The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of parents in the aftermath of the Highland Park parade shooting in 2022, and the specific actions they took to help their children cope. Few studies have examined how parents navigated their own distress while supporting the emotional well-being of their children. To answer these questions, eight parents who attended the Highland Park 4th of July parade with their children were interviewed in depth, via Zoom, on two separate occasions. The main findings that describe the lived experience of participants and their subsequent parenting strategies were: living in a world that no longer felt safe; parenting while carrying invisible wounds; actively rebuilding safety for one’s children; finding meaning in survival; and healing as a relational and collective process. Because the children experienced different degrees of posttraumatic stress at different phases of recovery, the importance of attuned and sensitive timing of support was emphasized, including parenting strategies for supporting their children’s posttraumatic recovery.
Keywords: mass shootings; parenting; children; family environment; recovery from trauma
Acknowledgements
It is with great appreciation that I acknowledge my dissertation committee: Dr. John Ridings, for his knowledge of method, design, formatting, and generous support throughout this dissertation process. Dr. Lynne Tylke, for her unwavering availability whenever I needed clarity on the realms of experience of trauma survivors, psychoanalytic constructs, or a better understanding of myself as a researcher. Dr. Judy Aronson for her always candid conversations and resounding ability to help me understand clinical material from self-psychological and other psychoanalytic frames. Dr. Kerstin Blumhardt for her thoughtful and insightful comments as reader, who helped to round out my understanding of data in relation to the whole, and ultimately made this dissertation a much stronger study.
To my children, Maggie and Charlie; my siblings, Mary, Michael, and Lucy; my thoughtful friends; and my Houston consultation group, for their love, patience and ongoing support.
And finally, to my husband Richard, who just helped me in every way, from learning to cook, being patient and understanding with my intensity, providing ongoing tech support, and being my needed relationship throughout this PhD process, and in the past 45 years of our marriage.
The Institute for Clinical Social Work
SHATTERED ABSOLUTISMS:
PARENTING IN THE AFTERMATH OF A MASS SHOOTING
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By
Table 2 Mapping PETs to GETs by Participant............................................................................
Table 3 The Analytic Process: Moving From PETs to GETs
Table 4 GETs and Subordinate Themes........................................................................................
Chapter I:
Introduction
General Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of parents who survived the parade mass shooting in Highland Park, IL, on July 4, 2022 and the ways in which this traumatic event impacted aspects of their parenting. One’s lived experience was generally defined by the ways in which this traumatic event has impacted the participant’s daily lives; in particular: the presence of residual social, emotional, and psychological symptoms, the impact on one’s felt sense of safety or loss of safety, and the challenges in recreating a safe, secure base for their children. This dissertation addressed the sense of shattered absolutisms or assumptions inherent in the aftermath of such a traumatic event. Absolutisms, according to Stolorow (1999), are statements “whose validity is not open for discussion,” such as when a parent tells their child at bedtime that they will see them in the morning (p. 466). Such absolutisms provide a kind of optimism that allows one to function in the world with greater safety and security. As Stolorow (1999) further defined, “It is in the essence of psychological trauma that it shatters these absolutisms, a catastrophic loss of innocence that permanently alters one’s sense of being-in-the-world” (p. 466).
Significance of the Study for Clinical Social Work
A defining feature of clinical social work is “the profession’s dual focus on individual well-being in a social context and the well-being of society” (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], Preamble, para. 1, 2021). Fundamental to social work is the acknowledgement that environmental forces create, contribute to, and have a lasting impact on the lived experience of human beings. This is especially true for those who are vulnerable, living
in poverty and underserved communities, and/or for those whose life is marginalized by derivatives of social injustice and oppression. The following core values are central to the mission of clinical social work: “Service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence” (NASW, Ethical Principles, para. 1, 2021). These core values provide the framework from which social workers seek to proffer service to those in need. There are few, more pertinent implications for addressing person-inenvironment needs than those caused by a mass shooting.
According to the U. S. Census Bureau’s QuickFacts database, Highland Park, IL, is a relatively affluent and highly educated community, with a median household income of over $150,000 and with more than 70% of residents age 25 and older holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. The population is predominantly White (non-Hispanic), with smaller proportions of residents who identify as Asian, Hispanic or Latino, and Black or African American (U. S. Census Bureau, n. d.) These demographic characteristics provide context for understanding the social and community environment in which study participants experienced the Highland Park parade shooting.
