In light of this week's horrific
school shooting in uvalde,
Texas, parents are once again
faced with the agonizing task of
explaining violence and tragedy
to their children.
Correspondent Ali rogin sat down
with an expert who shared advice
on how to have those difficult
conversations.
Ali: Joining me now is Lisa
Damour.
She's a clinical psychologist
and the author of "Under
pressure: Confronting the
epidemic of stress and anxiety
in girls."
Lisa, thank you so much for
joining us.
What are some of the concerns
that you've heard parents talk
about when it comes to talking
with their kids about traumatic
events like the one in Texas?
Lisa: I think parents really
struggle to know what to say,
what to ask their children,
whether or not they should even
bring it up, how to answer the
very hard questions that
children often ask at times like
this.
I think that it makes it
extraordinarily hard when events
like what happened in Texas
occur and parents want to be
supportive of their children,
and yet they often don't know
what to say.
Ali: And what's some of the
language that you would suggest
a parent use with a very young
child, like five or six years
old, versus that of a teenager?
Lisa: So if a child is very
young and not going to school, I
think that parents should do
what they can to shield their
child from the events that have
occurred.
That also means not having the
television running at home, you
know, listening to the radio on
their own time.
As soon as children are of
school age, we do need to bring
it up because the chance that
they're going to hear about it
from their peers is very high.
And so we'd really rather they
hear about it first from us.
So I think for school age
children, we need to say
something horrible happened.
And I want you to feel you can
ask me any questions you have.
Once we get to teenagers, and
anyone of an age where they have
their own social media or their
own access to all sorts of
feeds, we probably want to start
by asking them what they are
hearing, what they know, what
they think.
Teenagers are very heavily
involved in a discourse of their
own.
They are talking to one another.
And so we don't want to assume
that we have information that
they don't have.
We want to start by finding out
what they already know.
Ali: What about for those,
especially for those younger
children, those really hard
questions like why would someone
want to hurt a child?
Lisa: I think it is fair for
parents to say that is a really
good question.
And to tell you the truth, it's
very hard for me to understand.
So the fact that you are
struggling to understand this
isn't because you're young, it's
because it's one of those things
that's really hard to
understand.
Parents can say that, and most
children will accept that.
We just want to be honest, but
we also don't want to sugarcoat
what we're looking at here.
Ali: What are some strategies
for navigating a child's feeling
about whether they themselves
are safe at school?
Lisa: Parents have to figure out
where they sit on this
themselves.
But if they do feel that they
can say to their child, I would
not send you to school if I did
not think you were safe, then I
think they should say that
because children need
reassurance along those lines.
Ali: And then on the flip side
of that, once the children are
inside the school, a lot of them
these days are dealing with with
active shooter drills.
How does that affect their state
of mind?
And how does that affect when
they do hear about these mass
shooting events?
Lisa: I think what you're
getting at really points to a
larger issue, which is even for
people who are not directly
affected by these shootings,
there is a tremendous amount of
emotional and psychological tax
for them to be happening around
us and for us to have to try to
prepare for them and prepare our
children for them.
Ali: What is your advice for
teachers as they navigate the
aftermath of these horrific
tragedies?
Lisa: You know, teachers are in
such an extraordinarily
difficult position because, of
course, I can't imagine a
teacher who doesn't worry for
their own safety when they're
just doing their job, doing this
incredibly important job.
But teachers are also there to
support their students, and so
they are really caught between
their own intense reaction,
which I'm sure they have, and
needing to and wanting to be
reassuring to their students, be
supportive of their students.
And I think that that puts an
extraordinarily heavy weight on
them.
And this is on top of all of the
challenges they have borne
through the pandemic.
So what I would say is that we
as a society need to go out of
our way to support our teachers.
They have been through so much.
They have given so much.
And we never want to lose sight
of that.
Ali: And what about a parent or
guardian's own emotions?
How important do you find the
state of the mind of the adult
when having these conversations?
Lisa: This is hard because, of
course, as parents, we are
terrified by this.
So we need to find ways to
manage our own reaction.
It is okay if our children see
us being upset.
I think the goal then is for
them to see us handling it well,
taking comfort, talking about,
you know, what we can do to help
ourselves feel better.
But I think if parents are
really struggling with this,
they're going to want to get
some support for themselves so
that they can then be there to
support their children.
Ali: Clinical psychologist and
author Lisa Damour, thank you so