Tips on Coping With School Violence

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

Despite these events, schools remain a very safe place for children to spend their days. In fact, the vast majority of children and youth homicides occur outside school hours and property. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has assembled a collection of resources on violence prevention to help parents, students, and school personnel cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event.

Tips for Parents

It’s natural for kids and teens—no matter where they go to school—to worry about whether this type of incident may someday affect them. Talking with kids about these tragedies, and what they watch or hear about them, can help put frightening information into a more balanced context. The CDC offers parents these suggestions to help children through their questions:

1. Reach out and talk. Create opportunities to allow your child to talk, but do not force him or her. Try asking questions like, what do you think about these events or how do you think these things happen, to get the conversation started. After an incident of school violence, it’s important for kids to feel like they can share their feelings and to know that their fears and anxieties are understandable.

2. Watch and listen. Be alert for any change in behavior. Are kids sleeping more or less, or withdrawing from friends or family? Are they behaving in any way out of the ordinary? This may show that they’re having trouble coming to terms with this event. Recognizing even small changes in behavior can give you an early warning that something is troubling your child.

3. Share information with other parents. Get to know your children’s friends and their parents. Make an on-going effort to check in and talk to other parents about any issues or stress. You don’t have to deal with problems alone—the most effective connections you have are parents, schools, and health professionals working together to provide on-going monitoring and support for the health and well-being of your child.

4. Keep it going. Ask your child how he feels about the event in a week, then in a month and so on. Each child has her own way of coping under stressful situations and the best thing you can as a parent is to listen and allow children to express their concerns and fears.

link: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/SchoolViolence/

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

Listen to / Watch Podcast: “Coping With Traumatic Stress” (2:16 min)