For young students, hearing about Texas shooting is a lockdown drill turned real
Some feel numb. Others feel confused. Even if parents want to shield kids from the tragedy, psychologists say it’s important to discuss with elementary students.
Elementary school children growing up with lockdown drills should be told about the massacre in Texas, even if parents’ instincts are to shield them from the horror, according to psychologists.
They say the reason is two-fold: There is a high chance their children have heard about it anyway, either through classmates, older siblings, social media, discussions among caregivers or through the bombardment of breaking news that surrounds them.
More critically, they said, given that they are a generation for which routine drills constantly serve as a reminder of the very remote chance that their own safety could be endangered, they should have a safe space to process the tragedy and ask questions about it.
There are exceptions to telling kids, particularly very young ones, about the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. But psychologists said if parents have not already talked to their children about what happened Tuesday in Uvalde, most should consider doing so.
The fact that lockdown drills are woven into kids’ education might make school shootings less of a shock than they were when, for example, the 1999 Columbine massacre happened in Colorado. If anything, that makes the need to talk more urgent, said Stephen Brock, a professor and school psychology program coordinator at California State University, Sacramento.
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