Let your children return to campus ASAP, experts advise

There's a natural temptation for parents to want to keep their children close and protect them when tragedies like the NIU shooting occur.

But mental health professionals say that prolonging the return to a regular environment and routine can end up heightening anxiety.

That's particularly true of NIU students themselves, said Kathy Fader, a clinical psychologist at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates.

"The sooner, within reason, that they get back to their normal environment and share their experiences with others on campus, the better," Fader said. "They can really process it with their peers and see that their own feelings and anxieties are normal.

"Removing them or keeping them home really intensifies the fear," she said. "Especially at this age, as soon as they're ready, it's important the parents don't keep them at home."

By the same token, students who've been traumatized should be given the space to process their feelings in their own time.

It could be weeks, or even longer, before NIU students are "ready to talk about it with any depth," Fader said.

As for young children, they need reassurance when very public tragedies occur, but parents should wait until kids broach the subject themselves, experts say.

"The important thing is to wait and let the child raise their own concerns," said Katie Miley, clinical pyschologist. "Then adults can reassure them they are safe, and although bad things happen in the world and it is sad, those bad things are very unusual."

Violent events like the tragedy at Northern Illinois University Thursday can be too much for young children to handle, Miley said.

"It may be unavoidable at times, but they do need our help in screening out the amount of information," Miley said.

Parents also need to remember that young children take their cues on how to react from them.

"By and large, these are rare circumstances," Fader said, "but when they hit, we all hear about them so much, we start to think they can happen at any moment. We need to remind ourselves to put it in perspective."