What I Say To My Kids About School Shootings And/Or Other Anxiety Provoking News. How To Help Your Kids Feel Safe When Their World Feels Out Of Control.
What I say to my kids about school shootings and/or other anxiety provoking news. How to help your kids feel safe when their world feels out of control.
I get many questions on this. How do I talk to my kids? What do I tell them?
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One thing that I always tell my kids (no matter what age) is to Look For the Helpers! Mr. Rogers taught me this and it has stuck. Find the people on the television at the event that are helping! Point them out. What are they doing?
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This to me is so very important to have hope and belief that even right along side total desolation, complete terror, shocking decimation, and unfathomable human suffering is BENEVOLENCE. People who are, despite the circumstances, rushing in to help. These countless people, 911 receptionists, EMS personal, hospital staff, doctors, firemen, police officers, Red Cross aids, Mental Health Professionals, Community Schools, churches, and other agencies, are there to help and they show up even when its overwhelming. They have done and are continuing to do the training to be warriors. To exemplify courage, strength, and the ability to move into compassionate action.
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We need to do our training, so we can one day mobilize our compassion. We need to work very hard at it every single day. To not get knocked down and paralyzed by fear and anxiety. This state is also filled with compassion, but it cannot be put into action if we freeze. So to unfreeze it, we do our training. We need to train in mindfulness and compassion.
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We train our minds. We understand what our thoughts are telling us, where our feelings are arising from, and we know how to protect ourselves.
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We often feel overwhelm and paralyzing anxiety when self-compassion is overlooked. We go into a state of empathic distress. It keeps us stuck and unable to move into compassionate action.
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This exercise to look for benevolence is not to minimize the suffering and grief that is unfolding at the same time. That is there and unavoidable and hard to put into words. The exercise is to see how in every moment of suffering in our lives and when we watch it unfolding in others, that right along side of it is the good, the beauty of our human capacity to love and give compassion. To enter with chivalry, and courage, bravery, strength and compassionate wisdom. We are not to be blind to this. This is our opportunity to train more!