Counseling for children who witnessed the Pasco shooting | Media Pyro

Pasco County, Fla. – Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said children who witnessed a horrific shooting early Tuesday morning are being offered counseling to help them process what happened.

For some, the revelation brought to the fore concerns about the delicate process of helping a child recover from a traumatic event.

“So they either become a more aggressive and cautious person, or more like, ‘I need to hide in the background, fade away and keep myself under the radar,'” says child psychologist Dr. Steve O said. Brian.

O’Brien says trying to get a child to talk immediately after a traumatic event like a shooting isn’t the best thing for them. So he says he encourages them to play instead.

“When kids use play, they process their thoughts and are a step removed,” he said, “and it’s like a step removed from their consciousness, ‘I’m telling you how I feel,’ instead of ‘I’m showing. How a part of me feels.’ .”

A child may be drawn to kitchens and food items, or they may be drawn to figures like aggressive dinosaurs because it may be a way for them to get angry or scared.

“So when they’re choosing play materials of their own accord — it’s not immediately obvious to me at first, so they’re getting thoughts and feelings,” O’Brien said. “I have to follow the path of the child.”

Child-led direction can result in a longer road to recovery, O’Brien said, because this type of brain trauma isn’t psychological — it can also be biological.

“It (the brain) is on alert,” he said, “and it’s on guard now, and when a child’s or an adult’s brain is on alert, it means that person expects danger because the world is not safe for them. It’s not just something a child gets — it’s something they get gradually, with support and patience and adults and therapy.” , can gradually learn to control the intensity of their thoughts and feelings so that they can resume a normal life with a relative degree of safety.”