A reminder that PTSD is common for kids in urban communities
The recent suicides of two Parkland High School students opened a national dialogue about undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder among kids devastated by school shootings.
But people like Dr. Candice Jones have been having conversations like these for years.
She is a pediatrician serving the Pine Hills community since 2014. Jones said the majority of her patients have been exposed to gun violence either directly or indirectly and suffer from severe forms of stress.
“My parents, my families will overwhelmingly tell me that they don't let their kids go outside to play,” Jones said. “You're talking about a child not able to lead a normal, healthy life because they hear the cop sirens and they know that someone is hurt.”
Gun violence is more deadly to children than cancer. Only car crashes kill more young people under 18 than guns, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan.
And the majority of gun-related deaths of children aren't happening inside schools. They're happening in communities with high-crime rates. They're happening inside homes where children are exposed to domestic violence or suicide. Sometimes, they're even happening when kids are just walking to school, as was the case of 15-year-old Alejandro Vargas Martinez. He was killed while walking to Boone High School.
Even Jones herself hasn't been immune to the stress of gun violence. She vividly remembers one of the most violent days in Pine Hills when three shootings and a stabbing happened during a single day in December 2016. It was unknown if the shootings were even related, but one person died and four others were injured.
Leading up to that violent day, there had been 18 reported shootings within the span of two months.
“I experienced that in my stress response system,” said Jones, who was just returning to work after having her second child. “My husband didn't want me to come back to work.”
I don't remember Florida legislators calling for aid to Pine Hills that day.
The daily gun violence doesn't often attract hashtags, thoughts and prayers or calls to action from important government officials. But the children growing up around this violence are just as emotionally traumatized as the students who were subject to the catastrophes at Parkland, Sandy Hook or Columbine. Trauma is trauma. Unfortunately, it took the suffering of those beautiful young souls from Parkland to remind some of us just how traumatizing the exposure to gun violence can be.
Science tells us kids who are witnesses to violent environments are more prone to depression, anxiety and aggression, Jones said. Kids who are forced to normalize these experiences can struggle in school and later become withdrawn and feel hopeless.
Jones, who is also a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, talked at a recent conference in Orlando addressing childhood trauma. She said the cumulative effects of trauma can put some children in a state of toxic stress which can even affect a child's ability to learn and shorten his or her lifespan down the road.
“We need to see this day-to-day gun violence in our urban communities as a societal problem, just like we see mass shootings, school shootings as a societal problem,” Jones said. “We need to give that the same attention and same effort and same resources to combat it.”
The stress from gun violence can be just as harmful as the event itself. We need to be particularly sensitive to the mental state of kids who are growing up in communities where shootings are more common because gun violence shouldn't be a normal experience for any child, anywhere.
Frederick Douglas said it best, “it's easier to build strong children than fix broken men.”