Better Ways to Address the Gun Violence That Threatens Children

The world is heartbroken. When the news about Uvalde broke, my daughter called me in tears, grieving for the children and families and worried for her five-year-old daughter still at school. She talked with my granddaughter about ways to keep her safer from “mean people” if they came to her school. As a grandmother, it is heart-wrenching to even think of the need to have such a conversation with my innocent granddaughter.

In the United States, the 19 children murdered in Uvalde now are tragically added to the 4,357 others from the ages of one to 19 who died from gun violence in 2020. Gun violence is now the number-one cause of death of American children, and homicides are the most-common type of gun death among children and teens. While teenagers account for the majority of these deaths, an average of eight children age 12 or under were killed by guns every week in 2020. Black children and teens face especially high rates of gun victimization.¹ As a nation, we are acutely aware of Uvalde, and we also need to be mindful that other American children are dying daily from gun violence.

After every mass shooting, the themes are the same—gun control, the internet, and mental illness—and so is the dialog: How did this happen? Why did he do it? What can we do to stop the subterranean secret web that spews hate adding fuel to disturbed and distorted thinking? While mass shootings grab our attention, gunfire takes the lives of more children and teens every year than the Parkland, Sandy Hook, Uvalde, and Columbine massacres combined.

States with stronger gun laws have lower rates of gun violence, but those who believe gun control infringes on their Second-Amendment rights have thwarted legislation to control guns in many other states. The fact that a person can so easily purchase an assault rifle, a weapon of mass destruction, evidences the power of gun lobbies.

Other prevention strategies must therefore be adopted to help mitigate the impact of childhood trauma, which may be at the core of the development of distorted thinking that leads to violent behavior.

Jane Stevens, the founder of PACES Connection, stated, “Healthy people lead healthy lives and aren’t tempted to harm themselves or others. Healthy people have few or no adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and many positive childhood experiences ... Although we can’t predict if a kid with ACEs will express their toxic stress outwardly in violence to others, turn inward to harm themselves, or, in some cases, do both, we know enough to say that damage will occur to themselves or others.”² Many of us have experienced adversity in our childhoods and lead healthy meaningful lives. The impact of ACES was reduced because of mitigating factors like positive childhood experiences. We can as a society be more intentional in providing positive childhood experiences for children experiencing adversity.

Trauma is experienced in the body, and as such, strategies to reduce the impact of toxic stress are critical. Toxic stress is the prolonged activation of the stress response, with a failure of the body to recover fully. The toxic stress response affects the neuroendocrine-immune network, leading to a prolonged cortisol response. The resultant immune dysregulation, including a persistent inflammatory state, increases children’s risk and frequency of infections. The toxic stress response is believed to play a role in the pathophysiology of depressive disorders, behavioral dysregulation, PTSD, and psychosis.³

In response to the number of children who die from violence yearly, becoming trauma-informed is critical. It is necessary for the survivors of gun violence, as well as for creating an environment recognizing the impact of trauma on every person. Greater knowledge of toxic stress can help us design prevention strategies to help children, parents, and teachers.

I am a Senior Consultant to Emory University’s SEE Learning Program, a free curriculum for children K-12, inspired by his Holiness the Dalai Lama. SEE Learning conveys a universal, non-sectarian, and science-based approach to bringing ethical development to children worldwide. It includes components of compassion and ethical discernment. This curriculum has been designed by experts in social and emotional learning and in trauma-informed practices. It could help lay a foundation for all children to cultivate well-being that can reduce the impact of toxic stress.

Through the training of teachers, I have spoken to hundreds of educators worldwide about cultivating well-being in children and faculty alike. The last few months have been challenging for many not only in the U.S. but in European countries integrating displaced children from Ukraine into their school systems. We have discussed the biological effects of traumatic experiences and how we can help ourselves and school-age children. Limiting exposure to social media and news has been seen as important, as well as resilience-focused questions (such as “What else is true?” “What or who helps you get through difficult times?” and “What uplifts or nurtures during times of difficulty?”) and assisting with the remembrance of gratitude. This approach helps embody well-being even when one is faced with adversity.

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Helping children learn interoceptive awareness – how to read the sensations in the body connected to thoughts and feelings – can help reduce the impact of toxic stress. SEE practice is based upon the Trauma Resource Institute’s Community Resiliency Model , which integrates information about how traumatic experiences affect the nervous system and teaches children and adults how to develop and embody personal resources through in easy-to-learn experiences. Research on this model demonstrated that well-being scores increased at one year after its introduction; also, secondary traumatic stress scores declined, and somatic symptoms decreased. An awareness of body sensations helped people, when overwhelmed, to calm themselves.⁴

Imagine a world in which education about toxic stress and strategies to mitigate its impact on the human condition is available to every child. The SEE Learning Program provides approaches that not only help with the regulation of the nervous system but also with reflection on compassion and ethical thinking that reaches troubled children in a non-judgmental and empathic way. When we cultivate compassion and experience our common humanity we can reach out in kindness, not violence.