AUSTIN (KXAN)- The beginning of the school year in Central Texas has been accompanied by an influx of reported safety threats. Just last week, San Marcos High School went into lockdown after police looked into a swatting incident there.
Swatting occurs when someone reports a fake crime to cause a large police response. Now, local law enforcement are urging parents to talk to their children about the severity of inciting a swatting incident.
Megan Butler, a licensed professional counselor and the Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Lucero, joined KXAN’s Will Dupree and Jala Washington in the studio to share some tips for parents about how to have these tough conversations.
Read more in an edited transcription of the conversation below or use the video player above.
Will Dupree: Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Megan Butler: Thanks so much for having me.
DuPree: Such a prescient topic for a lot of parents out there, but we’re seeing these threats of potential violence emerge at schools, not just here in Austin, but kind of across the state, really, and that can obviously scare kids. What’s the best approach families can take to address some of those fears if the kids express them?
Butler: So the number one place to start as a caregiver is make sure you remain calm. We don’t want to add more fear to the child’s plate, so we want to remain calm. The next thing is just listen compassionately, validate the feeling, let them know it’s okay that they feel scared, they feel angry.
Jala Washington: So obviously, lots of layers to this. I know that you’ve worked with kids for many, many years now, if somebody is watching this and they’re wondering, “what if my kid is thinking about joking around like this?” You said you don’t want to discourage kids from trying to fit in or trying to show their personality, but there really are limits to this. So how would you approach that conversation as a parent and really just talking about how serious this is?
Butler: So there’s kind of two parts of it. One is celebrate the strengths of your child, and two, let them know where the limit is. Right? Say you’re fun, you’re funny, you have a great sense of humor. I want you to express that at school. However, there is a limit. You’re allowed to have free speech at school, but you’re not allowed to cause a disruption to the learning environment, and that’s based on the Supreme Court. So let them know you’re allowed to be fun and funny, but this is where the line is.
DuPree: At least trying to define that for them to make it a little bit easier to distinguish. District police here in Austin say that students really should not post about potential violence as a joke. We just mentioned that, but that can really carry some real consequences and even criminal prosecution in some cases. How can parents talk to their kids about the severity and the seriousness of that?
Butler: So part of that limit setting conversation is getting into letting the kids know these are your rights, and also these are your responsibilities, right? You have free speech, you don’t have a right to cause a disruption. Your responsibility is, if you hear something, you’re supposed to report it, right? You’re supposed to report it. You’re not supposed to repost it or share or spread rumors. You’re supposed to report it to a safe adult.
Washington: You were telling us that you have been in the classroom with students when they are experiencing these lockdowns, whether there’s a real threat or a non real threat in these cases, what is that like? I mean, are there any sorts of really just long term trauma that is associated with these situations?
Butler: So I’ve seen it as a therapist. I’ve also seen this in working directly in the schools. So I’ve been during those lockdown drills in the rooms with the kids, I’ve seen panic attacks. I’ve had to help people with panic attacks in the moment. I’ve seen every time there’s a loud speaker, kids have a jump or startle reflex, right? So we do see the effects of this. And so what I work on with kids is, how do we help feel better in the moment? Right? How do we calm down our bodies in the moment. I created Lucero, that’s an app where we help teach kids emotional regulation skills. We’re constantly trying to let people know you can feel better in the moment. We want you to focus in school. We want you to learn. But you know, there are real fears that we have to handle.
Washington: Any conversations that they can have with their friends just about dealing with this and after it’s over, I mean, again, they’re still dealing with having gone through that situation.
Butler: That is the best thing. Share your strengths, share your ideas for coping with your friends, right? We want to empower kids. There’s so much that feels out of our control, but you actually have the power to make your school safer and to help your friends, right? You can share. These are the things that work for me. I have a kid that every time there’s a school shooting threat, she looks at pictures of her cats, right? And she shared that with her friends, so they both look at pictures of their pets. I have another one that does deep breathing, and they find the colors of the rainbow in the room. So they figure out, “what do we do while this is happening, to feel better?”
DuPree: What about on the other side of this the parents, because we are focusing on kids and helping to prepare them for these kinds of scary situations. But parents feel maybe a lack of control knowing that these threats are out there. What are the conversations you’re having with them about how this is impacting them?
Butler: So even just last week, I had a family say, “am I a good parent for sending my kid to school in this kind of environment?” I mean, they were questioning, like, “should I even keep my child in school?” So we had that real conversation recently. And so what I like to do is say, let’s look at the facts, right? School shootings are relatively rare. They do happen, but relatively rare. And we know there are things that are in our control that we can do. We can follow safety instructions, right? We can report things that are concerning. We can be that kind community member and make sure if someone’s isolated, we invite them in. So I try to take that sense of helplessness and flip it and say, let’s look at what our power is, right? What can we do to make a difference?