After hearing the horrific news of the Sandy Hook shootings, parents and teachers across America are left with the difficult decision of how to handle this tragedy with their children. We want to offer a few thoughts as people are making this difficult decision in schools, households, and in the community.

It is important to remember that children process and understand events very differently based on their developmental age and certainly much differently than adults do. This is the reason you are selective in the movies or songs you allow your children to watch or listen to. You offer them the reality of our world in small pieces so they can better process and understand it based on their age. The information and details of the Sandy Hook tragedy can be thought of in the same way. The details of what happened at Sandy Hook would be rated R if it were a movie and are extremely overwhelming to a child and even a teenager.

An adult can use this information to look for warning signs in people they know or they might change safety procedures in their school, but children do not have the resources or the responsibility to use the information in this way. Instead they just become fearful and stressed. However, this information and these images are being talked about in many environments.

While you are being thoughtful and wise about what to share with your children, we also believe it is important to give kids some tools to engage in self-care. Creative and imaginative play are two ways that kids ‘work-out’ things that are hard and distressing. Your kids may not have the words to verbalize what they are thinking, but allowing them plenty of time in the play room or outside will help them to process. It’s also important to remind them that there are lots of people in the world who are working hard to make sure they are safe.

Check out our next blog in this series: “How do I answer my child’s difficult questions about Sandy Hook?”