After the Arras attack, how can we talk about it with children?

After the tragic attack that hit the Gambetta-Carnot high school in Arras, where a teacher was murdered, many children are traumatised. Now is the time to explain this event to the little ones too, who will be able to ask questions to understand this news.

For the occasion, our colleagues at Publication went to meetEmmanuelle Piquet, therapist, who regularly visits children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic episodes for counseling. She is the author of numerous works on school bullying.

Explain the inexplicable

In the columns of the newspaper he explains how parents can better answer all their children’s questions. She starts by letting the children broach the topic and not the other way around. If children talk about their fears, the therapist advises parents not to deny their emotions:

“ As a parent, you have to be honest admit one’s powerlessness. If we say to a child: ‘You are right to think so and the only thing I can do right now is a hug’ it is already more reassuring than trying to make people believe that everything will be better tomorrow. We don’t know anything. If the parent lowers their guard and says “I’m a little scared too”, this often turns into courage, because suffocating an emotion makes it grow. Fear turns into anxiety when we hide it “.

Emmanuelle Piquet

Faced with the severity of the events, some parents may be faced with the fact that their child does not want to go to school out of fear. But it would be better to encourage him to go, but accompany him there to reassure him. Because if the child stays at home, his anxiety risks increasing in the following days.

In the interview, Emmanuelle Piquet responds to another important point: the flow of images. According to her, it is better for children not to face him directly at home, even if they risk encountering him at school or among their friends.

Regarding traumatic images, how should we react? It all depends on what they generate in children. According to the therapist, some symptoms are alarming: nightmares, anxieties when you go to bed, you go to school, wet the bed exceptional, or even anger. “ All these emotions create a deviation from the ordinary. It is up to loved ones to look for symptoms and tell the child: Is something bothering you? Here’s how we can start the discussion. Because if they are horrible images, they also remind us of our helplessness. They show what happened, but looking at them doesn’t do much… “, he described.

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