How to talk to your children about recent school threats

Kids around Central Texas have had to shelter in place a lot lately after an increase in school threats on social media or called in by phone . From Austin High School to Lake Travis to Westlake to Bastrop to San Marcos and Del Valle, where a student was found with an actual weapon — these threats emotionally take their toll on students. Kids might be questioning if it is still safe to go to school.

How can parents talk to their kids about what is going on?

After previous school shootings, Jane Ripperger-Suhler, a child psychiatrist at Dell Children's Medical Center, reminded us to consider the age and developmental level of the kids.

For children already in school, be prepared to talk about what is happening and to answer their questions. You can ask them things like: "What do you think about this?" "What questions do you have?" Gauge if they want to talk about it, but, she said, "I wouldn't force them to talk about this."

Explain things in the simplest yet factual way you can. You can say, "Someone called in a threat to the school, and your school needed to take action to keep you safe."

You can focus on how you are feeling, that you're upset and that you also don't understand why this happened, but you should be careful about how you are reacting. "If a parent swoons or becomes frantic, a child is going to do likewise," she said.

Be truthful about your answers. It's OK to say: "I don't know." "I don't know if more threats will be called in." "I don't know why someone made the threat."

If your child seems to be fixated on what is happening, you could encourage them to draw, build something or act something out, if they don't want to talk about it.

Read more: After 'alarming number' of threats against Texas schools, leaders ask community for help

Try to reassure them that their teachers, their principal, and even you are trying to keep them safe, and that's why they had to stay in place, that's why we have to do drills.

When school threats seem to be bothering your child

If they don't seem to be able to move on after a few days, are afraid to go to school, are too scared to go to bed, are having physical symptoms of stress or behavior problems, get them help sooner rather than later, Ripperger-Suhler says.

You can start with your pediatrician if you don't already have a pediatric therapist in place.

"Therapy is huge," Maegan Woytek, a licensed professional counselor at Thriveworks in Pflugerville, said after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde. "When we don't allow our feelings to naturally resolve, that's when we get stuck and our brain doesn't process the way it is supposed to. It overwhelms us."

It's important to feel the way you feel and to be able to talk to someone — a friend, a therapist or a support group — about those feelings.

Treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy or trauma-focused cognitive therapy can be beneficial. They help a person talk through reframing the event and its significance.

Trauma therapy "helps your brain organize all traumatic, overwhelming information," Woytek said. "It helps it take that information and process it so it is long-term memory and not feel so fresh."

It also can help adjust your perception of events, Woytek said.

Another treatment that is PTSD-specific is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR. It trains a person to go through a series of eye movement exercises while thinking about the traumatic event. It's a way to reprocess the event.

Your past informs your present

The other thing that is critical to coping with trauma is your resiliency factor. Do you have a lot of other past traumas? Do you have a good support network? How did the people around you react to the trauma? Do you have access to treatment? Do you feel safe in other aspects of your life? All of that plays into your resiliency factor.

"There's no rule as to what can cause trauma," Woyek said. "It's how the individual experienced it and their lack of resiliency factors."

Be especially aware if a child has experienced a trauma before. These stay-in-place orders or drills might be more traumatic and disturbing for some kids.

After a traumatic event, there can be many different emotions, all of which are normal, said Rakima Parson, a licensed professional counselor with Centered Counseling, after the Uvalde shooting.

People dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder might feel sadness or fear, but they also might feel nothingness or numb. They might feel guilt that they aren't feeling sadder, or that they laughed at something or had fun sometime.

They can feel depression or anxiety. They can have flashbacks or nightmares, or they might ruminate about what they could have done to prevent it from happening or what they did to cause it to happen.

"There's not a right or a wrong," Parson said. "Normalize all of those emotions and how they change from minute to minute."

Ripperger-Suhler said it's important to go about normal life. And that normal life means going to school, running errands, playing sports, etc.

If your child expresses some fear about it, reassure them that you will keep them safe.