Choosing ourr words

It’s not easy to try and understand how someone could shoot 89 people in their place of worship, killing 50 of them. I can appreciate that many of your readers will be struggling with how to explain this to their children and so I can also applaud the intentions behind your article, “Helping our kids understand” ( WD, April 1).

However, I was dismayed to read the section entitled “Choose your words”, where readers were advised to describe the attacker to children as “extremely mentally unwell”, rather than “evil”.

I do not believe that advice was helpful. One in two New Zealanders will experience a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime and some 3% of these will have a diagnosis of severe mental disorder. Unlike what we see in the media and in horror movies, research shows over and over that people with diagnosed mental disorders are less likely to commit violent crime than the general population, and in fact are much more likely to be the victims of violence.

I understand that in this case the attacker planned what he would do, and used social media to encourage people with similar ideas to him and to frighten the rest of us.

That is chilling to consider. But whether this behaviour is “evil” or not, it is much simpler and more accurate to describe him as being filled with hate, an extreme kind of bully.

Twisting the definitions and understanding of mental illness (eg attempting to distinguish between “extreme” mental illness and “normal” mental illness) is harmful and far more confusing, both for children and adults.

We can choose instead to explain to our children that hating people is dangerous. That it’s understandable to be scared or nervous about someone, or something that we don’t know or don’t understand, but that hating them is not OK. And that hurting people deliberately is never OK.

We can also lead by example, and choose in our words and actions to show curiosity about people or customs that seem different to what we know, and to show compassion and kindness to those in need.

And please let’s choose to stop associating ideologically motivated violence with mental illness. Fiona Clapham Howard

Te Kaihautu/ Service Director MHAPS – Mental Health Advocacy and Peer Support Trust,

Christchurch.