April 22, 1999

By ADAM C. SMITH

How do you talk to a child about bloody mayhem on a school campus?

Experts say listening may be more useful than talking.

"The less said, the best said. Let the child be the guide," psychologist Robert Klein of Clearwater advised. "Children deal with these issues on their own time and in their own way, and sometimes ... parents can actually make it more confusing by talking too much."

Licensed mental health counselor John Mayo of Tampa said that principle is particularly true with young children, who might be needlessly frightened by parents overly eager to explain the tragedy.

"Parents," he said, "need to listen to what their kids have to say and find out what kinds of fears and thoughts they may have."

Every session Mayo had with children since news of the tragedy broke included talk of Columbine High School. He just let the children talk, each of them saying the same thing could happen here and voicing how horrible it must have been for the people in the school and their families.

"It's definitely on everybody's mind," he said.

If the incident has sparked fears for young children, counselors say parents should let them talk it through. Ease the child's concerns as simply as possible.

"The parent's role in this is to be as reassuring as possible and non-alarmist," said Judy Moore, coordinator of clinical programs for the Department of Child and Family Studies at the Florida Mental Health Institute in Tampa. "Parents mainly should try to be calm and realistic with their children, and assure them that they're going to be safe: "It's a terrible thing that happened, but it's very unusual.' "

The older the child, of course, the more openly parents can discuss such events.

Several child psychology specialists suggested the violence in Colorado may be an opportunity to talk with adolescents about values and lessons on such issues as firearms accessibility and troubled teens.

"If they have friends they are concerned about, they need to let somebody know about it," said Ray Gadd, who supervises school psychologists for the Pasco County school system.

Gadd also urged parents to assure their children that they have parents and people at school who will look out for them.

But assurances go only so far. Wednesday morning, Mayo's eighth-grade daughter remarked that the Colorado massacre could have happened in her school just as easily.

Said Mayo, "You can't honestly say, "No, it can't happen here,' can you?"

© St. Petersburg Times

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