Crisis Counselor Gives Tips On Speaking To Children About Tragedies
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – There's been so much awful news recently, it's hard to take it all in. But what if you're a kid or a parent of a young child? Making sense of senseless tragedy is extremely difficult, but experts say it's also very important.
"I saw something on the news, the girl texted her mom because Omar was going to kill her and she was in the bathroom," 6-year-old Jazani Smith said.
"This is pretty tough stuff, isn't it?" CBS4's Rick Folbaum followed up. "It's very sad to hear about so many people losing their lives and being so seriously hurt. What do you think about when you hear those details?"
Jazani had one response, "Sad."
Folbaum met Labrine Smith and her adorable kids in Orlando.
"As a mom, I bet you wish your kids didn't have to hear about any of this," Folbaum said to Smith.
"It's very terrifying," she said. "And every channel I turn on it's on the news, every radio station it's on the radio."
"How does all this make you feel about the world we live in?" Folbaum asked.
"Sad, disappointed," Smith replied.
"You could feel angry, mad, upset.," Folbaum said.
"Why would he do that? Why would he just come in the club and shoot people for no reason?" she responded.
A question many have been asking this week.
"I want people paying attention to the age of the child, the maturity of the child, and how much information you have to share," Dwight Bain told Folbaum.
Bain is a crisis counselor who specializes in dealing with kids. He says it's very important for parents to go to their kids.
"To be able to sit them down and say some bad things happened, we want you to know about it," he explained.
He says kids are likely to hear about stories like the nightclub massacre or the Disney gator attack from other kids, and that often that information will be wrong.
"Rumors in a tragedy like this will run rampant," he said.
So instead, Bain says to tailor your discussion to your child's age and look for warning signs that they're having a tough time with it.
"Is my child not sleeping well? Is my child having unusual tummy aches, unusual headaches? Are there things happening?" Bain said. "So warnings signs physically, emotionally."
He continued, "For older kids, I've seen some of them that are really, really angry – understandably. There's a lot to be angry about right now."
Bain says the most important thing to convey to kids is a sense of security.
"The greatest way that I can share bad news is to say these bad things happened, but we are a family and we are going to stick together," he said. "This is our home, this is our family. Our family is safe. We have each other."
CLICK HERE to read Dwight Bain's "Community Care after a Crisis: Identifying Emotional Warning Signs and Trauma Symptoms"
