honesty, and emotional availability more than perfect words. Following their lead, validating their feelings, and connecting around the present moment through a resilient lens can help them feel safe and supported.

Tips for Guiding the Conversation:

• Name what happened briefly: Keep it simple without activating details.
  • “The fires last year were scary and disruptive.”
  • “That was a hard time for our family.”
• Notice helpers and support over the year: Invite children to name people that helped them feel safe or cared for.
  • Firefighters, neighbors, teachers, family, friends, or community members.
• Highlight strengths and resilience: Be specific and genuine about what you noticed in your child or family.
  • “When your sister was missing our home, you stayed close and offered comfort … that made a real difference.”
  • “I noticed how brave you were starting at a new school and making new friends. That took a lot of courage and effort over the last year.”
  • “As a family, we checked in on each other and spent extra time together when things were hard.”
• Notice growth along the way: Even small achievements count. Encourage children to reflect on changes or accomplishments over the past year.
  • New friendships, trying a new activity, meaningful routines, or skills like patience, teamwork, or flexibility.
• Anchor the story in the present: Bring attention to the here and now, what helps them feel safe, calm, or proud today.
  • “What helps you feel safe these days?”
  • “Who do you go to when you need comfort?”
  • “What is something that you’re grateful for today?”

5. Explore Coping Strategies

Helping children engage in coping strategies can make it easier to manage trauma reminders. Every child is different, so it’s important to try out different strategies and see what works best for your child. Some research-backed approaches include:

• Deep Breathing: Slow, steady breaths to help the nervous system settle.
• Safe Place Visualization: Imagining a calm, comforting space where they feel secure. Children can close their eyes and picture a favorite place, real or imaginary, and notice details using all 5 senses.
• Physical Movement: Stretching, walking, dancing, or yoga/animal poses to release tension.
• Expressive Activities: Drawing, painting, journaling, or music to process feelings.
• Positive Self-Talk: Encouraging statements like “I’m safe right now” or “This feeling will pass.”
• Sensory Soothing: Engaging the senses can calm hyperarousal or stress. Examples: soft fabrics, fidget toys, soft fabrics, warm bath, listening to calming music, smelling a favorite scent.
• Structured Creative Play: Building blocks, sand, water, or other hands-on play that provides control and focus.
• Connection and Social Support: Spending time with trusted adults, friends, or safe group activities.
• Nature Connection: Spending time outside, noticing sights, sounds, and textures in nature.

6. When to seek professional support:

Reach out for trauma-informed mental health support if:

• Trauma reminders continue to overwhelm despite the use of coping strategies
• Distress lasts or intensifies over weeks
• Sleep, school, work, or relationships are affected
• Emotional or physical reactions feel unmanageable
• Getting timely support can promote healthier long-term coping.

A Final Message

Anniversaries of traumatic events like the Palisades and Eaton Fires can be challenging, but they also offer an opportunity to practice compassion, connection, and resilience.

Your presence, attunement, and willingness to name what’s hard are already doing more than you realize. By showing up for yourself and your family with patience and care, you reinforce a powerful message: hard memories can be held safely, and families can continue moving forward together.

If this resonates, consider sharing it with another parent who might be quietly carrying the same weight. No one should navigate trauma anniversaries alone.