How to cope with trauma after a school shooting in your neighborhood
The sudden shock of a school shooting happening nearby leaves people reeling, exhausted, and deeply depressed as they watch friends, neighbors, and students suffer. This overwhelming grief makes it difficult to process the tragedy and leaves individuals feeling completely drained right where they live.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 16.3× more often in r/Teachers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Talking to a therapist or counselorDid this help you?
- 2Outsourcing the conversation to admin and mental health professionals, or sending mass communication home to families.Did this help you?
- 3Having the teacher make the boys sit out for the remainder of recess.Did this help you?
- 4Rushing out of the room to get helpDid this help you?
- 5Disconnecting and unwinding over the weekendDid this help you?
- 6Addressing the issue with the student group directlyDid this help you?
- 7Documenting incidents and pushing for administrative consequences or class reassignmentsDid this help you?
- 8Considering moving to a different grade level or calmer schoolDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“This is in my neighborhood, friends and neighbors and my students are affected. Absolutely horrendous. My heart is broken.”source ↗
“I am just very concerned now about how to handle this because she’s not going anywhere but I have 6 or so kids really shaken up and I’m sure more that just didn’t show it.”source ↗
“Never have I witnessed a fight up close like this before, seeing one of my students fully grab another with their hands around their neck trying to slam them into tables before throwing them and basically football tackling them through the first two rows of desks in my classroom.”source ↗
“By the time my coworkers had managed to get the students separated and headed off into opposite sides of the building I was in the beginning stages of a full blown panic attack.”source ↗
“So many of the students were cheering it on, it makes me sick thinking how they can’t comprehend how truly serious and traumatic events like that can be.”source ↗
“I hate that I already feel so unsafe in this school, how am I supposed to teach students I’m afraid of.”source ↗
“With everything that has happened around us with gun control, or lack there of, I feel like more should have been done. I am not sure what though.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4How to stop replaying a near-miss accident with your child
- 6How to cope with guilt after a student passes away
- 3Why is my first year of teaching making me physically sick?
- 2How to go back to work after a coworker's suicide
- 7What to do when a student threatens or assaults you at school
- 6Did I traumatize my pet after an accident?