At the community’s annual 4th of July parade in 2022, a perpetrator randomly shot at individuals, killing seven adults and injuring 48 others from bullets or shrapnel wounds during the attack. The victims ranged in age from eight to 88 years-old. Although Highland Park, IL is not an underserved community, the disruptive impact of this traumatic event has remained a source of ongoing suffering for many residents. Guided by the aforementioned core values unique to social work and the principles that flow from them, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of adult parents who survived the
parade shooting, henceforth referred to as the “Highland Park shooting.” A retelling of participants’ experiences on the day of the shooting was not the focus of this study.
By providing an understanding of the lived experience of mass shooting survivors, such as the residual psychological and other effects, the loss of perceived safety, and implications for responsive and attuned parenting, it was my hope that social workers will be better able to clinically respond to individual needs in the aftermath of such traumatic events. Furthermore, understanding the therapeutic or community-based resources that positively support one’s recovery from such catastrophes may assist providers of posttraumatic care in the future.
Statement of the Problem and Specific Objectives of the Study
Ample evidence suggested that mass shootings are becoming more frequent in the United States, negatively impacting direct victims and members of the community at large (Cowan et al., 2020; Lowe et al., 2015; Lowe & Galea, 2017). Mass casualty incidents, specifically mass shootings, have increased over the past two decades in the United States, with approximately 12.8 incidents occurring each year since 2016, resulting in more than 1,202 fatalities and countless injuries (Cowan et al., 2020). In an empirical literature review on mental health outcomes subsequent to mass shootings, Lowe and Galea (2017) concluded that mass shootings are associated with a variety of adverse psychological outcomes such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and a diminished sense of personal safety. Evidence further suggested that “these events can have at least short-term psychological effects, for example, increased fears and declines in perceived safety, on persons living far outside the affected communities” (Lowe & Galea, 2017, p. 18). For these reasons, it is essential that licensed clinical social workers as well as other mental health practitioners are equipped to treat primary and secondary victims of mass shooting events. Effective treatment might include understanding the
nuances of exposure to psychological trauma, the needed therapeutic provisions for remobilizing a sense of personal safety, sustaining one’s mental health, and basic parenting concerns around rekindling a safe, secure base for their children. The need for social workers to recognize the sociocultural factors that may impact one’s care and recovery was also vital to this work.
A preliminary review of the literature highlighted the frequency and severity of physical injuries, the reality of fatalities, and the residual psychological effects from mass shooting events. Few studies exist regarding what takes place in the immediate aftermath of such trauma due to the potential for participant retraumatization. Other areas for future exploration include: examining the residual psychological effects of individuals over time; the effects on individuals “from a distance,” meaning those who live in different communities; best treatment options for acute adult-onset trauma; and the potential for posttraumatic growth (Lowe & Galea, 2017). A notable gap in the literature reflected the experience of parents who have to manage their own psychological trauma and loss of absolutisms that enable one to function in the world, while having to restore a sense of safety and security for their children.
As such, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of parents who survived the Highland Park shooting and its impact on parenting their children in its aftermath. By addressing this important gap in the literature, this dissertation provided clinical social workers and other providers of psychological care with a deeper understanding of the following phenomena: The lived experience of parents who survive a mass shooting, the potential for residual psychological or other effects, the perceived loss of assumptions around safety, the challenges to rekindling a secure base for self and loved ones, and the possibility for posttraumatic growth.
Conceptual Research Questions
The central research question is: What is the lived experience of adult parents who survived the Highland Park shooting, including its impact on their parenting? In seeking to appreciate and better comprehend this phenomenon, this study pursued the following subquestions:
1. How has this traumatic event impacted the day-to-day lives of participants?
2. How has the social and emotional health of participants been affected?
3. What were assumptions of personal and public safety before and after experiencing the Highland Park shooting?
4. How did participants understand the needs of their children following the event?
5. What did participants do to help their children feel safe and secure following the event?
6. What was most helpful in their ability to support their children’s emotional well-being?
7. Was there any kind of meaning-making process that emerged from their traumatic experience?
8. Was there any aspect of personal growth that emerged in the months following this event?
Theoretical and Operational Definitions
Absolutisms: Absolutisms are statements “whose validity is not open for discussion,” such as when a parent tells their child at bedtime that they will see them in the morning (Stolorow, 1999, p. 466).
