Boston Marathon Tragedy

By now, I am sure you are all aware of the horrific events that occurred at Monday’s Boston Marathon. The fact that this tragedy occurred in our own backyard and that many young people were among the victims magnifies the impact on our own children.

I immediately reached out to Maria Trozzi, an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. Ms. Trozzi, an author and nationally recognized grief counselor, has worked closely with the Milton Public Schools for many years in times of crisis.

In the spirit of what is so wonderful about the Milton Public School community, I was also contacted by Glover parent, Dr. T. Atilla Ceranoglu, who works in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Ceranoglu graciously offered to speak with Milton parents and guardians about the Boston Marathon tragedy.

As a team, we decided the best way to reach the largest number of families and citizens of Milton would be to participate in a live television broadcast.  This program will be aired tonight, Wednesday, April 17th at 7 pm on Milton Access Television, which can be viewed on Channel 22 for Comcast and Channel 15 for RCN.

The program is “My Town Matters,” and will be hosted by Frank Schroth. The guests will be Dr. Ceranoglu, along with Glover Adjustment Counselor Brian Powers, and School Committee Member Kristan Bagley Jones, who has worked as a professional social worker with young people and their families for 20 plus years. Ms. Bagley Jones currently serves as the program director of a school-based counseling program at Franciscan Hospital for Children and adjunct professor at Boston College School of Social Work.

If your family is unable to watch tonight’s program, I want everyone in the Milton Public Schools community to be aware that our teachers, staff, guidance counselors and adjustment counselors will be available to address your children’s questions in the days, weeks and months to come.

I have provided some important information below, which was generously offered by Ms. Trozzi and Dr. Ceranoglu.

 

-Mary C. Gormley

____________________________________________________________

From Dr. Ceranoglu: 

We are all stunned with what happened at the finish of the Boston Marathon. Many were glued to various forms of screens in their homes, on which the moments of the two explosions and the aftermath is shown over and over again. In days to come, these images will likely continue to dominate screens, in addition to more will be avaialble on the Internet – unsuppressed and unsupervised. These horrific images will be coupled with their real-life components as our children meet friends and families mourning their loss. Our children will react to yesterday’s events and will need our help, support and guidance in processing their fears, worries and rage. As their adults, we play a key role in helping our children voicing their concerns and emotions.

As their adults, please join me in a discussion of how we can help our children through these difficult times and reassure their well-being. We will first review general concepts in talking to children of all ages about trauma, and then will look at different age groups, will discuss how they react to these events and what we can do to help.

In general, children of all ages need to have three fundamental questions answered even if they do not ask them openly:

  • Am I safe?
  • Are people responsible for my well-being safe?
  • How will this event change my daily life?

Every children of every age have these questions roaming their mind, once they come in contact with Monday’s events in any form – be it on a screen, big or small, or in a conversation among adults either in the same room or down the hall. Do not assume they hear or see nothing at all. We should expect to answer their questions several times over the next few days and perhaps longer.

  • Validate your child’s feelings. Acknowledge what they feel, especially when a child admits to a concern and refrain from responding with “Oh, don’t be worried.”
  • Try to answer your children’s questions at a level they can understand, but remember it is OK to not have an answer for everything such as who did it and why.
  • Make sure you limit and supervise your child’s exposure to media, including online social networks. There unfortunately is a porous filter for media material on TV, and there is no filter on the Internet.
  • Be ready for temporary accommodations. Do not overburden your child with tasks, or expect them to continue new learned or assumed responsibilities. In fact, prepare to lower expectations, to some extent, for some chores and tasks, sleep routines and perhaps even school demands, although set up a target date and time for return to normal arrangements.
  • Know when to seek help. Within first few weeks of a traumatic event, it is common for children to be distracted easily and not be responsive to request or cues given. After that, as the numbness wears off, some kids might start to experience more symptoms. Children who have witnessed injuries or death, lost immediate family members or close friends, experienced previous trauma, are at higher risk for developing severe reactions weeks or a month later. If your child seems to be constantly replaying the event in their minds, having nightmares or sleep problems, appearing irritable, angry or moody most the time, having difficulty concentrating, or regressing to earlier behavior in young children, (e.g. clinging, bed-wetting or thumb sucking) seek help from your family doctor or from a mental health professional.

When Bad Things Happen — from Maria Trozzi, M.Ed

For children, part of growing up is facing the stressors embedded in moving, watching playmates and friends change and shift, grandparents’ aging, changing schools.

