How to Talk to Kids About Shootings and Gun Violence
It’s been about a year since we covered How to Talk To Kids About Terrorism, and sadly, the topic is still as timely as ever.
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD
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How to Talk to Kids About Shootings and Gun Violence
In fact, between Oregon, Paris, and San Bernadino, it’s time to add how to talk about gun violence to our parenting repertoire. I don’t claim to have all the answers—no one does, but here are eight tips to answer kids’ tough questions.
A couple of weeks ago, my 7-year-old had an anonymous threat of gun violence directed at his school district. Nothing came of the threat, and the teachers, school administrators, and authorities reacted swiftly and bravely. But getting emails with FBI updates and seeing uniformed police officers guarding the one not-locked-down entrance to his elementary school isn’t how I envisioned my son’s first grade year.
Needless to say, he and I have done some talking. And the hardest part of the conversation wasn’t how to bring it up or how to help him feel safe (see How to Talk to Kids About Terrorism for those), but rather, how to handle the tough questions. Kids are smart—they’re pint-sized philosophers trying to wrap their heads around all the good and bad that comes with this world. Gun violence is hard to explain no matter their age, but for younger kids in particular, they still want a concrete answer.
So let’s tackle two of the most common questions, which (parents, lucky us) are also the hardest to answer:
“Why?”
The first is, “why?” Why would someone bring a gun to a concert? Why would someone shoot people at their holiday party? Why would someone shoot kids and teachers?
Answer #1: It’s OK to say you don’t know. Why indeed? It’s hard to answer an unanswerable question. Kids (and most adults) don’t like to acknowledge that tragedy can strike innocent people and that the world isn’t fair. So it’s OK to say, “We don’t know why. We don’t know what they were thinking. It’s wrong and not fair that they hurt people and made a lot of other people scared.”
Answer #2: “Look for the helpers.” We don’t know why bad things happen, but we do know what happens in response. To take a page from Harold S. Kushner’s classic book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (a helpful read if you’re struggling with existential questions of your own), when tragedy strikes, people come from all corners to help. Tragedies like mass murders are some of the worst things that can happen; however, in response to such evil comes a tide of good: strangers open their doors to each other, communities come together, and individuals help in a million ways, from donations to advocacy to donating blood. Stress to your child how many people pitch in after catastrophe and work to prevent future tragedy. The “why?” may not be answered, but the “then what?” is crystal clear.
End your answer with concrete reassurance of safety and prevention. You can say, “So many people are working to make sure we stay safe. Let’s think of all the people we know who are helping.” Here, collaborate with your child. Let her think of all the people who keep her safe every day: you, grandparents, teachers, the principal, friends’ parents, a beloved babysitter, the police, firefighters. Add whomever your child wants to the list. If he wants to add his teddy bear or the family dog, go for it.
Answer #3: Try not to blame mental illness. With tragedy, we want a reason. We want to be able to answer, “why?” But explaining that a shooter was mentally ill equates mental illness and violence, which increases stigma and, for the millions of people struggling with mental illness, reduces a willingness to speak up and get help. In a time when almost every family knows someone struggling with mental illness, you don’t want kids wrongly equating a school shooter with Uncle Rick’s depression or being afraid of the kid with autism down the block.
In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, plus most acts of gun violence are committed by individuals without mental illness. So instead, say the person had a lot of problems and didn’t know how to solve them without violence. Or, if a media report invokes a mental illness, say, ”Most people with that illness are safe and would never shoot anyone, just like you and I would never shoot anyone.”
“Could It Happen Here?”
The second biggest question in the aftermath of a shooting elsewhere is, “Could it happen here?” For kids (and their nail-biting parents), the question often becomes, “Could it happen at my school?”
Note that we can feel sad, angry, or whatever else we feel about a shooting, but that we should also love and enjoy being with each other every day …
Answer #4: Don’t immediately end the conversation with a blanket denial. Hear me out on this one. It’s tempting to promise your child that there is zero possibility your community will ever be involved in a shooting. Period. End of story.
However, consider two things before offering a flat-out denial and then changing the subject. One, denial makes the topic taboo. If kids sense the topic is too horrifying even to ask about, they may feel they have to protect you by not bringing it up again. Second, denial sends the message that you’re not willing to talk. And that’s not what we’re after.
So instead of tight-lipped denial, keep the conversation going. Say something along the lines of, “No, I don’t think so, but it sounds like you might be worried about that.” Or, “I doubt that would ever happen here—what do you think?” Then listen to what they say. If there’s any fear, invoke your list from Answer #2. And then …
Answer #5: Present shootings as rare. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S., plus over 30,000 private and parochial schools. Depending on how you define “school shooting” there were between 20 and 52 shootings in 2015, but only one actually happened inside a school building: the Umpqua Community College tragedy. Stress that shootings make the news precisely because they are rare. And while anything greater than absolute zero is too many school shootings, the chances of actually being at that school are small.
Answer #6: Talk about not living in fear. Ask kids what they think the shooters were trying to do: hurt people, scare people, make people sad and afraid. Ask if that’s what we should do, or, if instead, we should keep going to school, showing up at soccer practice, having birthday parties, going to concerts, being with our families and friends, and all the other things we love. Note that we can feel sad, angry, or whatever else we feel about a shooting, but that we should also love and enjoy being with each other every day, and live our lives as fully as we can.
Answer #7: Address worries about drills. If your child’s school practices silent safety drills, known in scarier terms as lockdown drills or active shooter drills, compare it to a more familiar drill, like a fire drill or an earthquake drill. Ask your child how many fires or earthquakes they’ve actually had at school. Chances are the answer is zero. Stress that for all these emergencies, they will probably never need the plan, but the school wants to practice just to make sure the plan works. You can also compare drills to other, less scary safety behaviors we do automatically and will probably never need, like buckling a seat belt, wearing a bike helmet, or knowing how to call 911.
Answer #8 is not a talking point at all. Simply listen to what your child has to say. Then follow up with hugs and an “I love you.” Whether they’re two or twenty-two, they’ll always be your kid and will always soak in reminders that you love them and that you’ll do everything you can to keep them safe, even if they’re too cool to admit they even have parents.
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About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.