From a Distance: For the purpose of this study, “from a distance” refers to individuals who live in different communities.
Lived Experience: For the purposes of this study, “lived experience” refers to the ways in which the Highland Park, IL parade shooting has impacted the daily lives of research participants.
Mass Shooting or Mass Shooting Event: A single attack in a public place in which three or more victims are killed by firearms (Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act, 2012; Krouse & Richardson, 2015; Mother Jones, 2024).
Posttraumatic Growth (PTG): For the purposes of this study, PTG refers to the possibility of benefits derived from participating in this qualitative study or more formally, any “positive psychological changes experienced as a result of the struggle with trauma or highly challenging situations” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996; Tedeschi & Moore, 2018, p. 180).
Trauma: Trauma refers to an experience that is directly encountered, perceived as a threat to survival and self-preservation, and beyond the capacity for the individual to adapt effectively (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Landsman, 2002; Siegel, 2012).
Vulnerability: This is defined as “a cornerstone of the theoretical basis and practical application of ethics in human subject's research. Risks to humans participating in research must be minimized; that is, subjects must be offered protection from risks. Vulnerable subjects require additional protections” (Gordon, 2020, p. 34).
Statement of Assumptions
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, the Congressional Research Service defined “mass shooting” as “a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity” (Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act, 2012; Krouse & Richardson, 2015, p. 4). To further one’s understanding of mass shootings, the primary motive is
mass murder, rather than a by-product of an attempt to commit a different crime (Blair & Martingale, 2013). Mass shootings are uniquely disturbing because they happen without warning in the most routine of places: schools, churches, office buildings and concert venues. When compared to those who experienced natural disasters, survivors of human-made disasters such as mass shootings, are at a higher risk of developing psychological distress (Novotny, 2018). Their sense of safety and trust are severely compromised resulting in a range of emotions such as anger, frustration, helplessness, sadness and loss that wax and wane in frequency and severity (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD, n.d.). As a result, survivors of mass violence often report symptoms related to posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, somatic illness, sleeplessness, complicated grief, and substance abuse (Cowen et al., 2020).
In the service of exploring the lived experience of physically-uninjured, adult-parent survivors of the Highland Park shooting, this study was informed by the following researcher assumptions:
1. Participants were adversely affected in myriad ways by directly experiencing the Highland Park shooting.
2. Participants may have new psychological or other symptoms in the aftermath of this traumatic event.
3. Participants may have experienced a kind of catastrophic loss of innocence related to personal and public safety and internal security.
4. Participants have to find some way to manage their own distress while rekindling a felt sense of safety and security for their children.
5. Participants may be more hyper-aware, guarded, or protective of self and their children in public spaces.
6. Participants may be less likely to allow their children to participate in heavily populated public events.
7. Participants may experience some level of survivor guilt or complicated grief in the aftermath of this traumatic event.
8. Participants may experience some form of personal growth that emerges from their struggle in dealing with this traumatic event.
Foregrounding
The process of selecting a topic for a dissertation in the doctoral program has been both daunting and frustrating. Upon entering the PhD program at the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW), I set out to explore the intrapsychic mechanisms that allow one to practice choice, as in, what allows one to choose to respond in new ways, instead of repeating internalized behavioral patterns. Upon realizing this topic was too broad, I considered exploring the lived experience of individuals who present with an intergenerational transmission of anxiety. This phenomenon presented itself very clearly in the narrative of many of my clients, however upon reflection, I decided it would be too challenging to recruit participants.
On July 3, 2022, I hosted my annual summer dinner party. It was a magical night of delicious food, great conversation, and fireworks in the park. The next morning, my friend group was texting postparty thoughts when suddenly, a text came in announcing the mass shooting at the Highland Park parade. I remember my feelings in that moment—terrified, unsettled, frozen. I instantly reflected on the vicissitudes of safety for me, my husband, family, and friends. The feeling of security in knowing that I could go anywhere and return home safely was shattered. I immediately thought of my privilege from being White and never having to worry about the safety of my kids when they were younger, beyond fears having to do with their own
compromised decision-making. For someone who lives in the community but did not attend this annual event, even I felt a kind of catastrophic loss of innocence.
