When Traci Ford arrived at Penn Hills High School on Wednesday at 7 a.m., she said students were waiting for her.
Ford is a trauma and mental health consultant for students of all ages in the Penn Hills School District. She continued to speak with students until 3:30 p.m., more than an hour after school was out, she said.
Most of them wanted to talk about the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas.
What she heard over and over again was that the students were worried that conflicts in their own lives could have become violent. “They were looking at some of the circumstances that they've been involved in, whether it was a verbal altercation or something like that, and realizing that it could have turned the opposite way, and it could have been us instead of Texas,” she said.
She saw 35 students Wednesday, more than usual. Many were angry, she said, and were acting out because of the tension they were feeling. She talked to two students who got into an argument where the underlying issue was the tension they were feeling about the school shooting.
Parents were worried too. Normally, she said she only sees a couple of parents per week. But on Wednesday four parents stopped by to talk. She told them to open up a conversation with their children.
It’s normal for kids to not be fully aware of the stress or anxiety they are feeling, according to Tammy Hughes, a school psychologist and professor in the School of Education at Duquesne University.
“Lots of kids don't verbalize that,” she told WESA’s The Confluence on Thursday. “They are feeling anxious, and sometimes they don't have the language to do so, meaning they’re young kids and don't understand the labels that go with their feelings.”
Older kids, too, can have an upset stomach or difficulty sleeping. And at school, it can show up as difficulty concentrating or conflict with peers and adults, she said. “Understanding and identifying feelings is a complicated process, including the source of those feelings,” she said.
Hughes recommends parents are honest with their children and talk with them openly about the source of their stress, using language that is appropriate for their age. It’s also important for parents to model talking about their own concerns and what they do to help themselves deal with anxiety.
These conversations help on days like Wednesday, Ford said. “A lot of kids were angry,” Ford said. “They were angry that someone would do that to kids and just go to that extreme.”
