Bonnie Boswell Reports: Confronting Childhood Trauma
During the height of the pandemic, there was a lot going on. Like many people, I was concentrating on keeping myself and my family alive and well. I knew, sadly, that many children were struggling during that time; some had been displaced by natural disasters while others suffered the loss of loved ones due to the virus. What I didn’t know was how many children died as the result of increased access to guns during the pandemic.
The Gun Violence Archive reported that more than 1,500 young people under 18 were killed by guns — either by accident or by intent — in 2021, compared to about 1,380 in 2020. Why? In large part, the increase in gun violence is related to the uptick in gun purchases during the pandemic. In California, Atty. General Rob Bonta said that three out of four the homicides in 2020 involved a firearm—a 69% increase from 2019. The New York Times reported the story of 11-year-old Elyjah Munson in Atlanta. Elyjah’s 12-year-old best friend pulled a gun from a backpack, shot Elyjah in the head and killed him. Just two weeks before, Elyjah’s 5-year-old cousin was shot by his three-year-old cousin.
This is madness. The violence is bad enough. But, in addition, children who hear about or witness violence can be traumatized for years. We need to both stop the violence and help those who’ve already been affected.
I wanted to let KCET viewers know about this tragic situation by doing a three-part series on Confronting Childhood Trauma on Bonnie Boswell Reports.
I started by looking for information gathered by my late brother, Dr. Carl Bell. Carl was a psychiatrist and leading national expert in violence prevention. Carl died in 2018 but he had authored over 500 articles on community mental health and violence prevention. He was interviewed on CBS’s "60 Minutes," CBS’s "Sunday Morning," ABC’s "Nightline," and PBS’s "Bill Moyers Journal." I found several soundbites from Carl that shed light on how to improve outcomes for traumatized children I could use in my series.
Carl said that children exposed to violence need to be debriefed about their experience, whether they were victims or perpetrators. He also noted that some youth who witness violence take another path. They become like Batman. Batman saw his parents killed and became a protector. Carl said violence-exposed youth, given a chance, often become doctors, paramedics and other kinds of protectors as a way to exert some control over their circumstances. What I didn’t register until I heard Carl talk to Moyers was that he himself was a Batman. Our older brother, Bill, was an off-duty policeman who was killed by another officer when Carl was a teenager. So, what did Carl do? He became a psychiatrist and leading authority on violence prevention.
On Bonnie Boswell Reports, I was also able to interview Dr. Denese Shervington, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Charles Drew University in Los Angeles. Dr. Shervington is a deeply knowledgeable physician who said that with the proper support and early affectionate parental care, even traumatized children can recover.
I hope people will help me bring even more awareness to this topic. Let’s not wait for more tragedies. Let’s help America’s children now.
Resources for Confronting Childhood Trauma
- Complete interview with Carl Bell: "Solutions to Violence: Understanding Violence" Carl Bell on Bill Moyers Journal
- Children's Institute — For support, counseling and linkages to free resources.please call: 1-800-984-2404
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) — How parents, caretakers and teachers can identify trauma in children and get them the help they need.