I know many people who attended the Highland Park parade, and who did whatever they had to do to get their families to safety. As the one-year anniversary of this traumatic event approached, stories of bravery, fear, ongoing narratives of posttraumatic stress kept emerging in my clinical work. I thought about the experience of parents who attended the parade and the ways in which this traumatic event shaped or reshaped their personal feelings of safety. I wondered about how this event shattered the absolutisms of their daily lives, the secure-base from which they functioned to keep themselves, their children, and other loved ones safe.
By incorporating trauma theory with fundamental ideas from attachment theory, object relations and self psychology, this dissertation explored the sustained experience of parents who attended the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, IL. These psychoanalytic theories each view development in the context of the interacting psychological worlds of children and their caretakers. They each privilege the centrality of relationships throughout life and focus on the patterns and expectancies that form within these relational spaces (Doctors, 2008). In addition to exploring the participants’ residual social, emotional, and psychological effects, the focus of this study included the clinical anomalies of safety, in particular, the ways in which this trauma shattered one’s sense of safety and their ability to reimagine themselves as a secure base for their children.
In order to contextualize the lived experiences of parents affected by the Highland Park shooting, it was essential for this researcher to engage with the existing body of literature on the residual effects of directly experiencing such a traumatic event. The following literature review provided a critical analysis of prior studies, highlighting key findings related to psychological
outcomes for survivors of mass shootings, particularly for those who are parents. Through this exploration, I hoped to establish a theoretical framework to elucidate how these experiences shaped individual recovery trajectories and the remobilization of a safe, secure internal world experience for children. Furthermore, it was my hope to provide insight into the broader implications for policymakers and those in direct clinical social work practice who respond to the recovery needs of affected families.
Chapter II:
Literature Review
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of parents in the aftermath of directly experiencing a public mass shooting. Specifically, the intention of this study was to understand the ways in which this traumatic event impacted the daily lives of parents who attended the event with their children, and the ways their parenting practices have changed as a result. I explored the event’s influence on their social, emotional, and psychological life, assumptions of safety and other absolutisms, and the ways in which they remobilized a felt sense of safety for their children. To carry out this study, a critical review of the literature was required. This review was purposeful in design, meaning that themes specifically related to the purpose statement were explored (Loveland, 2016). Understanding the research participant’s lived experience and the ways in which this traumatic event may have transformed their parenting were further examined through the lens of trauma theorists and key ideas from attachment theory, object relations, and self psychology. These foundational psychoanalytic theories were incorporated to further understanding of what is most crucial for the recovery of individuals and their children who directly experienced such an event.
Ample evidence suggested that mass shootings have become more frequent in the United States, negatively impacting direct victims and members of the community at large (Cowen et al., 2020; Lowe et al., 2015; Lowe & Galea, 2017). The existing literature recognized the frequency of mass shootings, the severity of physical injuries, the reality of fatalities, and the psychological and other stress-related health problems from directly experiencing a mass shooting event. A notable gap in the literature reflected the experience of parents who have to manage their own psychological trauma and loss of absolutisms that enable one to function in the
world, while equally tasked with remobilizing a sense of internal safety for their children (Beckerman & Henshaw, 2020; Cohen, 2009; Gerwitz et al., 2008; Hiller et al., 2018; Holt et al., 2016). Surveying previous research, however, could only be considered a first step towards a more profound understanding of parenting considerations in the aftermath of mass shootings. As such, this literature review presented a synthesis of significant research and publications in order to provide a contextual basis for examining the phenomenon under study.
Keywords used to search databases included the following: ‘mass shootings,’ ‘traumatic loss,’ ‘adult-onset trauma,’ ‘shattered assumptions,’ ‘parenting after trauma,’ ‘posttraumatic growth,’ and ‘resiliency.’ This study expanded the body of literature on parenting consequences in the aftermath of an acute traumatic event, and offered recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and mental health providers who work with this population (Bowen, 2005).
Multiple sources were utilized for this selected literature review including books, dissertations, peer-reviewed journals, governmental and organizational websites (for statistical data), and well-known text references (for historical data on theory). These sources were accessed via scholarly online databases, such as PEP-Web, EBSCO, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and Academia. Examining the bibliographies of significant papers was also a primary strategy for gathering information. The literature review search steps were repeated until it was clear the results reflected data saturation.
