Vacationing is synonymous with fun, adventure, and making memories that last a lifetime for the entire family. When traveling to parts of the world where malaria is a threat, adding a necessary inclusion to the itinerary is to educate the children on how to protect themselves from malaria. Teaching children how to prevent malaria in a fun, interactive, and age-appropriate manner can ensure that the entire family will stay healthy and safe on our worldly travels. This article describes creative and practical ways in which parents and guardians can educate children on how to prevent malaria when traveling.
Understanding Malaria
In case your biology is rusty, malaria is a disease caused by parasites that live in the blood and are spread by infected mosquitoes of the Anopheles species. Once inside the body, the parasites multiply rapidly, causing fever, chills, flu, and in severe cases, organ failure and death.
Why Teach Kids About Malaria Prevention?
Teaching kids about malaria prevention is important for several reasons:
- Empowerment: Those kids who really understand the risks and how to avoid them are also the ones most likely to adhere to safety practices and remind adults to do the same.
- Responsibility: By learning how to avoid malaria, children can take an active step in making sure they don’t get malaria and help keep family members safe from the disease.
- Preparedness: Having kids help with preparations shrinks the size of the task and raises the likelihood that these strategies will become habitual.
Age-Appropriate Strategies for Teaching Kids
The importance of learning how to protect oneself from malaria and information on how to do so changes based on age. For example:
1. Young Children (Ages 3-6)
For young children, the focus should be on simple, visual, and interactive methods:
- Storytelling: Use a story or picture book about mosquitoes and malaria. Children can follow a character who faces challenging situations with mosquitoes. They learn how to stay safe from them. The story helps to personalize the abstract idea of malaria prevention.
- Visual aids: put up drawings or colorful posters of both the mosquito and the bed nets and repellents that can be used to keep them away. Visual information makes it easier for young children to internalize and remember.
- Interactive Activities: Help children understand prevention through interactive activities like a coloring page or puzzle depicting the use of a bed net or a mosquito.
2. Elementary School Kids (Ages 7-12)
For older children, incorporate more detailed information and interactive elements:
- Educational Games: TAG! You’re it – Mosquito Tag Various games where kids learn ways to avoid mosquitoes, and possibly create elements that help kids ‘catch mosquitoes’ and hide at home can be great fun. Incorporate Mosquito bite implications into the game; investigate microscopes and find out how mosquitoes breed and transmit diseases; find ways to protect themselves.
- DIY Projects: Help kids make their mosquito-repellent crafts, such as simple mosquito-repellent sachets, using essential oils. By making mosquito repellent crafts, kids could better grasp why repellents are necessary and some of their attributes.
- Video/App Movies or other visual apps explaining how to protect against malaria. Some apps offer quizzes and games that teach kids the basics about mosquitoes and staying safe.
3. Teenagers (Ages 13 and Up)
While preschoolers might benefit from cartoon characters, teenagers require more detailed information and can take on a more active stance of their own.
- Educational Workshops: If there are any, attend workshops or webinars as a family, or discuss various topics related to malaria prevention. Some websites have online resources, particularly for older children and teenagers.
- Tasks that include planning: Inviting teenagers into the planning of mosquito prevention programs, such as choosing a repellent and educating them on how it is used, is another way to instill a sense of responsibility.
- Advanced: Challenge teens to conduct research about malaria and how it can be prevented, and to prepare presentations or reports to share with their relatives, thereby deepening their understanding and motivation.
Practical Tips for Malaria Prevention on Vacation
In addition to teaching kids about malaria prevention, implementing practical measures is crucial:
1. Use Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets
- Education: Tell children why they need to sleep under treated bed nets and how they keep mosquitoes away.
- Engagement: Make sure children have a role in setting up bed nets, and hanging and using them.
2. Apply Mosquito Repellents
- Demonstration: Demonstrate to children how to apply a mosquito repellent to exposed skin and clothing, and let them do it themselves. Tell them why using repellents is necessary – and to use it again if, for example, being in water or sweating made the repellent disappear.
- Routine: Make application of repellent part of the daily routine – a matter of habit for the entire family.
3. Wear Appropriate Clothing
- Choice: Encourage your kids to wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks to prevent exposed skin.
- Fashion Tips: Make this fun for kids by letting them choose (or decorate) their mosquito-proof clothes.
4. Avoid Mosquito-Prone Areas
- Awareness: point out to children standing water where mosquitoes breed, and explain to them how adult mosquitoes will be attracted to these locations and it’s a good idea to avoid such places.
- Safe Zones: Residents should learn the hours when aerosol spraying is scheduled to occur, to avoid those locations and times. They should also identify and seek out star mosquito-free activities and locations in indoor environments, away from nearby ditches and swamps, as well as well-kept parks.
5. Stay Informed
- Local Intelligence: Do some research ahead of time to find out if you need anti-malaria precautions at your destination, and at what level of risk, so you can explain your precautions to your kids.
- Emergency Plan: Prepare your children on what to do if they develop malaria symptoms or need to seek medical assistance: where are the nearest health facilities?
Making Malaria Prevention Fun and Engaging
To keep kids engaged and make malaria prevention feel less like a chore:
- Gamify/Challenge: Turn malaria prevention into a game or challenge – ‘Mosquito-Free Zone’: as a family, label a chalk line on the bedroom floor and name it the ‘mosquito-free zone’. Track how often you can go without stepping over it and, reward yourself if you stay safe.
- Use Technology: Try apps and games that teach children about malaria as an entertaining way of learning, as most apps aimed at children are designed to be fun to use.
- Acknowledge Success: Point out and applaud your children when they remember to take malaria prevention steps. Positive reinforcement improves compliance and can make it more fun.
The different ways that we can convey knowledge about malaria prevention, whether we use games, first aid projects, or storybooks, help ensure that our children will enjoy travel and prevent this important disease. Whether our children are toddlers, teens – or, even, themselves savvy parents – they can actively engage in malaria prevention and manage the disease when they are on vacation. Learning about malaria prevention can turn into a fun time and an integral part of travel when children have a role to play. This – and their happiness and well-being – is what travel to tropical destinations is all about.
