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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Coping with CT Shootings: Experts say Routine is Powerful Medicine

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Monday, December 17, 2012   

NEWTOWN, Conn. - Newtown schools remain closed today, but parents all over the state will be making decisions about sending young children back to school after Friday's shootings, whose aftermath may have left them fearful.

Laura Mutrie, director of clinical services at the Parent Child Resource Center in Derby, says there is great strength in routine, and unless they are sick, she urges getting children back to the classroom.

"You want to reassure them that their school is safe and that everybody is working to make schools even safer right now; you want to tell yourself that 'I'm going to be calm and reassuring' and that 'My child feels that from me.'"

Fears are common, says Mutrie, and parents can work with school psychologists and social workers to help them through the process. Newtown school officials say pupils will likely be sent to other area schools later in the week.

Connecticut Health Foundation CEO Patricia Baker says there is an important free resource available to parents, teachers, first responders and anyone in the state. Connecticut residents can call 211 and be connected to the Crisis Intervention Unit at Yale New Haven Hospital.

"We are all stressing out to figure out how to do this: 'How do I talk to my child about this? How do we process this as family?' I would urge any parent to seek that counsel out."

Baker says we can all create the space for people to talk, cry and share safely.

Children may have nightmares and act younger than their age. That's normal in the first few days after a traumatic event. If those symptoms persist after a few weeks, or appear much later, she says they need expert attention.

"Your child may seem perfectly fine, and three to six months later he just is not the child you knew, or acting in ways that just are not in sync with how you recognize your child. That's the time to seek counsel."

Baker says it's important that school staffs have the resources they need to work with parents to help grieving children and also to identify other pupils who may have serious mental-health issues, so they can intervene before such children reach a critical stage.






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