However, many children may also face the threat of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and all children today face the fears and insecurities that accompany world terrorism. The feelings experienced by children, even very young children, include anxiety, confusion, fear, irritability, depression. Very young children may suffer symptoms of stress such as crying and whining, regressive behavior, separation anxiety and fear of being alone, sleep disorders, illness, changes in normal patterns of behavior, aggression, fear.

Why some children in a family appear to be resilient and others suffer permanent psychological scars is a subject of much inquiry. However, experts all agree what resilience is NOT. It is not rare; most children have the capacity to be resilient. Second, people are not born resilient. Resilience is developed.

What, then, are the strategies that parents can employ when children are facing threats that may be localized and imminent; such as a hurricane, and threats that are more nebulous, such as a “yellow alert” terrorism watch?

The following strategies are important for helping toddlers and young children manage the stress of world and natural disasters.

Infants and children under six years rely completely and exclusively on the emotional competence of their primary caregiver. How a parent communicates about escaping to safety from a disaster, the emotional tone that is set, and the age appropriate explanations about what will happen in the next few minutes or hours will determine the child’s reaction. Communicate in a clear, calm voice, hold the child close physically when possible, and reassure the child that you, the adult, are in charge and will make everything all right. Exposure to the media should be avoided at all cost since very young children have no capacity to distinguish from ‘real time’ and replays nor can they make sense of the unfolding dramatic pictures and language.

Nathan’s mother assumed her four year old was immune to the background television news of CNN at the outbreak of the war in Iraq when he stunned her with the question, “Mommy, why are we in a fight with a rock?”

Elementary-aged children will understand the life event or threat not just from their primary caregiver’s words but also their peers’ and other adults’. They worry about the safety of their limited “world” of home, neighborhood and school. It is critical to assure these children that you are in charge, you will do your best to keep them safe, that other helping professionals, such as police officers and mayors, will do their best to keep everyone safe as well; additionally, you must offer young children the perspective that they lack developmentally.

Seven-year old Ben was terrified when the family’s SUV was stopped and a police officer’s large flashlight peered into the windows as they were about to cross the Golden Gate Bridge to return home from their weekend at Nana’s. The nation was at Yellow Alert, which Ben didn’t understand. Why did he need to look in the back space and open the suitcases? Had his dad done something wrong? Would they be able to return home? Were the terrorists on the bridge? Would they be in his hometown when he got home?

Pre-adolescents view themselves as members of a more complex world; they are part of a family, a community of school and sports, a religious group, an ethnic group, a citizen of a town, a state and a nation. They have the capacity to worry in times of threat about their immediate safety but also how the event or the threat will change their future.

Eleven-year old Martha couldn’t sleep again and went into her mom’s bedroom looking for comfort. Everyone at the airbase was talking about who would be deployed next month and she was scared that her dad’s company was on the list. She had been born on a military base but had never really worried until now about facing her dad going to war. For the first time, she hated being a military kid.

Adolescents are caught in the middle between the understandable feelings of terror and their own imposed pressure to be mature in the face of a threat. They rely on the adults in their lives to make them feel safe and yet may want to participate in creating safety nets for others. They may be philosophical and/or political in their attempts to make sense of the event.

Sixteen year old Ali’s stomach kept doing sommersalts as she and her sister made emergency preparations for the mandatory 3 pm evacuation from her home to a neighboring community shelter. Her father had said she had to pack everything in her overnight roller suitcase and it was just not possible to choose what to leave behind. How could she leave Scout, her dog, behind? It wasn’t fair. It was too scary, but there wasn’t time to do anything but pack. Hurricane Ivan was coming, no matter what.

In summary, for any age child, adults whom they know and trust will provide the most safety and security in times of crisis and stress. Adults should never promise anything that they can’t control but should reassure children that they are doing everything to make them safe and secure. They should explain action plans, a crisis response, the immediate future events, in simple developmentally appropriate language. They should model confidence and competence. For older children who may want to watch and listen to the media, parents should accompany them so that they can respond to their child’s concerns. They should preserve whatever routines can be maintained in their children’s lives; such as bed time rituals. They should anticipate the symptoms of stress in their children and be available to comfort them. In the immediate aftermath, children will still need reassurance of their safety and may exhibit symptoms of stress until life’s routines are normalized.

References:

Honig, A.S. 1986. Stress and coping in young children Young Children 41 (4):51-63;41 (5):47-59.

“When Disaster Strikes: Helping Young Children Cope,” 1996.  National Association for the Education of Young Children. 1995. Washington, DC.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.