Are Active Shooter Drills Creating Anxiety in Children?
Are you the parent of a child or teen who is attending a public or private school setting? If so, you have certainly been impacted by and felt the weight of many of the school shootings, new protocols placed to attempt to manage the safety of students, and the overall uncertainty in fear that comes with the topic of school shootings.
As a therapist for children and teens, we are acutely aware of the way that the current social climate impacts, children and teens, and even the ways that some of the protective proactive drills also serve as a source of anxiety for students. Today we will take a few moments to address a few ways that parents, guardians, and adults in the lives of students can assist students through these proactive drills for readiness. As is the goal of any emergency drill, the hope is that our students would be equipped with the tools to stay, physically safe as well as the skills to manage and process the situation with emotional health, wellness, and understanding. Here are a few ways that you may be able to assist and equip your students in thinking about active shooter and other safety drills.
Understanding the Purpose of Active Shooter Drills
Knowledge is power, and knowledge for our children and teens is power. As adults, parents, and educators, it is our job to empower children and teens with age-appropriate knowledge to understand the purpose and intent behind active shooter drills. Equipping them with this knowledge to know the why can give much more purpose and understanding behind the how. So as a child and team therapist, our encouragement to all adults who are involved in preparing children and teens to participate in these types of emergency preparation, drills is to be intentional and explicit in addressing the purpose.
Recognizing the Potential Impact on Children's Mental Health
It is important to recognize that while these drills are necessary, these types of drills have been statistically reported to impact the mental health of children and teens. In a recent news report, social media posts were reported to include higher rates of depression and stress, following active shooter drills in schools (1). The psychological impact of these drills cannot be avoided; however, we can do things to equip children with the tools to process these events well. Even discussing or noting that many people may feel distressed, anxious, sad, or other challenging feelings after a drill has occurred, may equip children and teens with the language and understanding to discuss what they are feeling.
It is also important to check in with children after a drill has occurred to see, what feelings may have come up for them. As the adults in the lives of children and teens, it is our job to create safety around healthy, processing and normalization of the challenging feelings that may occur. If we create safe spaces to address these feelings, we create safe spaces to help them process and work through these feelings.
Age-Appropriate Understanding and Communication
An age-appropriate understanding of current events is an imperative step in equipping children and teens to process and feel some sense of empowerment in the situation that they are facing. As is true with all challenging conversations, therapists encourage parents and educators to be factual, honest, and age-appropriate in any responses to hard or complicated questions. Consider practicing how you might simplify complex issues into a format that elementary school students might be able to understand. Practice these responses with other parents and educators so that voices and stories are reporting consistent information related to the safety and well-being of students. Our students are living in complicated worlds, and they need the information to understand the complexities of the situation as well as the how, considering the capacities for understanding that each developmental age and stage may have.
These can include something very simple for a very young child like “There are people in the world that sometimes may really bad or hurtful choices. We do these things to help make sure that everyone knows how to stay safe even if someone else is making a choice that could hurt others.”
For older children and teens, it may be helpful to talk about more complexities of the situation including the importance of taking care of mental health, reporting things that are concerning, and policies that may impact them.
Advocating for Change
It is safe to say that many things need to change in order to make our schools and communities safer places for all. And sharing the ways that you are advocating for positive changes can be a great way to bring hope and positive feelings for children and teens related to the future. Talk to your children and teens about how they can be a part of positive changes through advocacy, education, being kind to others, normalizing mental health care, reporting concerns to school counselors, and even voting or writing letters to elected officials or school personnel as they enter ages that they have the ability to do so.
Violence in our communities continues to be a challenge to address, and our children and teens continue to be on the front lines of facing these fears of violence. But you can be a part of building resilience and coping strategies to equip our children and teens with tools to process and work through these challenges with confidence and health.
And if you or your child or teen is struggling with anxiety, depression, or emotional or mental health challenges, one of our child and teen therapist would love to help. Our team of therapists is passionate about partnering with families to conquer these challenges together, and we would be honored to support your family. Whether online therapy or in person at our Arlington, TX-based therapy office we would love to connect with you.
