What Should Parents Say About Mass Shootings?

The intolerable grief of mass shootings, in conversation with Sohaib Imtiaz, MD, MPH

A conversation (edited a bit and excerpted ) from this live conversation I had with my clubhouse-era friend, the Digital Doctor himself, on May 28th, 2022:

Sohaib:

Let's dive deep into the brain— what makes these incidents occur? Is it mental illness? What part does that play? what are some of the triggers for these kinds of events?

Owen:

I'm a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training. I have the distinct sadness to have lost a dear friend of the family in the sandy hook shooting.

I'm from Connecticut. My mom has run a Jazz Festival for years, and I lost a friend of our jazz family in the Sandy Hook shooting.

Back in 2017, I was interviewed in the Daily Mail for “what do you say to your kids about these awful events." I had some advice then, and I've had time to think about it more.

As health professionals, we're really in a difficult spot. We have to deal with not just what we'd like to be true, in changing the political tides, but what is true. There is human suffering…