I wish I had an easy answer for you, about how to talk with kids about school shootings.

I have two children myself – one is 20, the other is 17 and still in high school. I was a classroom teacher in an elementary school for ten years. I have friends who have lost loved ones to gun violence.

In fact, there was a shooting at our local mall, in the parking lot, in the last couple of weeks. There has been a shooting there before, inside the mall.

We have had more school shootings than we have had number of days in the year so far.

HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL?

School Shootings Do Not Make Sense

I don’t want to talk about shootings with my kids, but I need to. And talking about this with my kids starts with taking care of myself.

I didn’t want to think or talk or write about this at all. You likely don’t, either. But talking about it is one of the ways that we take our power back.

Because you know what? School shootings are not reasonable, not normal, not okay. There is no sense to make of it – IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Our emotional responses to school shootings ARE reasonable. The grief and flight/fight/freeze responses are completely reasonable, because we don’t feel safe.

So let’s sit here for a bit, together, and regulate. Taking some deeper breaths. Noticing how we feel in this moment, in our bodies and our minds. Let’s stare into our coffee or tea or off into the distance, enjoying this break from constant input.

Let’s feel our feet on the ground. Now rest our hands on our hearts – as in, you rest your hand on your heart, and I’ll rest my hand on mine – and leave it for a bit. Feel our hearts beating. Deep breath. Heart beating.

You are here. You are safe.

Repeat this exercise as much as you need. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is learning how to regulate your nervous system.

Be Curious With Yourself

Curiosity results in feelings of compassion and safety. There are two steps to being curious: Observe and Ask.

Our emotions (the sensations in our bodies) and our feelings (the stories we make from these sensations) are information. It sounds funny, but step back and take the emotion out of it. Observe.

Your emotions are all information. No judgment.

Take note of where and how the emotions are living in your body. Start from the top of your head and work your way down.

Does your chest feel tight? Is your breathing shallow? Do you notice aches and pains? Tight spots in your neck, shoulders, back? Does it feel like your throat is closed off, and you can’t speak?

Are you so, so, so tired? What kind of tired? I feel the heaviness in my bones at this moment.

What are these emotions telling you? What is being triggered on the surface and deeper inside? These emotional and PTSD triggers make sense because we are human, *and* past trauma and grief experiences can be triggered by new events in our lives.

Be Curious With Your Kids

I approached talking with my kids about the latest school shooting with curiosity, similar to how I regulate myself.

It was just last night, sitting with my youngest, that I asked him, “How are you feeling about the news of the school shooting in Texas?”

I realize that not everybody can be so direct. I can, because he is 17 and I understand his personality and character, and this conversation is developmentally appropriate for us. Because my oldest is more sensitive to stimuli, I would approach this conversation with him in a different way. You know your own kid, and it can be wiser to bring up these questions while quietly playing, like coloring or putting a puzzle together.

The main point of being curious with kids is to ask questions, as open-ended as necessary. The following questions are possibilities, some more direct than others:

• What are you hearing about lately?
• Have you heard about the school shooting in Texas?
• How are you feeling about school/going to school?
• Where do you feel this in your body?
• How do you feel in this moment?
• How did you feel today?
• What do you think about what’s happened?

What then? Be quiet. Listen. Tell them what you hear them saying. Ask more questions. Lather-Rinse-Repeat.

Express Your Feelings

Practicing curiosity may bring feelings to the surface, for you and/or your kids. Or your feelings may feel trapped, like when tears hang out right behind your eyes but refuse to fall. And then something small, like dropping a glass or losing your keys, can ignite a storm of feelings that need to be released.

The more comfortable you are with emotions and feelings, the more comfortable your kids will be in expressing themselves. You are the regulator, the landmark, the yardstick. As the conversation moves from curiosity and feelings and back again, you can be honest about your experiences.

I sometimes fall into the trap of not wanting to scare my kids when I express my feelings. This is what pushed me into doubling down on PTSD Remediation – I wanted more control over processing my trauma and grief, and I wanted to be healthy for my kids.

And emotions and feelings can be expressed in developmentally appropriate ways. I feel sad, I cry. They ask what’s happening, and I say, “I feel sad. Crying helps me feel better.” Because my kids are older, I can add more detail if I want to. When they were younger, I kept it simple.

Unpack Your Own Baggage

One of the best things you can do for your kids (and grandkids, and legacy) is to unpack your own baggage.

I recently went on a trip with a lot of bags. I packed smaller bags within bigger bags, to try and keep some organization and not lose stuff that I needed. I look at my trauma and grief in similar terms. Sometimes I think I have unpacked a bag, only to find a smaller bag hiding at the bottom, containing some more stuff to go through.

We are all carrying around bags of different sizes, full of trauma and grief experiences. These experiences remain packed until we clean out our luggage.

Like shootings right now in the U.S., these bags aren’t going to disappear by avoiding them or ignoring them or pretending life is different. It’s not enough to not want to be “like our parents” or “do things differently.” We’ve got to move forward.

Life is happening. Let’s face it together and take our power back.

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