On the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, the authors submitted this piece on helping parents to discuss difficult events in the news with their children. It was written in the spirit of the many circumstances children hear or watch on the television news describing violent, scary, or sad events.
Within the hour, news broke that a gunman had entered an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., and shot many people, including children. Over the course of that terrible day, the full story took shape in a constant news flow that gripped all of us. Sandy Hook was unbearably tragic. Twenty first-grade students were murdered. Six teachers and staff members were murdered. The shooter had started by murdering his mother and finished by killing himself. Although there was some safety that he would not hurt anyone ever again, there was also the massive insecurity that we will never be able to feel safe again, even in an elementary school, and are unable to understand what could have made a person commit this crime.
Several of the points we make in this article are especially relevant to the events in Newtown. This event has received such intensive and unremitting coverage that even the youngest children probably have been exposed in some way to it. Parents will need to be attuned to any indications that their children have seen, heard, or read something about this, and they should check in with their children and find out what they know, what questions they have, and what they are worried about. Parents who are anxious that they will be introducing this horrifying story might ask, "Have you ever heard or seen something that was scary or upsetting, and hard to get out of your thoughts afterwards?" They should try to limit children’s exposure to these news reports, as children may be overwhelmed or confused by the constant repetition of the story and will have difficulty managing disturbing images.
Parents should be reassured that well-loved, valued children can cope with troubling news with the help of their parents’ explanations, reassurance, and guidance, and the resumption of normal activities. Most of the millions of children (and parents) indirectly exposed to the Sandy Hook murders will be resilient. Longer term, some children in your pediatric practice will not return to their usual functioning. Some children may have a vulnerability to anxiety or depression, and others may have had previous losses of loved ones through divorce or death. Some will be vulnerable secondary to poverty, abuse, or neglect. For these vulnerable children and parents, Sandy Hook will be a critical, longer-term event.
Susan D. Swick
A parent who may have become too absorbed in the acute phase of the story did not limit access to the media. A child may develop anxiety about being safe in school, become clingy to parents, regress to a younger age, or have posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms of what they have seen on television (nightmares, flashback images, etc.). A parent may become very anxious about school safety and overly restrictive. These anxieties are a way of coping with past and current events – a solution to their anxiety. Pediatricians should be empathic, take a family history for anxiety and depression, and consider a mental health referral.
Even the best-adjusted parents in your practice should be reminded that their children’s feelings, questions, and worries will be different from their own. This particular tragedy will have a profound, painful resonance for all parents. It will be difficult to drop off their children at elementary school without worries about their safety and feelings of breathtaking sadness for those parents whose children did not come home on Dec. 14.
If parents don’t manage their own distress, their children will surely sense or pick up on parental anxiety and will be much harder to reassure. It is critical for parents (and teachers, librarians, classroom aides, principals, social workers, and physicians) to tend to themselves. They must manage their own sadness and distress by getting meaningful support and reassurance from friends, loved ones, spouses, religious leaders, community leaders, and counselors. They should turn off the news not only when their children are around, but also when it becomes too much for them to bear. They should make sure that their family’s routines, including their routine limits and rules, continue. This is organizing and reassuring for children and adults alike.
Of course, supporting the families who were directly affected by the murders in Newtown will be very different from supporting those affected by the news of those murders. There will need to be a thoughtful, community-wide mental health plan for all of these survivors; the parents, siblings, and spouses who suffered the death of a loved one; and the first responders so stressed by the intensity of what they had to do and see.