The Impact of Mass Shooting Events
Rowhani-Rahbar et al. (2019) stated that “The apparent randomness and unpredictability of mass shootings combined with the sense of helplessness of the targets make these events far more traumatic than nearly all other causes of injury and death in the healthy populations that are exposed” (p. 1765). Recent investigations have suggested
that mass shooting episodes have become more frequent in the United States (Blair & Martingale, 2013; Cowan et al., 2020; Lowe & Galea, 2017; Krouse & Richardson, 2015; Mother Jones, 2024; National Institute of Justice [NIJ], 2022). As an article in Mother Jones (2024) stated, “Since 1982, there have been at least 151 public mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 38 states, from Massachusetts to Hawaii” (p. 2). For years, media outlets, gun control rights activists, law enforcement agencies, researchers and statutes ascribed different meanings to mass shootings according to victim thresholds, contributing to inaccuracy concerning the frequency and severity of such events. Differences in definition stemmed from variant research objectives, the specific context of the study, such as lethality or severity, or priorities related to legal and public policy implications (Kane et al., 2023).
Mass shooting episodes have been generally defined as “events involving one or more persons attempting to kill multiple people, and at least one unrelated person, in an area occupied by multiple unrelated persons” (Blair & Martingale, 2013; Lowe & Galea, 2017, p. 62). Dating back to 2005, the FBI and leading criminologists have defined mass shooting as “a single attack in a public place in which four or more victims were killed” (Mother Jones, 2024, p. 1; Kane et al., 2023; Krouse & Richardson, 2015). In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, a mandate for federal investigation of mass shootings authorized by President Barack Obama lowered the baseline for fatalities to “three or more killings in a single incident” (Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act, 2012; Mother Jones, 2024). This revised guideline, however, did not distinguish public mass shootings from other acts of public violence that stem from gang-related crimes or other domestic disputes (Kane et al., 2023). As such, for the purposes of this dissertation and in keeping with current Congressional Research Service
guidelines, the terms ‘mass shooting,’ ‘mass shooting event,’ or ‘public mass shooting’ referred to a single attack in a public setting in which four or more victims are killed by firearms (Kane et al., 2023; Krouse & Richardson, 2015).
Mass Shootings Versus Mass Murder
To further one’s understanding of mass shootings, the primary motive is mass murder, rather than a by-product of an attempt to commit a different crime (Blair & Martingale, 2013). Mass shootings are uniquely disturbing because they happen without warning in the most routine of places: schools, places of worship, nightclubs, shopping malls, office buildings and concert venues, to name a few. When compared to those who experienced natural disasters, survivors of human-made disasters, such as mass shootings, are at a higher risk of developing psychological distress (Cowen et al., 2020; Lowe & Galea, 2017; Norris, 2007; Novotny, 2018). Their sense of safety and trust are severely compromised, resulting in a range of emotions such as anger, frustration, helplessness, sadness and loss, which wax and wane in frequency and severity (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Lowe & Galea, 2017; U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs [VA], 2025).
As Rowhani-Rahbar et al. (2019) stated,
In the span of two weeks in March 2019, two students who survived the mass shooting that occurred in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, and the father of one of the young victims of the mass shooting that occurred in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, died by suicide. (p. 1765)
Research indicated that exposure to a mass shooting event is associated with a range of negative outcomes in survivors, their families, and entire communities (Cowen et al., 2020; Lowe & Galea, 2017; O’Neill et al., 2020). As Cowen et al. (2023) stated, “Knowing that the
incident may have been preventable can intensify psychological distress when a disaster is human-made” (p. 1). In a review of the literature on mental health outcomes subsequent to mass shootings, Lowe and Galea (2017) concluded that uninjured survivors of mass shootings are associated with adverse psychological outcomes such as PTSD, depression, increased fears, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, and a diminished sense of personal safety. Survivors of mass shooting violence often reported physical symptoms related to headaches, somatic illness, sleeplessness, fatigue, high blood pressure, complicated grief, and substance abuse (Bonanno et al., 2010; Cowen et al., 2020; O’Neil et al., 2020; Vargus & Hemenway, 2021). The results of Vargas and Hemenway’s (2021) study indicated that victims of crimes in which the offender uses a gun are more likely to report both physical and emotional symptoms for days and even months after the occurrence of the traumatic event. It is not uncommon that survivors of gun violence experience posttraumatic problems at school, work, in friendships, or within one’s family system.
