How to comfort kids in wake of tragedy

Talk honestly about shooting, prof advises

As parents around the world struggle to come to grips with Friday’s heartbreaking shooting at a Connecticut school, the question for many is how to explain the unexplainable to children.

An emotional U.S. President Barack Obama said the tiny survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre had their innocence “torn away far too early” and there are no words to ease their pain.

But even children with no connection to the tragedy may be frightened — and psychologists say it’s important for parents to provide emotional support and comfort.

In the case of smaller kids, they need to know their lives will carry on as normal. For them, the fact the incident unfolded in a school environment may have them feeling uneasy about their own place in the world, said Dr. Kelly Schwartz, a psychologist and University of Calgary professor.

“Younger kids especially need to be reassured they are safe, that the adults around them — teachers, coaches and principals — are trustworthy people, because I think that’s where kids start to try to extend this to their own life,” he said.

By kindergarten, many children have already developed a sense of “good” and “bad” through classic nursery rhymes and fairly tales.

Schwartz said the stories might be a useful reference point for parents in discussing Friday’s shooting.

“You might say, ‘Sometimes those bad people don’t just exist in books. They sometimes exist in the real world and we hope they are loved and helped, but sometimes they just do bad things,’ ” he said.

As for older children, the U of C professor believes technology has put parents at a disadvantage because kids are deluged with endless streams of information — some of it conflicting — through social media.

He advises moms and dads to limit exposure to Twitter and other sites for the next 48 to 72 hours.

“This is going to be the story — and from a grieving perspective, maybe it needs to be. People need to talk about it and work through it,” said Schwartz.

“But, on the other hand, kids need to know that their lives, thankfully, will go on and be safe. What they’re seeing on TV or through social media is not the new norm in their school and neighbourhood.”

Instinctively, parents may want to shelter their kids entirely from the tragedy — and depending on the child and his or her developmental

Younger kids especially need to be reassured they are safe.

DR. KELLY SCHWARTZ

stage, that might be the right approach.

But more than anything, it’s important to be truthful when children ask questions and try to keep to as normal a routine as possible, he suggests.

Friday’s deadly rampage is a daunting thing for any parent to try to explain to a young person — especially since as adults, we are struggling to make sense of it ourselves.

“The No. 1 thing to remember as a parent is it’s OK to say ‘I don’t know why this happened.’ Kids need to know that it’s OK you don’t have an answer for everything,” he added.