Welcome to Continuous Traumatic Stress

I was going through my Facebook news feed the other day when an article came up from The Root. The title of the article was, "Teacher Tells 10-Year-Old He’ll Only Be Able to Blame Himself When He’s 16 and Shot by Police: Report" In the article, it states this boy and his friends were horse-playing in the cafeteria... just being kids when a teacher told them to stop. She continued in reprimanding the kid by telling him that he'd be shot one day if he continued. Not that I agree ANY teacher should tell a student that, but... in these United States? Where's the lie?

The unfortunate part of the story is the kid lost his father to gun violence shortly after he was born and never knew his dad; and this makes the story 10x worse. I am quite sure this teacher had no idea the boy has lost his father to gun violence. I remember teaching 7th grade and talking about something when a kid started bawling and asked to go to the restroom. I, of course, grated permission for the student to go but I didn't see what I said to have such an impact. It turned out the students mother died of cancer three years earlier and I said something just like their mom did and then. The student was reminded their mother was no longer there. I felt horrible. I didn't know the students mom died, I didn't know how their mom spoke. Just the same, I opened that wound just a little bit more.

Then I did something I hate doing. I read the comments to the article. Fortunately the comments on this particular article got me thinking even more. One respondent said, "Our kids are not allowed to have childhoods. No laughter, no horseplay, no joy. None. Welcome to Continuous Traumatic Stress!" Now, I know what post traumatic stress disorder looks like. But I had never considered continuous traumatic stress. Something I need to think more on... but again, where's the lie?

Here's the link to the original article: