GSNC/NHPBS

The State We’re In program

The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda and school psychologist Dr. Nate Jones talk about having tough discussions around tragedy with children, in the wake of the Texas elementary school shooting in Uvalde.

This content has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full interview on NH PBS's The State We’re In.

Melanie Plenda: A few weeks ago, you were on the show talking about violence and other behavior issues among students of all ages. As we were talking about this climate of stress and anxiety, we now have a school shooting. How would you describe the mood right now in the school this past week and how are students and teachers coping?

Dr. Nate Jones: They're stressed, they're scared, and we're all scared. That's I think how almost everybody responds. The five stages of grief are a real thing, and we're seeing all parts of that in the schools right now, especially for teachers or for students who themselves have been exposed to shootings or other school violence in the past, that can bring lots of memories at the same time. Kids and teachers are amazingly resilient people and I think one part that is important is the value of the school routine. I have a friend who always would say that one of the best mental health interventions we can provide a student is a good day at school. This regular day of school is an incredibly important event for a child. That's something that a lot of us have lost in the past week, and we've seen people working really hard to regain that.

Melanie Plenda: I think that sometimes we think, ‘this shooting is in some place far away and obviously many of us didn't know anyone affected or directly impacted, and yet both parents and students and even myself feel afraid. I feel scared to send my kids to school. Can you explain why kids or parents might be feeling that tangible fear, even if it's something far away? 

Dr. Nate Jones: The first point is it's important for all of us, especially for parents, that we're talking with our children and telling them that emotions are okay, and not to be afraid of being upset, not to be upset that we're upset. We should be upset. A little bit of anxiety, being a little bit worried about safety, about success, about health is okay because that means you get up in the morning, it means you take care of yourself. It can motivate you to do well. I think a really important message, especially for parents or teachers talking with kids is that we very much want to understand and accept emotions and talk about how we work with them, how we manage them, as opposed to trying to make the emotions go away.

We don't have to try to convince ourselves not to be scared. It's okay to be scared. It's how we manage that fear, it's how we don't let it limit us, it's how we make sure we take the fear or the hate or the anger or whatever we're currently feeling, and how we move forward with it, how we manage it. For parents, it's listening, it's validating where our kids are at and where we're at, but also knowing our own perspective and our own responses and own reactions. I’m parent too and I was surprised how strong my emotions were when I was talking to my own children about what happened in Texas during the shooting. 

Melanie Plenda: In order to check in with our kids, how do we open that conversation? How should we be talking about these incidents, especially if you have kids of varying ages, how much do you explain? How much do you not explain? 

Dr. Nate Jones: There's some very concrete things that we want to say. One is being is safety is being clear that schools in America are incredibly safe places. Being a child in America is safe as it has has ever been. We hear about these terrible events, but I don't know how many tens of thousands of schools there are in our country, and in general, they're extraordinarily safe places to be day to day. Really reassuring our children that school is a safe place but at the same time, not promising that it's always safe, because that comes across as inauthentic, especially right now because your child was safe, but it wasn't safe in Texas. We stay away from words like always, but at the same time, school is a safe place to be.

Another is that developmentally-appropriate part. You're completely right. We want to talk to different age kids in different ways. It's very much talking about safety, understanding where they're at in late elementary and in middle school, they hopefully start having more concrete questions. Some questions may be very shocking to someone who forgets what it was like to be 12, so we want to leave the door open to whatever the questions might be and try to answer them honestly and not come across as if the question was inappropriate. The question is never inappropriate. Then in the high school, we can get a little more action-oriented, talking about the things that you can do as an individual, make sure yourself and your friends stay safe, which they talk about in middle school and high school for schools around suicide prevention programs and bullying programs. We’re making sure that we're all doing our parts, keeping doors closed, talking to administrators when we're concerned about our friends, being there for everybody in the school. It does change as our students get older. 

Another really important part is accuracy, I would call it. Children were killed in Texas. We want to use precise terms. We don't want to talk about having passed away and having gone to another place without having also used terms that are more specific. These sorts of things can be hard to say, but are really important because if we come across as not wanting to have the hard conversations, not wanting to address the really hard parts of the event, then our children won’t ask us the hard questions. We have to be really comfortable saying the words so they're comfortable using them too.

Melanie Plenda: As parents, one of the things that you worry about is not wanting to cause more anxiety and more worry than is already there. Is there any wrong way to answer some of these questions? Is there information that just shouldn't be shared?

Dr. Nate Jones: If your children are quite young, you don't need to get into gory details. That's why being mindful of our own perspective and our own reactions to the events is important. Certainly the younger the kids are don't lie, but don't tell everything. Provide a picture that you would like your child to remember and help them grow. Another part is using imprecise terms terms may suggest that you don't want to have the hard conversations, and we want to be able to give them that space. When we have students in schools who are harming themselves, who are suicidal, we ask them, have you ever thought about hurting yourself? Have you ever thought about committing suicide?

I don't say, have you ever thought about not being here anymore? That can mean a million things. I ask, have you ever thought about committing suicide, and that gives the child space to talk about it. Asking your child if they've ever considered hurting themselves or committing suicide doesn't make it more likely that they will. It's okay to use those serious terms, the scary terms. The first time we say it is not easy. We all practice in class the first time we do it. Have the straightforward conversation. Don't be afraid it's going to lead to other bad outcomes. It's better to talk about it. 

When you boil everything down, there's two ways to solve a problem. You can deal with it or you can avoid it. Certain problems we can avoid and the example I always use for this is when it snows in April, most most of us don't go shovel. We just let it snow because it's April and that's okay. It snows in February, you go deal with it. Knowing when you should avoid a problem and when you should deal with a problem is a really important skill that we have to learn how to do. We don’t want our children avoiding things because of their fear, like being too afraid to go to school. Not doing something because we're afraid may feel better in the moment, but in the long run it's not a healthy way to solve that particular problem.

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