Podcast Episode #37 – Gun Violence: Supporting Your Kids

Gun Violence, Safety, and Support for Families

Supporting Your Kids – Understanding your child’s perspective of gun violence and how you can support them.

Kids will show you that something is bothering them through their behavior, not necessarily with words. They may be more aggressive than usual. They may seem sullen or quieter than normal. They may seem to have more energy. They may start to get sick more frequently or more severely. Our culture may label these things as misbehaviors or unrelated to things that have happened, but I’ve learned that most of the time they’re actually signs of stress, of a story that they can’t make sense of, or something that they need more support to handle.

Remember the Polyvagal Theory and that we first want our kids to turn to others- adults- to help them know they’re safe and calm their stress response? To be the adult they turn to, we need to invite them to speak or to show us what they’re experiencing. We need to make room for their feelings and create a space that’s safe for them to be vulnerable and share.

What’s all this like for your kids? And what does it mean when no one talks about them?
Lock down drills. Seeing things on the news. What’s their perception of safety? How are their teachers feeling? What can they do to feel like they have choice or that there’s something they can do for themselves?

While I wholeheartedly agree that we need to encourage our kids to be nice to one another and to connect, I think it is really important to recognize that we’re blaming the victims when we put these complicated situations that adults don’t know how to handle, indeed many professionals don’t know how to handle, on our kids. Our kids are supposed to be kids and the adults are supposed to keep them safe. That’s the role of the adults. But since the adults aren’t keeping them safe, they’re needing to do more adult things right now to make the changes and do what we, as adults, haven’t been able to do for them.

Next month, we’re going to be talking about raising boys. Even if you don’t have them, you know them and can help others with boys. This is part of the new story. We need to work together to support one another. It matters. The more people our boys have in their lives that they trust, the better.

Resources from this Episode:

http://time.com/5011599/gun-deaths-rate-america-cdc-data/

Dr. Miller article: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/04/mass-shootings-american-psyche/