Guest Dad Joe Burris writes about his 4-year-old daughter learned to care about an earthquake on another continent this Father's Day Friday:

When tragedy strikes like the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, I often wonder how to talk about it with my 4-year-old daughter, Onalenna.

Occasionally, scenes of ravaged landscapes and people left severely injured or crying in horror amid the devastation splash across the television screen, and I shudder to think what she might take from those images.

But she and her day school class had an opportunity to learn about the Chile earthquake without us parents saying a thing.

One of my daughter’s teachers, Miss Gloria (not her real name), was visiting her home country when the earthquake struck. The children knew she had gone home and after a while they began asking about Chile, whether the place people keep talking about being damaged by an earthquake was the same Chile where Miss Gloria was from.

She kept regular correspondence with parents, fellow teachers and students through e-mail, letting us know that she was unharmed and would return as soon as possible. We all eagerly awaited her return, and we shuddered at reports of every subsequent aftershock that hit the country.

Last week, she returned to the school and most everyone -- students, teachers and we parents, too -- were delighted to see her. Scores of little ones ran up and swarmed her like bees to a hive.

“Miss Gloria!” they shouted. Onalenna too. One looked up at her and said, “We heard about your country.”

Who knows whether they’ll remember any of this by summer or in the years that will follow.

We’re all just glad to see Miss Gloria back.

Associated Press photo/Ignacio Vasquez