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Another shooting leaves parents fearful

Experts offer advice on how bes to cope

by: Zachary Schermele
Kayle Jimenez
and N'dea Vancy-Bragg
USA Today

..... The day after a mass shooting at a Georgia his school, a wave of familiar dread set in for parents across the country as they prepare for another school day.
..... Each time a new tragedy grips the country, parents contend with a renewed sense of foreboding about sending their children into school environments many feel can't guarantee their safety.
..... "The best thin I can do is mange my own emotions," said Crystal Garrant, the mom of a fourth grader in Atlanta who also works for the gun violence prevention group Sandy Hook Promise.
..... Garrant's heightened angst, and that of many parents this past week, [09/05/2024] is backed up by data: School shootings rose 31% across the U.S. during the 2023-2024 academic year compared with the previous year, [2022-2023] according to the latest data from the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety and David Riedman, found of the K-12 School Shooting Database.
..... The frequency of gun violence in American schools has altered the way their kids' campuses look and feel. Active shooters drills are part of the back-to-school season. Schools have bolstered security in recent years. Most teachers worry about shootings, surveys show - and some educators are now armed with guns.

School drop off can be 'petrifying'

..... On the second day of the school year in Charlotte, North Carolina, Taylor Maxwell dropped off her 3-eayr-old at the preschool where her daughter has participated in lock-down drills since she was 2. Educators there teach the young kids to sit still and be quiet - a concept they're still grappling with as preschoolers.
..... Sending her daughter to school the day after a shooting in the South - where more people are gun owners than in other parts of the country, according to a survey form the Pew Research Center - was "a little terrifying," Maxwell said.|
..... "It's really overwhelming to have someone so tiny, who you love so much, in a world that is really petrifying as a parent," she said.
..... Maxwell works with Project Unloaded, an organization that collaborates with teens to cerate social media campaigns about gun prevention. She said many parents think "it will never be their kids who do something dangerous with a gun" in their home. She hopes that the shooting in Georgia inspires them to secure their firearms properly or to not own them at all.

Past shootings loom over choices

..... Monica Garcia couldn't help but feel stressed when she dropped off her 6-year-old daughter Isabella at school Thursday [09/05/2024] morning. After news of the shooting in Georgia, she felt"devastated," "scared" and :highly anxious."
..... Garcia lives in Texas, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde in 2022. she said it's been painful to see violence happening so regularly in schools, a place where children should feel safe.
..... When selecting an elementary school for her daughter, Garcia and her wife ultimately chose a private Montessori school over a public school, in part because of the stricter safety protocols.
..... Good communications within the family, she said, has also been key to helping her cope with the dear, including finding an age-appropriate way to explain to her daughter why her school holds intruder drills.
..... "We have a lot of contingency plans," she said. "And we talk it out and we cry."
..... DR. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician in South Carolina and a senior adviser at Everytown for Gun Safety, said she typically tells her 12-year-old about mass shootings. After the Uvalde shootings two years ago, she decided it would be best for her children to learn about those tragedies from her first.
..... When she mentioned the killings at a Georgie high school Wednesday, [09/04/2024] her daughter burst into tears. The seventh grader's school had held a prescheduled active shooter drill that same day. Andrews said. so the fear of a similar tragedy unfolding on her campus didn't seem outside the realm of possibility.
..... "This is not healthy for developing brains," Andrews said.

How should parents cope?

..... In the wake of a tragedy such as a school shooting, it's important that parents take time to regulate their won feelings about the event before they talk about it with their child, said Dr. Janine Domingues, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York.
..... "As a parent, I total;ally understand the anxiety around hearing about these things," she said, noting that it's also sad that this is something we ever have to have conversations about.
..... In the immediate aftermath, of a violent event, Domingues said, it can be helpful for parents to detach from media coverage and try simple coping mechanisms, such as taking deep breaths. It's important to remember, she said, that although gun violence in schools has risen dramatically, mass shootings are rare.
..... Some parents opt to home-school their kids over fears of mass shootings, but Domingues said parents should take a step back, asses their anxiety, and talk with other people and parents before making major changes.
..... "Going to school, getting back in there, keeping to routine, things that you know - the predictability actually really helps ground kids in reducing any anxiety and worry," she said.
..... David Schonfeld, the director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, recommended parents be the ones to inform their kids about tragedies like school shootings.
..... Moments like these, he said, are opportunities to model how to cope with stressful news.
..... "You can also - and should - communicate to kids that the news worried, but then talk about and focus on what you did to cope with the concern" he said.

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