Talking to Children about School Shootings

Many caregivers are wondering how to address the Nashville school shooting with kids. Adults are uncertain about what to say when a child asks about community shootings they learned about in the news or from school friends. Children may be frightened by rumors or inaccuracies about what actually happened and require a special type of clarification. It is important to be proactive and truthful in talking with kids, but they definitely don’t need to know all the details of the event.

Change your Brain with your Mind

Did you know that it is normal to talk to yourself? People experience a private internal dialogue all the time. What you elect to think affects feelings, which in turn influences your behaviors. Choosing to reflect negatively on matters by focusing on fears can create pessimistic reactions that result in undesirable outcomes. For example, telling yourself you will be unsuccessful at your new job may produce a sense of worthlessness. When we believe our value is low, it can create an apathetic mood. Lack of effort may very well result in a poor job performance. The internal dialogue might be, “I will fail anyway, so why should I even try?” At a subconscious level, our beliefs and expectations influence our actions. So when we tell ourselves that we will fail, it often results in a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Inoculating against the Misinformation Virus

Why do some individuals trust fallacies in the first place? One example may be if a piece of farfetched news is aired, people who lack the time, interest or ability to critically evaluate this news turn to social media to quickly scan what others think. Individuals can also have faith in false information because of confirmation bias, where we naturally seek out ideas to confirm our prior beliefs. Due to the large amount of data we must process on a daily basis, it is easier to fit new knowledge into our already established world view than to create a new line of thought.

Creating Balanced Relationships with Social Media

How to craft online safeguards:
1. Prune your social media garden by deleting who and what provokes anxiety
2. Protect yourself by blocking
3. Remove toxic apps that focus on negativity. Counter these with daily positives, such as Nice News
4. Moderate exposure by taking periodic breaks to gain perspective and create balance in online activities
5. Turn off notifications that eat up time and create distractions that keep you from main goals
6. Remove blue-light screens to improve your sleep
7. Look at computer tracking that informs about the actual length of your screen time

Social Media News and Mental Health

Excess emersion in social media is unwise. We become overwhelmed when spending hours online seeking answers. The mind is not constructed to process an oversaturation of discouraging material and millions of digital comparisons. When people become flooded with too much data, one response is to ‘give up,’ which can lead to learned helplessness. This manifestation of learned helplessness is related to a person’s belief in their ability to reach a goal. In this case, finding the correct piece of information that satisfies a sense of safety in what we perceive to be an unsafe world. An impression of powerlessness that comes with a perceived lack of control over a particular outcome can lead to depression. It is important to proactively take control over our wellbeing and lessen the effect of learned helplessness.