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Health & Fitness

A Year After Sandy Hook

How do you convince a parent to send their child to school after the Sandy Hook tragedy?  This is the first question I posed to Dr. Robin Gurwitch last week on my blogtalk radio show. Dr. Robin Gurwitch, a clinical psychologist on faculty at Duke Medical Center, has spent much of her career studying the impact of trauma and disaster on children.

Dr. Gurwitch encourages parents to remember that although the community of Sandy Hook suffered a horrific tragedy, school is still one of the safest places our children can be. It is easy to lose sight of this fact when the media bombards us with terrifying images of school violence, but it's the truth. Since Sandy Hook, schools across the nation have been tightening their safety protocols and doing all they can to protect our children. If you are a parent that—understandably—feels uneasy about sending your child to school, Dr. Gurwitch strongly recommends that you get involved with school safety. Reach out to your school community. Share your concerns and opinions. Donate your time. Talk to your children about safety procedures. This is a great, proactive way to feel more empowered.

That's certainly helpful if your problem is fear, but what happens if your child does experience violence? How do you help them? Well, the first step is rebuilding a sense of safety for your child, and the only way to do that is to maintain an open dialogue about your child's fears and concerns. The worst thing you can do is to refuse to talk about whatever happened. The best thing you can do is relay to your child that any and all feelings they experience are absolutely okay, and that they are welcome to share them with you. The great news is that the majority of children who have caring, supportive adults in their lives will bounce back easily. The bad news is that those who exhibit difficulties are in danger of developing longterm problems. Children with unprocessed trauma are more likely to engage in destructive behaviors later in life, like substance abuse, and to repeat the violence they've experienced. If your child has experienced trauma and is not sleeping well, has stopped performing in school, or has gone through some notable personality shift, Dr. Gurwitch advises you to seek professional help.

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As Dr. Gurwitch put it, children don't come with manuals. And many parents feel ashamed when they think they need one. But the reality is that parenting is the most difficult job in the world, and anyone who says it is easy is, quite frankly, lying. Keeping your child alive and safe is your number one concern, and it can be extremely difficult to differentiate between your own unfounded anxiety and a real problem that needs to be addressed. But, as Dr. Gurwitch advised, if you are unsure, it is always better to ask a professional. It is always better to address a problem than to pretend that nothing is wrong.

Many children across the country were aware of Sandy Hook when it happened. Regardless of how you censor the media at home, your child absorbs information when they are out in the world, through social media, overheard conversation etc. Kids often know more than we think they do! So don't wait for your child to come to you with a question, and do not assume that you will pick up on it if they have heard disturbing news. Dr. Gurwitch says that sometimes kids won't share the news of a horrific tragedy because they think the parent doesn't know and wants to protect the parent. So be proactive and start a conversation, with something like: “A terrible tragedy happened today. Did you hear about it?”

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We can't protect our children from tragedy, but we can model healthy ways to respond to it. The Sandy Hook community asked that the anniversary of the shooting be observed with acts of kindness rather than a paparazzi invasion. If tragedy strike your own family, remember that you get to decide how to react.  We parents can model resilience. So remember to keep an open dialogue, even when the conversation is difficult.  Cry in front of your children, then pull yourself together: this models self-regulation.  Creating a safe space does not mean shielding our children from the world; it means teaching them how to be powerful within it.


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