Monday Morning Crisis Quarterback

The details of yesterday's shootings in Newtown, Connecticut were just starting to trickle in when my Facebook feed began to light up with posts from friends saying what they thought this story was really about. These sorted fairly clearly into a number of categories:

• It's really about the need for gun control.
• It's really about the need to allow responsible people to carry weapons to protect themselves and those around them.
• It's really about the state of mental health care.
• It's really about the need to be better parents to our kids.
• It's really about what we have become as a society.

I have seen other commentators opine as well that this is really about the need to put God back in our schools, although that particular one hasn't shown up on my Facebook feed. The Westboro Baptist Church apparently is going to picket the funerals, because it's really about tolerance of homosexuality in our country.
While each of these thoughts have their own argument behind them, and while I certainly have my opinions about the relative validity of those, I'd like to suggest that all of them are red herrings.

All of these theories help us (or at least those who believe them) feel better, because they all boil down to one message: this could have been prevented. And we desperately need to believe this could have been prevented, because otherwise this could happen again, and it could happen to us. If these theories are right, however, we can make the world safe and neat again, and sleep better at night.

In addition, we are drawn to stating what this story is "really about" because, frankly, we can't stand to really contemplate what this story is really about.

What this story is really about is that 27 people, 20 of them young children, were brutally murdered in a senseless act of violence that we will never truly understand.

We need to let ourselves sit with that reality and feel the feelings that go with it. Only then will we be ready to have reasonable discussions about what, if anything, can be done to stop it from happening again.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

I am a mental health professional, a former principal and teacher, and an expert in responding to school traumas. But today, more than anything, I am a mom. Like moms and dads and other human beings today, my feelings about the shootings in Connecticut are complex and painful.

I came home tonight wanting to hug my child, and struggling with what to say. I offer my words here (followed by some description of how he responded and why I said what I did) not because they are the only or even the best way to approach this horrible incident with children, but because they are a way, and we have to start somewhere.

Here's what I said:

I need to tell you about something that happened today. It's kind of scary, but I think you're probably going to hear about it so I wanted to tell you so you can understand it and ask questions if you want.

Today something really scary happened in a school in Connecticut. There was a teacher there, I think she taught 1st grade, and she had a grownup son who had a very bad sickness in his brain. His brain was making him think very weird things. And he decided he wanted to kill his mom. But unfortunately, when he went to kill his mom, he went to her classroom where she was teaching, and after he killed her he also killed a bunch of the kids. It was very sad and everybody is talking about it and very sad and scared.

Every kid and every parent is different, and every conversation like this happens in a specific context. In our case, my son is 7 years old. He and I have had very recent conversations about mental illness in the context of the work I do as a clinician in Community Mental Health, and the terminology "sickness in the brain" is how we've described that. Another kid might need a different or more thorough explanation.

Of course, my son did have a few things to say:

• Where's Connecticut?
• Was the sickness like a concussion, or like people who don't know what day it is or think things are true that aren't?
• I don't want to talk about it.

To this last comment, I said, "That's fine, but if you do want to talk about it, or you have questions, you know where I am."

So, why did I choose these particular things to tell my son? There is method to my madness:

I need to tell you about something that happened today. It's kind of scary, but I think you're probably going to hear about it so I wanted to tell you so you can understand it and ask questions if you want.

Kids need to know it's OK to be scared, and that you can be scared and still function and be in control. As adults, we model this and open the door to talk about emotions. Also, this opener tells him that his understanding and processing is important, in general and to me.

There was a teacher there, I think she taught 1st grade, and she had a grownup son who had a very bad sickness in his brain. His brain was making him think very weird things. And he decided he wanted to kill his mom.

This begins to point out how unusual and out of the ordinary this incident is. Kids don't know, as adults do, that this kind of violence is rare. But they do have a sense that a very bad brain disease and thinking weird things is rare. Also, the focus in this description is not on the children as targets. By giving the shootings some background and context, my son is less likely to think of this and think, "the bad guys are coming for me."

It was very sad and everybody is talking about it and very sad and scared.

Here, again, the door is open to the idea that everyone -- not just kids -- has feelings about things like this. Scared and sad are OK, as is talking about it. Telling him about this is not specifically to make him talk or to make him scared, but to include him. He is important.

I don't know what questions or comments my son will make in the days and weeks ahead. I know if he has something to say, he'll say it. We talk about these things at my house. Hard as it is, that's how it should be.

More guidance on talking to children about violence and trauma is available here.

Update: Since I wrote this yesterday, we have learned that the shooter's mother died before the shootings at the school, and was not a current teacher. My son hasn't asked about the details today, so I haven't had occasion to correct what I said yesterday, and I'm not going to unless he brings the topic up. If I had it to do over again, I would still say largely the same things, except adding that after he killed his mom, he went to the school where he used to go when he was little to kill people. Note that I would not say he went to kill kids. We don't know that, first of all, and second of all it adds an emphasis that is unnecessarily scary.