Aftermath of Mass Shootings
Although elevated psychological symptoms are common in most adults and youth immediately following a disastrous event, individuals tend to be resilient in coping and adaptation, rebounding within several months (Walsh, 2007). Severe and persistent levels of PTSD are found in a relatively small minority of exposed individuals, “typically 30% or much less” (Bonanno et al., 2010, p. 34; Watson et al., 2011). Moreover, the literature suggested that one’s struggle to recover in the aftermath of traumatic experience may yield remarkable transformation and posttraumatic growth (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996; Walsh, 2007). Positive individual changes can be found in the following areas: (1) emergence of new opportunities; (2) deepening of relationships and compassion for others; (3) feeling more resilient in future life
challenges; (4) greater appreciation for life; and (5) deepened sense of spirituality (Tedeschi & Moore, 2021).
In understanding human experience in the aftermath of a mass shooting, a number of factors, such as personality characteristics, beliefs and attitudes, coping styles, self-efficacy, resource availability, and social relationships have been identified as predictors of mental health outcomes (Lowe & Galea, 2017; Watson et al., 2011). Studies suggested that the degree of exposure to a mass shooting event as well as proximity to the disaster were closely related to one’s experience of PTSD symptoms (Bonanno et al., 2010; Lowe & Galea, 2017; VA, 2025).
Survivors who reported a prior history of trauma and mental health issues or those with little experience in navigating traumatic experiences may be at higher risk of developing adverse psychological outcomes (Lowe & Galea, 2017; Novotny, 2018; VA, 2019). Other research suggested that women may be more prone to PTSD after mass shooting events as they may be more likely to employ ruminative coping mechanisms or more likely to have previously experienced other forms of interpersonal violence (Lowe & Galea, 2017; Novotny, 2018).
Additional individual risk factors included low socioeconomic status, exposure to social media, limited access to social support, and insufficient community-based resources (Cowan et al., 2020). Regardless of the diverse nature of posttraumatic experiences, for most survivors, “the traumatic event has had a profound impact on their fundamental assumptions about the world” (Janoff-Bulman, 1992, p. 51).
Conceptual Foundation: Trauma Shatters Fundamental Assumptions
Janoff-Bulman (1992) claimed that “There is considerable research evidence that people underestimate the likelihood of negative events happening to them and overestimate the likelihood of positive events; they appear to operate on the basis of an illusion of invulnerability”
(p. 19). The idea that people operate on the basis of unquestioned assumptions or beliefs of which there is no proof has been suggested by many writers over the years. One of the most cited is Kelly’s (1955) notion of personal constructs, or the mental frameworks through which people perceive, appraise, and respond to others and the world. Piaget’s (1952) theory of child development introduced the term ‘schemas’ or the cognitive structures a child creates that allow one to interpret and understand the world around them. Of particular relevance to enduring assumptions is the work of Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973), who hypothesized that children build internal working models or mental representations of themselves and their world through their relationship with early attachment figures. These models tend to persist relatively unchanged throughout one’s life, providing expectations about oneself and the world (Bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973). Parkes (1975), a British psychiatrist working in the field of bereavement and loss, used the term “assumptive world” (p. 132) to refer to a strongly-held set of assumptions about the world and self, which is used as a means to recognize, plan, and act accordingly. Stolorow (1999) introduced the notion of “absolutisms of everyday life” (p. 466) that provide for a kind of optimism that allows one to function in the world. Stolorow (2013) later referred to “organizing principles” as unconscious, prereflective rules or patterns that shape how a person experiences and interprets their world (p. 383).
