Expect change
Things won’t be the same.
“Anytime we go through a particular traumatic event, we are changed,” Dr. Gurwitch says. ‘’The question is, what do we do about it? How do we incorporate that change into who we are and have become?”
Also important is figuring out how to make meaning out of what happened.
“I am so impressed by the families at Sandy Hook (the Connecticut elementary school where a gunman killed 26 in 2012),” she says.
They set up foundations and did other advocacy work.
“These types of events are life-changing events,” agrees David Schonfeld, MD, a pediatrician and director of the National Center for Schools Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, California. “They will change who children are as people, but it doesn’t mean they are damaged for life. They will remember it as long as they live, and it will also change who they are as a person.”
While people tend to stress the potential negative effects – and there certainly are some – ‘’some individuals actually emerge from these events with a renewed sense of purpose.’’
He tells parents: “Yes, your child has changed, and you can’t go back. But it doesn’t mean they are destined to never be able to cope [with trauma].”
Research
The effects of gun violence on children can be serious and dramatic, research shows.
- Exposure to neighborhood gun violence is linked with an increase in children’s mental health issues, have found. Children living within two or three blocks of gun violence had nearly twice the risk of going to the emergency department with a mental health complaint in the 14 days following the shooting.
- Exposure to gun violence should be classified, along with maltreatment, household dysfunction, and other issues known to impact children negatively, as an adverse childhood experience, other experts
- Direct gun violence exposure, witnessing it, and hearing gunshots are all associated with children being victimized in other ways, another found. And that poly-victimization, as it is called, was strongly associated with having posttraumatic symptoms.
Adverse Childhood Events, as these sorts of experiences are known, can have long-lasting effects on physical and mental health, as well as on even the economic future of a person, says Hansa Bhargava, MD, a pediatrician and chief medical officer of Medscape, WebMD’s sister site for medical professionals.
“Kids who have suffered through violent events can have brain development affected, as well as their immune systems,” she says. “They are more likely to have chronic disease, substance use disorder, sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, and lifelong depression. A high risk of [posttraumatic stress disorder] is likely for them and their families.”
The impact of family support
The gun violence and deaths are likely to remind children of other losses they have experienced, Dr. Schonfeld says, and that can make coping more difficult.
If the trauma from the Tuesday shootings is ‘’layered” on top of trauma from COVID-19 deaths or other trauma such as domestic violence, those children may have a more difficult time, says Allan Chrisman, MD, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Health System. However, protective factors such as the family response and the community response can build resilience in survivors, he says.
“The way in which parents handle it for themselves will have a huge impact on the kids,” Dr. Chrisman says. “The worst outcomes are linked with [parents saying], ‘We don’t want to talk about it.’ ”
The parents are understandably upset, Dr. Gurwitch says. It’s OK to show sadness, anger, and other emotions, but she tells parents: “It’s not OK to completely decompose.” It’s important for the children to see that parents can pull themselves together.