School Violence: Tips For Coping With Stress

Despite these events, schools remain a very safe place for children to spend their days. In fact, the vast majority of children and youth homicides occur outside school hours and property. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has assembled a collection of resources on violence prevention to help parents, students, and school personnel cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event.

Common Reactions to Tragedies Vary

Tragedies, including school shootings, affect different people in different ways. Understanding how this traumatic event may affect you can be useful as you begin to get back to your typical routines and relationships. Keep in mind that returning to your normal routine can take some time.

You may have witnessed the loss of life, experienced feelings of grief, sadness, and suffering, experienced separation or lack of communication with family, friends and co-workers. At some point you may have felt that your own health and safety or the health and safety of someone you care about was in danger.

It is common for people who experience a tragedy to:

• Feel a sense of loss, sadness, frustration, helplessness, or emotional numbness

• Experience troubling memories from that day

• Have nightmares or difficulty falling or staying asleep

• Have no desire for food or a loss of appetite

• Have difficulty concentrating

• Feel nervous or on edge

Some people may notice positive changes as a result of this situation, such as increased respect for life and personal relationships.

Talk about your experiences and get support from your family, friends, and co-workers. Other places to seek support can include faith-based or volunteer organizations, such as the local American Red Cross.

It is important to take care of yourself by keeping your normal routine. Avoid using alcohol and drugs which can suppress your feelings rather than letting them come out. Helping other people or volunteering in your community can help you feel better as well. Keep in mind that returning to the way you felt before the event may take some time.

Tips for Parents

It's natural for kids and teens—no matter where they go to school—to worry about whether this type of incident may someday affect them. Talking with kids about these tragedies, and what they watch or hear about them, can help put frightening information into a more balanced context. The CDC offers parents these suggestions to help children through their questions:

1. Reach out and talk. Create opportunities to allow your child to talk, but do not force him or her. Try asking questions like, what do you think about these events or how do you think these things happen, to get the conversation started. After an incident of school violence, it's important for kids to feel like they can share their feelings and to know that their fears and anxieties are understandable.

2. Watch and listen. Be alert for any change in behavior. Are kids sleeping more or less, or withdrawing from friends or family? Are they behaving in any way out of the ordinary? This may show that they're having trouble coming to terms with this event. Recognizing even small changes in behavior can give you an early warning that something is troubling your child.

3. Share information with other parents. Get to know your children's friends and their parents. Make an on-going effort to check in and talk to other parents about any issues or stress. You don't have to deal with problems alone—the most effective connections you have are parents, schools, and health professionals working together to provide on-going monitoring and support for the health and well-being of your child.

4. Keep it going. Ask your child how he feels about the event in a week, then in a month and so on. Each child has her own way of coping under stressful situations and the best thing you can as a parent is to listen and allow children to express their concerns and fears.

Tips for Students

In the past few days, a great deal of media attention has been focused on school shootings. Whether or not you were directly affected by a violent event, it is normal to feel anxious about your own safety and to want to make sense of the situation. The CDC offers these suggestions to help kids and teens cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event.

1. Talk to an adult you trust. This might be your parent, another relative, a friend, neighbor, teacher, coach, school nurse, guidance counselor, member of the clergy, or family doctor. If you've witnessed or experienced violence of any kind, not talking about it can make feelings build up inside and cause problems. If you are not sure where to turn, call your local crisis intervention center or a national hotline.

2. Stay active. Go for a walk, volunteer with a community group, play sports, write a play or poem, play a musical instrument, or join a club or after-school program. Trying any of these can be a positive way to handle your emotions.

3. Take the initiative to make your school or community safer. Join an existing group that is promoting non-violence in your school or community, or launch your own effort. Safeyouth.org (www.safeyouth.org) can connect you with national organizations and provide you with information and resources to take action in your community.

4. Stay in touch with family. If possible, stay in touch with trusted family, friends, and neighbors to talk things out and help deal with any stress or worry.

Tips for School Personnel

CDC in partnership with the Department of Education is gathering information about school-associated violent deaths to identify trends that can help schools develop preventive measures to protect and promote the health, safety and development of all students. These prevention measures include:

1. Encouraging efforts to reduce crowding, increase supervision, and institute plans/policies to handle disputes during transition times that may reduce the likelihood of potential conflicts and injuries.

2. Taking threats seriously: students need to know who to go to when they have learned of a threat to anyone at the school, while parents, educators, and mentors should be encouraged to take an active role in helping troubled children and teens.

3. Taking talk of suicide seriously: it is important to address risk factors for suicidal behavior when trying to prevent violence toward self and others.

4. Promoting prevention programs that are designed to help teachers and other school staff recognize and respond to incidences of bullying between students.

5. Ensuring at the start of each semester that schools' security plans are being enforced and that staff are trained and prepared to use the plans.

Each person's response to stress from traumatic situations varies. Some people might experience stress immediately, while others may not experience stress until later. You may not recognize these reactions as related to your recent experience. Getting support and talking to people can be helpful. Possible sources of support may include your family, friends, co-workers, faith-based or voluntary organizations along with state and local government organizations. If you are troubled by these experiences, talking to a professional counselor can help. Contact your school or your state counseling association (State and Provincial Psychological Associations).

If you would like to learn more about how these experiences may affect you or your loved ones, help is available from the organizations listed below.

 

More Information and Resources

• The American Psychological Association
• The American Psychiatric Association
• CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
• The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
• Mental Health America
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255)
• Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration