Rebecca Silence talks about how a Whitesboro car accident killed one student and critically injured another, and what parents and schools can do to support grieving teenagers. She covers listening without trying to fix things, offering resources, and showing kids it's okay to feel.
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And it is a confession. Tuesday welcoming life coach Rebecca. Silence in studio. Good morning.
Good morning.
So it is a very. It's a very sad day in Whitesboro. Two teenagers were in a car yesterday morning and were in a car accident. Sixteen passed away and the other teenage passenger is in critical condition. Last I heard.
The driver, right. Is in critical condition.
I don't, I don't know which. But the, but the fact is, you know, one passed and the other one's in critical condition. And there's a lot of people, you know, students, teachers, families. The fact is it's so. It's very emotional. It's very sudden. It's very unexpected. And especially for, you know, for people that are, you know, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, even adults, it's a hard thing to process. And I wanted to talk to you about it because it's such a fragile situation and people need support in some way, shape or form, and everyone's different in that.
Absolutely. And, you know, some people may just be hearing about this for the first time right now on our show. It's, I think, something that we try to wrap our head around and analyze and rationalize and we try to come up with why. And the first thing I'm gonna say is forget that, because what if there is. There is no why. My second school counseling job was in the Columbine community in Littleton, Colorado.
Are you serious?
Yeah. I never knew that. Did you not know that about me? No. Yeah. I was the counseling department head for the middle school that fed into Columbine, and it was well after the shoot had happened. But these tragedies leave devastating trails years and years and years and years and years after the fact. Sure, the impact is huge and profound, and I just don't know why some of these things happen. But what I do know is that in these situations, it is so, so, so important for people to come together for people to talk. The more you bottle it up, the more you refuse to feel your. The worse the residual impact in a negative way hits you. So if people can come together, if people can talk about it, if you can use this experience as a way to learn for yourself how to be really careful. Because unfortunately, some choices were made that led to destruction. And how often are we careless, right? Adults included? How often are we careless with ourselves? How often are we careless with other people crossing our fingers and hoping that something bad doesn't Happen. We're all guilty of that. So we can use this experience and this is an opportunity to be more careful with each other than ever. Because if we're not, what's the cost? So I want to encourage people to be careful with each other, be careful with yourselves, talk about it. But you know, unfortunately there is no why. This is just a horrific tragedy.
If you are, if you're a parent and you don't know any of the two that were involved, but your child does and you see your child struggling, do you have any word of advice for a parent who may have a child who knows them?
So first of all, be careful not to tell your child how to feel about this. I think that's one thing that parents can be guilty of. Alright, so, you know, this is a sad situation or this is a scary situation, kind of putting words in your child's mouth. What you can do is just tell your child that you love them so much and ask them, how can I support you? Do you want me to listen? Do you want a hug? Do you want to go out in the woods and scream your head off? How can I help? What can I do to support you? And then ask them if they have any questions, you know, what, what questions do you have? And then also finally ask them, you know, do you want someone to talk to about this? That's, that's not family that you can just be real with in a safe space. But don't tell them how to feel. Ask them how you can support them, what can you do to help? And then ask them if they'd like somebody to talk to. That's a neutral.
I know that the school has, you know, grief counselors coming in and whatnot. Trust with kids is, is very hard and a lot of times they don't want to open up to, you know, people at school and whatnot. What is a good way to find someone to talk to? Could it be. Does it have to be someone who is a professional? Could it be, you know, a family member? Could it be a friend? I'm just, I'm trying to look at all different angles.
You know, whoever, whoever your child feels most comfortable with. It definitely doesn't have to be anyone specific. Your school counselors should have lists of local resources of counselors and therapists and even social workers in the community. I think that neutral, objective party can be very helpful. But just opening up the possibility and being positive about that, that it's actually a good thing to talk to somebody. The other thing that parents and adults can do is just model actually feeling their grief and feeling their emotions. Don't think that just because you're the adult you have to be stoic and that you're not supposed to feel anything. You modeling that feeling our way through this is the only way we're going to heal. It is critical because the kids, even if they're teenagers in high school, they're watching the adults around them and how they're handling the situation and learning from the adults how they should resp life.
If there's anything I can do, feel free to email me off of the website. Inspired results. Coach.com or give me a call. It's a very difficult situation for all of us. I live in Whitesboro. So sad to wake up to this. And what we can do is we can come together. We can love each other more, we can love ourselves more and we can think about how important it is to be careful with people we care about and to make choices that take care of ourselves and other people instead of just crossing our fingers and hoping that I can get away with this careless decision.
