HELPING CHILDREN REBUILD TRUST AMID
NATIONAL VIOLENCE
FIRST, IT’S NORMAL TO WORRY, AND
IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE PREPARED.

Traumatic Stress at Kennedy Krieger
Institute. “I think parents and caregivers
do need to do everything in their power to
(ensure) that their child does have safety,
Hoover says. “So, that means parents
(and administrators and teachers)
making sure school is safe to the degree
they can.”
This, of course, has its nuances. “As
with so many things, being prepared is
important, but there is a big difference
between keeping water, energy bars
(and) a change of clothes in the car
and building a fallout shelter,” explains
Dr. Sherri Widen, developmental
psychologist and research scientist, and
manager at Committee for Children, a
global nonprofit championing the safety
and well-being of children. “Talk to your
child about what to do and where to go
in case of emergency. Help them identify
adults at school or in the community
they can go to if they need help or feel
unsafe, but also assure your child that
they are safe and can keep being a kid.”
Dr. Aronica B. Cotton, medical director
of child and adolescent psychiatry
services at MedStar Montgomery
Medical Center, wants parents to
know that their fear and uncertainty
surrounding community violence
is normal and valid. “Just to throw
in a little science…brains were
made to scan the environment for
danger, and so we have a bias to
dangerous, negative thoughts
and situations,” she says.

But there are steps adults
can take to ensure children
are in capable hands, adds Dr.

Dan Hoover, clinical child and
adolescent psychologist at the
Center for Child and Family
12 Washington FAMILY SEPTEMBER 2022
MODEL A MEASURED RESPONSE AND
VALIDATE YOUR CHILD’S CONCERNS.

Today’s parenting environment is
tricky, acknowledges Cotton. “It can be
difficult for parents to want to try and
protect their children—to let their
children know they’re here for them and
also to balance that with giving their
kids confidence that they can handle
difficult situations,” she says. “So, my
recommendation would be for parents
to take a more mindful approach if they
can—take a step back and think about
how they handle difficult situations,
because more often than not, kids are
looking towards the parents about
how to react.”
Hoover agrees. “Children will often
take their cues from the adults and their
older siblings or their caretakers. If they
sense, verbally or nonverbally, that the
caregiver is really nervous…then it’s
going to make the child have a lot more
difficulty trusting and going to school
and trying new things,” he says.

“To the best of your (ability), be calm
when talking to your child about the
event,” Widen adds. “Modeling strong
social and emotional skills will help
your children respond in similar ways,”
and these skills will set them up for
future success.

Cotton recommends beginning with
validating your child’s concerns
about returning to school or other
places. “You say it’s understandable
that they would be afraid and try to
get them to think about other times
when they’ve been to parades,
when they’ve been to school, and
nothing happened. So, yes, this bad
thing happened this one time, but
there’s so many other times when a
bad thing didn’t happen.”
NATASAADZIC / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
T he United States has seen
an inflation in gun violence,
with active shooter incidents
becoming alarmingly more common in
recent years. They increased from just
three in 2000 to 40 in 2020, according
to FBI data. Heartbreakingly, Americans
are seemingly inundated with mass
shooting scares and alerts, even in
societal situations that should be safe
and peaceful, i.e. parades, shopping
malls and—horrifyingly—schools.

It’s easy to feel helpless amid such
existential threats, and there are no
easy answers for parents, who are
often worried themselves in looking
for ways to address children’s fears of
recent shootings.

Three local experts share their
advice on this difficult topic below.

They explain how parents can help kids
process situations in which their trust in
schools and other community locations
has been broken by outside violence.

BY MEGAN CONWAY