RESPONDING TO TRAGEDY: How those in the Midlands are keeping kids safe and informed

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — Tuesday’s school shooting in Texas has parents and kids in the Midlands asking questions.

Could something like that happen here?

“You know we send our students to school to learn and be children. When something like this happens, it is heartbreaking and tragic on so many levels,” said Dr. Craig Witherspoon, Richland School District One superintendent.

Witherspoon says that Richland One has secured entrances. Someone must be buzzed into the front door as well as a second set of doors before entering a school building.

However, he adds that Tuesday’s tragedy forces the district to look back over security policies. 

“Review those on a regular basis and see what additional steps, if any, might prevent something like that from happening here locally,” Witherspoon said.

The superintendent says that Richland School District One has adults in each building that students can report any unsafe incidents too as well as partnerships with local law enforcement agencies. But those are not the only people working to keep schools safe for children. 

“Our support staff, counselors, social workers, and mental health workers will be there for students proactively and when they are needed the most,” the superintendent said.

One Prisma Health adolescent psychiatrist says that when discussing the school shooting tragedy with children, keep the talk age appropriate.  

“Keep in mind that kids less than 7 years of age have not developed sufficiently the idea of death or the permanence of death, that when someone passes, they are dead and gone, not going to come back,” said Dr. Peter Loper of Prisma Health-Midlands.

He says that you can have more adult conversations with older kids who have access to information on the internet but to leave out the graphic details. He also adds that no matter what age, you should keep your family viewing of tragic events to a minimum. 

“What happens is, the more you engage with that story, the more it reinforces your sense of powerlessness and double goes for our kids,” Loper said.

To help with a child’s feeling of powerlessness or anxiety, he urges being comforting as well.

“Reinforcing the idea that this too shall pass and there is a sense of security even when times are insecure,” Loper concluded.