Why You Don't Need to 'Keep It Together' Around Kids Right Now

The experience drove home the current nightmarish reality of parenting in the United States: Sending a child to school each morning means acknowledging the chance they won’t come home.

To add to the nightmare, children have to face that reality themselves each time they run through an active shooter drill or learn about the most recent school shooting.

If you think that sounds overly dramatic, consider this:

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that firearm-related injuries had overtaken traffic accident injuries to become the leading cause of death for children and adolescents.

That means more U.S. children (anyone between the ages of 1 and 19) die by acts of gun violence than by any other cause of death, including:

• car crashes
• drug overdose or poisoning
• suffocation
• drowning
• illness or accidental injury

In the face of data like that, how are you supposed to hide your fear, frustration, and anger in front of your kids when news of yet another school shooting breaks? I argue that you shouldn’t keep those emotions to yourself — and experts largely agree.

Why sharing your emotions can have benefit

My kid reacts easily to stressors, feels injustice deeply, and quickly picks up on tension and excitement. In short, he’s pretty sensitive.

Children can be fairly perceptive, and they often notice more than you realize — especially when it comes to your own thoughts and emotions.

If you’re anything like me, you want to shield your child from unnecessary pain and distress and protect them — as much as possible — from frightening or upsetting experiences. So, when you despair over world events and begin to lose hope that things will ever improve, you might instinctively try to keep those feelings to yourself.

But when you try to smooth over your emotions, saying, “I’m fine,” “Don’t worry, or “Everything will be OK,” you do yourself and your child a disservice.

As the study above suggests, emotional suppression doesn’t benefit anyone. Not you, and not your child. Plus, when you essentially lie —you aren’t really fine, after all, and you can’t promise everything will be OK — you can shatter the trust they’ve placed in you.

Know, too, that avoiding or hiding your feelings can eventually teach them to do the same thing, which can have major consequences for their emotional and mental health.

“Don’t worry that bringing up a recent traumatizing event will cause trauma for your child,” says Vicki Botnick, LMFT, a marriage and family therapist in Tarzana, CA. “They’re likely already hearing about these events and struggling to make sense of the information they’re getting from peers or social media.”

In fact, Botnick goes on to say, you have two good reasons to address these tough issues with your kids:

• If they sense you’re avoiding a topic, they may learn to do the same. When they hide their confusion and fear, these repressed feelings can fester over time.
• An honest discussion promotes open communication, which makes it more likely they’ll continue to come to you when they need guidance.

“Starting the conversation is important, in order to let kids know it’s acceptable and healthy to talk. We want them to feel like it’s okay to talk about difficult issues, challenging feelings, and taboo subjects, so that as they get older and grapple with more dangerous situations, they know we’re a safe person to check in with,” Botnick says.

The way you express your feelings can make a difference

Showing emotion around your kids can have a lot of value, but that doesn’t mean you should bedisplaying unregulated distress.

Instead, consider it an opportunity to demonstrate how to effectively regulate emotions.

“In order to create safety for our children when we speak to them, we need to be both regulated and nonjudgmental. Our regulation, or calmness, helps them feel safe to share. Our lack of judgment can help them feel like they can bring up anything without getting criticized or punished.” Botnick says.

As she goes on to explain, if you appear overly anxious, angry, or upset, they may feel as if they need to take care of you and shield you by hiding things, like their feelings.