Discover practical tips and expert-recommended resources to help children cope with tragedy. Support your child’s emotional well-being with these effective strategies.
We both have 6-year-olds at home. The tragic events that occurred on Friday in Connecticut hit both of our hearts and homes very strongly, especially as classroom teachers. We felt that we needed to stop, acknowledge, and grieve for the lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Our hearts and prayers go to the victims, their families, the surviving students, teacher,s and community at Sandy Hook.
The past few days, we’ve all seen how the media and peers and the world have reacted to the news. We all react differently. Amanda and I chose to react differently to the news of the events with our own children and how we shared the information. We know that many of our readers will each have their own ways to grieve, respond, and involve your family.
Resources for Helping Children Cope with Tragedy
We consider all of you as friends that we might hang out with at the playground one day and share things we find online that are helpful with our own children.
With a tearful heart and a wish to help, we just wanted to share with you some resources that we have read and searched for over the weekend for our own children that may help you with parenting your child through this event.
They can be found on our Pinterest Parenting Board. Many are posts from Early Childhood specialists, psychologists, and counselors who specialize in this area of dealing with trauma with children.
Our #1 Suggestion to all of our families would be to TURN OFF the TV.
Try your best to monitor the messages they are hearing through various forms of media. Be available to talk with them about their self-initiated thoughts and concerns. You may have more time on your hands with your child, especially as the holiday break arrives.
Here are some SCREEN FREE ACTIVITIES to spend special time with your child.
We’ve also found many resources for you for Screen Free Activities that can be found HERE on our board. Free Play is a great way for children to process information that they may not be able to verbalize in a conversation with adults.
Books can be a great way to help your child open up about concerns and feelings.
Here’s a book list “Using Books to Break the Ice” that Allison McDonald shared on Scholastic.
If you have older children who wish to get involved with Community Outreach we’re sharing resources we find on HERE Ann Curry is inspiring many to join #26ACTS of KindnessPTA has also shared info on how to support with sending snowflakes {no longer accepting but encourage you to reach out into your community}.
There is also an initiative to send child made Hearts to Newtown.
We both printed this book from Fun in First for our children about Reassuring Children in School as they came home from school to color and talk about.
Here is a list of Age Related Reactions to Traumatic Events from National Child Traumatic Stress Network to help monitor your child.
Here’s a post from the Fred Rogers Company about talking to kids About Dealing with Death. If you have any resources you recommend, please leave a comment, and we’ll add them to our We will continue to update our boards as we search for the best information for you and your child during this time.
May no child experience tragedy in our World
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Empathy is a learned skills that I want to help my children learn as well. I think we're going to participate by sending snowflakes to their school to make it a Winter Wonderland as they return from winter break. I also think doing random acts of kindness helps our children to think of others and their needs, which teaches empathy as well. Thanks for sharing your resource of books.
Completely agree about the TV! I included my list of resources for using picture books as a talking in the After School linky. I'm also thinking about how I can teach my kids about empathy, which is a important emotion to help kids understand what others are feeling when tragedy happens to them.
Truthfully, this horrible event caused us to talk about listening to teachers extra carefully in times of emegency and that they are there to keep you safe. It also made us talk about the fact that there are some people in the world who make very bad choices that the police work hard to protect us from. I'm so glad to hear that your school had a plan, we received a phone home from our school board and a letter.
So agree with you about TV. We chose not to tell our 6 year old about Connecticut tragedy. I was worried that she would find out in school, and our school had a plan on how to talk to the students if this comes up. However, it looks like all other parents made the same decision, and so far I haven't had any inkling that Anna might know about this terrible thing that is impossible even for adults to comprehend fully.