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Post by jlschlangen on Dec 17, 2012 20:17:52 GMT -6
My niece is 9 and my dad was at their house on Friday w/ the news on. She heard what happened in CT regarding the shootings and today she pretended to be sick to not have to go to school. She was scared to go. My mom came to that conclusion. My sister didn't figure that out til a little while after the day of school started. Yes, she did keep her home for the morning.
W/ my kids I have only talked about what happened lightly & briefly in words that they would understand. I didn't go into too much detail.
So if your child was scared to go back to school what would you do?
TIA
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Post by jlschlangen on Dec 17, 2012 20:29:27 GMT -6
My mom found out b/c my sister called her this am.
My dad always has the tv. And always watches the news. He didn't think anything of it when he was watching about the shootings that she would feel what she does.
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Post by smalltowngirl5 on Dec 18, 2012 7:57:08 GMT -6
Talk about it at a level that she understands based on her age. Both of my kids heard about it on Friday and asked a couple of questions but not many and I didn't force it, I let them come to me and ask on their terms.
A letter was sent home from the school yesterday and that made my son who is 10 very scared about it and going to school. We talked about it exactly the way the school told us to. School is a safe place, your safety is their number one priority. Just like fire drills and torando drills, you practice lock down drills in the rare case something like this would happen, so that everyone knows what to do.
Keep age appropriate and answer the questions to the best of your ability when they ask.
Hope she feels better about school.
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Post by cakemakermom on Dec 18, 2012 10:52:17 GMT -6
Dr Phil talked about it yesterday and will again today. Here's an article: www.drphil.com/articles/article/12I haven't had to say anything, but we've kept the tv off since friday. The principal talked to the teachers and apparently the teachers talked about their policies about lock down drills and opened the classrooms up for questions from the kids. I suppose my best advice is to ask the child what they're thinking about and answer their questions to the best of your ability. I am not bringing any of the actual tragedy up to my kids, but if they have been exposed then I would talk about how there are bad people and this bad person has been caught. Like Mr. Rogers says "look for the helpers" when there is something bad going on. Be true to your emotions, that shows them it's ok to be sad and scared, but it also shows how you don't let the scaredness keep you away from your daily routines. If your sister has the ability to go to the school with her daughter, perhaps she can do that too, as a next step to getting back to school? |
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Post by angel22 on Dec 18, 2012 13:19:05 GMT -6
When DD1 arrived home from school on Friday I knew that she didn't know anything about what had happened. We don't usually have the tv on during the day anyway so that wasn't odd for her. When DH got home he talked to her about what had happened- just a little bit- and asked how she felt about it and if she knew what to do if a bad guy ever was at her school. She told us what they do and that they practice drills for bad weather, fires, and "bad guys." We let her see just a little bit on tv. Our cop neighbor came over later and reminded her to "wait for the good guys" in uniforms like cops and firefighters. Later I asked her if she had any questions and to let me know how she was feeling. She has no fear of going to school, she feels safe. DH and I think that it is SUPER important to let kids know that something happened but not to over inform and to answer questions in an age appropriate way. If YOU don't let them know someone else will and it will most likely not be good.
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Post by ReneeW on Dec 19, 2012 9:28:09 GMT -6
I agree with the ladies -- there's a lot of great resources out there about this issue. The most important thing is to keep it age appropriate, reassure your child about their safety, let them know that there are MANY adults who will keep them safe (parents, teachers, police officers, fire fighters etc), and DON'T let her see any more discussion about it on TV. I heard one psychologist say that kids don't understand that watching the same footage over and over or hearing about it over and over is the same incident, they think it's actually happening over and over in multiple incidents so that makes it even more scary.
Hopefully your sweet niece will be able to bounce back soon.
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