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When there’s a terrorist attack in the news, it can feel shocking, unsettling and disturbing at a very deep level inside. It’s hard enough to manage your own feelings and thoughts about what’s going on, let alone those of your kids.

So if you have a child, what can you do to help them process what they are hearing, seeing on the screen, and worrying about?

Here are some things you can do:

1: Stabilise Yourself

2: Limit Exposure to News

3: Be Available

4: Build Thinking Skills

5: Look for the Good

6: Help Your Child Do Something

7: Let Your Child Be a Child!

Read on, and I’ll explain what I mean.

1: Stabilise Yourself

First, you need to stabilise yourself as much as you can so that you can contain your feelings enough to be a calm, warm, capable, and emotionally present carer for your child.

Kids are powerfully affected by the emotional state of their care-givers. If they see that you are feeling panicky and overwhelmed, they are likely to internalise your feelings, even if on the outside they seem calm or oblivious. And if they see you apparently switched-off to all emotion, they will sense that you are not someone they can confide in about their painful thoughts and feelings.

So see if you can ‘put on your own oxygen mask first’ (as they say on airlines). Take care of yourself.

How can you do this? In private, or with a friend or other supportive adult, let yourself simply feel your sadness, grief and anger, and sit with it for a short time. Let the feelings wash through you and accept that they are real feelings, but that they won’t destroy you. Notice where in your body you feel the emotions (e.g. your heart, your belly, etc) and try to put this into words.

See if you can become aware of the part of you that is observing and being with your feelings, but is not overcome by them. Drawing, painting, singing or dancing your feelings may help you express them and not be overwhelmed by them.

Then you can return to your child feeling calmer and more collected, so that you are available for them and not overcome or panicked by your own distress.

You may also need to seek out other adults to share your feelings with, whether it’s for one-to-one conversations, or group experiences such as marches or vigils.

2: Limit Exposure to News

It’s important to limit your child’s exposure to the news – and it’s probably best if they don’t see any TV footage, especially if they are under the age of 9 or 10. Visual images in particular can be so powerful, and younger children lack the ability to understand that an event is no longer happening, when they keep seeing it on the screen as if it is ongoing.

This can apply to yourself too. You probably don’t have to keep checking for updates and watching re-runs of shocking scenes on the screen. It’s likely to be enough to have one or two times in the day when you catch up with what’s been going on, to keep informed.

3: Be Available

Don’t push anything on your child; instead, try to be alert to signs that they might want or need to open up the topic. You don’t have to sit down with your child and ‘have a talk’. If they don’t give any signs of concern or distress (verbal or behavioural), then you may choose not to pursue the matter.

However, you may feel it’s appropriate to mention it, especially if you are aware that they’ve seen something on the news. You certainly don’t want them to sense that this is a taboo topic that is indigestible and ‘too hot to handle’.

If they seem to want or need to talk, let them speak, and try and listen carefully to what they have to say before you jump in with reassurances or a lecture. Ask them if they have any questions, and if they do, try to answer honestly but not in too much detail.

Give them plenty of hugs, too. When they sit on your lap and snuggle into you, ask them if they can feel the love travelling from your bigger, stronger body into theirs. Use calming slow breaths, and their breathing will calm down in response, which will help them feel less scared.

How can you help your child process their fears and distress when there's been a terrorist attack in the news? #ParisAttacks Share on X

Let them know that it’s normal and natural to feel anxious, fearful, angry and/or sad in response to a terrorist attack. They need to hear that their feelings are valid and not something to be frightened of. They also need to be told that it’s normal for feelings to keep changing (e.g. from sad to angry, and back again).

It may help your child to hear that when we feel something difficult, we often want to do something instantly in response to the feeling; but that we can try to allow a little pause in between the feeling and the action, just to think about whether the ‘doing’ is helpful or necessary.

For example, when your child feels angry, they may feel impelled to smash something or hit someone; but if they can allow a moment’s pause they may be able to find a better way to express the anger, for example with words, or by scribbling on paper or squeezing play-dough.

