With acts of terror and war becoming all too common in the world today, it’s become an issue for parents about how they should address it with their children. They want their child to be aware, but they don’t want to scare them.
This week on “Take Care,” marriage and family therapist Susan Stiffelman shares how parents can break bad news to their children, while maintaining a sense of security. Stiffelman is a credentialed teacher, a licensed psychotherapist, and delivers weekly parenting advice as Huffington Post's “Parent Coach.” She is also the author of the bestselling book, "Parenting Without Power Struggles: Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids While Staying Cool, Calm and Connected," and the new book "Parenting with Presence: Practices for Raising Conscious, Confident, Caring Kids."
Although talking with a child of any age about scary news can be difficult, younger children may be the trickiest. In some cases Stiffelman suggests not even bringing it up to the child, but waiting to see if they come to you about it, and then basing your response on what they already know.
“We always want to look at what the gain is going to be. There’s no actual gain in arbitrarily announcing to a child who would not otherwise hear about it, because of the small circle that he travels in, that there was a terrorist attack in France,” Stiffelman said. “On the other hand,if this child is likely to be exposed, or hearing about it from others, you want to always represent yourself as the place that they can turn to and come to with questions and concerns.”
Along with bringing awareness to a situation, it’s also important to talk to a child about a problem if you as the parent are emotionally affected by it, says Stiffelman. Children can sense when you’re upset and if you say you’re not, they can get a mismatched perception between what you say and how you act, according to Stiffelman.
“When and if things happen that are really beyond the scope of all of our capacity to really make sense of or handle, at least the child knows ‘this is my safe place … I can come to them and not bury it, repress it, turn it into nightmares, eat it, smoke it, drink it or in other ways be maladaptive to my fear,’” Stiffelman said.
Stiffelman says one of the biggest concerns a younger child often has is if the news event could happen to them or their family. In this regard, there are two parenting acts that can assure a child they are safe.
Act one is acknowledging that something has happened, and welcoming a child to talk about it if they need to. Act two is explaining logically and rationally why the tragedy may have happened, and reassuring the child that there are people helping those in danger, such as the police. Stiffelman says not to guarantee to a child that nothing will happen close to home, but emphasize there are always forces around trying to keep everyone safe.
If the child is a teenager or of college age however, the situation may need to be handled a bit differently. In this case Stiffelman says to model to your children that it’s something you’re struggling with also and that it’s okay to talk about it.
But no matter what age a child is, they may go through stages of emotion as the result of a tragedy, says Stiffelman. This can include:
- Denial that something has gone wrong
- Anger in the form of a strong, sometimes violent, response
- Bargaining that if they never leave the house again nothing bad will happen
- Depression/disappointment that the world we live in isn’t a safe place
Although you may not want your child to live in denial, you can’t push them through these stages of emotion, says Stiffelman, you can only model what you process and give them a glimpse into your own experience.
“Find a place inside yourself that feels okay, because that’s ultimately what’s going to make your kids feel better,” Stiffelman said.
