Students in Lewiston will return to their classrooms on Tuesday morning, nearly a week after the mass shootings that left 18 people dead. District officials decided to use Monday to work with teachers and school staff on how to help students who may be fearful of returning to school.
For more on how these kinds of incidents affect children, and how parents and teachers should talk to kids about them, Maine Public's Robbie Feinberg spoke with Dr. David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Shonfeld says children who've been through a mass shooting often experience both bereavement and concerns for their own safety.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Schonfeld: What we see generally after any crisis event — and that would even include natural disasters that occur during weekends — is that children are often afraid to separate from those they love to go back to school, because they worry that something will happen if their parents and caregivers are not there to protect them. But they also worry that something may happen to their parents, caregivers or siblings or other relatives, if they're not there, to protect them as well. So school avoidance is very common after really any type of crisis event. And the real management of school avoidance is returned to a school setting with supports and accommodations. But you do want kids to return back to school.
Feinberg: If a kid is feeling this way, how can a community or a parent or anyone in the community really help there?
Well, I always tell people there are kind of three things you need to do whenever there's situations like this. You have to keep children safe, but they also have to know they're safe and they also have to feel they're safe. So you have to do all three of them. So I think the first thing is, we do have to take steps to try and make sure that children are safer. And that varies based on what people feel is the most appropriate strategy to use. But I think that's a critical step to take. Because these types of tragedies should not be occurring. The second thing is we have to tell children that they are safe. And if we want them to feel safe, we also have to feel they're safe as well. So part of what you have to say to children is, you know, we're taking all the steps we can to keep you and others safe in our country, tell them a little bit about what they're doing in the country, what they're doing in the state what they're doing in their school and in their home. And then you also have to say, I feel you are safe in school. And that's why I do want you to go to school. But I think the issue is if parents are hesitant to separate from their children because they're feeling scared that kids will pick that up. And they often do, they want to stay home to take care of their parents as well.
Lewiston schools are still off Monday, as administrators and teachers are discussing how to talk about this shooting with the thousands of kids who will be returning tomorrow. What would your advice be to teachers who will be welcoming them back into their classrooms?
Well, the first thing is to welcome children back into your classrooms. You also have to acknowledge what happened. We've worked with many schools that have had mass shootings or natural disasters. I worked with Newtown Public Schools after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And we actually prepared a script for the first period, for the first day back to school on Monday morning for schools across Connecticut. So a lot of it is starting the conversation, letting kids know that in this particular situation, you can at least tell them that they do not need to be worried that this particular shooter will harm them. So that that danger does not exist at this point. But you can also tell them what you're doing to keep them safe, and what they should do if they feel unsafe. So I think you need to welcome them back and start the conversation and give them the supports that they need so that they can resume.
Does that work needs to be an ongoing process as well? I would imagine that this will continue for weeks and months and possibly years down the line.
How long a particular student or staff member may react to this particular crisis event depends in large part on their degree of personal exposure. So if they were at the site of one of the shootings, then of course, the reactions are going to be much longer term. If they lost someone through this event, then obviously the grief they have will be long term. And if they're connected with people who were directly impacted, then it will also last longer. But some children already had other crises in their lives to deal with. They may have lost a parent or caregiver or sibling through unrelated causes. And this may kind of accentuate their concern and fears. They may have a family relative who is seriously ill, and they may start worrying more about whether they will die too, even if it has nothing to do with this particular event. I did some work in Las Vegas after the shooting at Mandalay Bay. And I had already done some training to some of the schools in that area prior to the shooting, so they were attuned to this. The shooting happened over the weekend, but by Monday, they already had students who were, you know, crying in the middle of math class and running and stopping in the bathroom because a relative had died six months ago, or they were having a student in the office crying because she was afraid that her mother was going to die of cancer. Now, the diagnosis of cancer hadn't happened within the week. It's just that you see interviews with people crying and upset and grieving and you start to think about that could be me. So you will see that other things will come to the surface and other types of distress will be evident. And again it's not just the children, it's going to be the adults as well.
For tips on how to talk to kids about tragedies, click here. For advice for teachers on working with students through crises, click here.