Finding this ‘pause’ is not always possible, depending on the child’s emotional maturity and the intensity of their feeling, so when they have been unable to pause before acting, try to empathise with them about this afterwards rather than simply condemning their bad behaviour. That way, you’ll be building up their resilience and inner resources for making good future choices more often.

4: Build Thinking Skills

This might be a good opportunity to discuss all sorts of issues with your child, but it’s important that you only do this at the level that your child seems to need.

You can acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers, and there are many problems in the world that humans wrestle with. You can also emphasise that there are many, many good people in the world who are working hard to find good solutions to problems such as terrorist attacks.

You can also let your child know that you are open to thinking about things and trying to understand them.

For example, you might discuss with your child any thoughts they (and you) might have in trying to make sense of why a terrorist might commit atrocities. Is it because they are evil? Because they are misunderstood? Because they are weak? Because they need to prove something? Because they are angry? Because someone hurt them? Because they seek power? Is revenge a valid reason for terrorism? Is violence ever okay? How can good and evil co-exist? What are your thoughts on religion, on spirituality and on fundamentalism? What do you think happens when one set of people gets labelled ‘good’ and another set ‘bad’?

All of these questions can prompt higher-level thinking skills, and build your child’s moral values and emotional intelligence. But it’s important not to force this kind of discussion on a child who is not ready for it.

5: Look for the Good

It’s so important for your child to know that there are many, many good people in the world who are working to help and heal others. If your child does happen to see video footage of the aftermath of a terrorist attack on TV, you can point out all the people who are helping those who are suffering.

You can talk to your child about the good work done by the emergency services, medics, ordinary people on the scene, charity workers, and others. You can also tell them about those political, community and faith leaders who are trying to help constructively, and whose aim is to protect children and adults around the world.

Remind your child about the good things in their life. Discuss together how grateful you both feel for simple, daily goodness, as well as the big ‘special’ events such as birthdays and holidays. Just because bad things have happened, it does not negate the good – perhaps it can even enhance the good by reminding us how precious and delicious life can be.

Talk to your child about your belief that every child has a right to be safe, loved, and free from harm. Try to help them feel safe and secure with you. Feeling that they are in a safe place, with people who love them and connect with them, is important for overcoming and moving on from fear.

You could introduce your child to the practice of ‘metta’, a simple loving-kindness meditation practice in which you express compassion in turn to yourself, to a loved one, to a neutral acquaintance, to someone who has wronged you, and eventually to all living beings. Opening up to one’s own compassion in this way can feel profoundly healing and helpful. You can find more on introducing loving-kindness meditation to your child here.

6: Help Your Child Do Something

Your child may like to express their compassion and good wishes towards those who have been caught up in the terrorist attack. They may find it helpful to make a drawing or painting – perhaps an image depicting something about the event but with the addition of a healing element such as a giant heart drawn around the people, or a wished-for saving element (in his book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ Bessel van der Kolk tells us about a New York child he knew who dealt with his distress about the 9/11 tragedy partly by drawing a trampoline to catch the falling casualties from the Twin Towers).

If your child has an idea for something they could do to help those who are suffering, such as baking and selling cakes to raise funds for the victims, support them in this. An attitude of ‘I’m actively doing something’ can help avert the awful feeling of powerlessness that we can feel in the face of a terrorist attack.

7: Let Your Child Be a Child!

It’s really important to let your child know that it’s okay to play and be happy! When others are suffering, we can certainly feel deeply for them, but we are still allowed to own and feel our happiness as well as our distress. In fact, as the Dalai Lama has said, the fact that there is so much suffering in the world means that it is doubly important to look for, acknowledge and feel happiness, love and joy.

If You’re Still Concerned

If your child continues for more than a few weeks to show unusual anxiety and distress, or symptoms such as nightmares, bed-wetting, stomach aches, unusual clinginess, headaches, poor appetite, or aggressiveness, it may be time to consult a Child Psychotherapist, Play Therapist, Art Therapist or Child Counsellor.