The Assumptive World
Janoff-Bulman (1992), a pioneer in the study of psychological trauma, specifically explored the human response to traumas that involve interpersonal violence and victimization. Like Stolorow’s (1999) absolutisms, Janoff-Bulman (1992) suggested that at the core of one’s internal world are basic views or assumptions about themselves and the external world. These assumptions guide one’s day-to-day thoughts and behaviors and enable people to function
effectively, such as knowing that one will wake up in the morning, or that tomorrow will be similar to today. The illusory nature of these assumptions represents generalized expectations, first formed in early childhood and based on positive interactions with early caregivers: “It is somewhat ironic that it is during their prolonged period of dependency (i.e., infancy) that human beings begin to develop the essential components of a lifelong sense of safety and security” (Janoff-Bulman, 1992, p. 18). Through these early social interactions, humans develop a view of the world that enables them to feel protected, to believe their internal and external environments are predictable, and that there is a high probability that things will work out reasonably well (Janoff-Bulman, 1992).
Janoff-Bulman (1989, 1992) summarized this optimism as consisting of three general assumptions that are highly related to one another:
1. The belief in the world as a benevolent place: benevolence includes the illusion of one’s invulnerability due to the perception of relative safety and security in the world.
2. The perception of the world as a meaningful and orderly place: this involves one’s ability to make sense of their world based on the assumption that they can control more than they actually can.
3. The view of the self as worthy: people generally operate under the assumptions that they are worthy and decent. As such, their moral character serves as a protection from negative experiences.
Even though these fundamental assumptions provide consistent views of the world, there are times when one’s known universe is suddenly and powerfully threatened. Psychological trauma shatters fundamental belief systems, effectively altering one’s sense of being in the world (DePrince & Freyd, 2002; Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Stolorow, 1999). As Janoff-Bulman and Frieze
(1983) stated, “The number of assumptions that are shattered, or at least seriously questioned, by the experience of victimization, is no doubt dependent upon the individual involved” (p. 3). The literature, however, supported how disruptive it can be when a force of circumstance undermines this optimistic worldview (Boulanger, 2002; DePrince & Freyd, 2002; Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Kauffman, 2002a). This is particularly distressing in human-induced traumas such as mass shooting events, where the crime is the direct result of a conscious, malicious intent of another human being (Janoff-Bulman & Frieze, 1983).
The randomness of mass shootings essentially denies the meaningfulness of such events. The world no longer makes sense to victims who feel they were cautious and decent human beings. Victims no longer perceive themselves as safe and secure in their world as they are confronted with human malevolence in a very personal and graphic way (Janoff-Bulman & Frieze, 1983). When the experience of being victimized “refutes one’s illusions of invulnerability” (Janoff-Bulman & Frieze, 1983, p. 4), this leads to a serious questioning of selfperceptions. One can no longer say, “this is not supposed to happen to me.”
Trauma: Wounds of Reality
Van der Kolk (2014) stated,
We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. (p. 21)
There are many types of traumatic events that disturb and overwhelm the internal world of individuals. Generally speaking, trauma refers to an experience that is directly encountered, perceived as a threat to survival and self-preservation, and beyond the capacity for the individual
to adapt effectively (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Landsman, 2002; Siegel, 2012). Useful distinctions have been made between relatively impersonal trauma from natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods, complex or developmental trauma that stems from severe and chronic neglect or abuse in early childhood, and interpersonal or human-made trauma that is unique to criminal assault, gun violence, sexual harassment, war, and systemic racism. Further distinction has been made between Type I trauma that occurs from the effects of a single traumatic event, and Type II trauma that occurs from prolonged, repeated traumatic experiences (Herman, 1992; Levine, 1997). What follows is review of trauma, seen through the lens of psychoanalytic theorists, contemporary theorists, and adult onset trauma.
Freud
The experience of trauma has been conceptualized by psychoanalytic theorists, each offering their unique perspective on the phenomenon. In his early work, Freud (1893) explored the connection between trauma and hysteria. He understood trauma as a deeply distressing event that affectively overwhelms an individual, with the potential to manifest in physical and psychological symptoms (Breuer & Freud, 1893). In “The Aetiology of Hysteria,” Freud (1896) discussed his controversial ‘seduction theory,’ claiming that repressed memories from early childhood sexual abuse were the root cause of hysteria and traumatic neurosis. Freud (1897) eventually abandoned his seduction theory, firmly grounding analytic thinking in the belief that traumatic symptoms of hysteria emanate not from actual abuse, but from unconscious wishes or fantasies. As a result of this shift, classical psychoanalytic theory traditionally understood traumatic neuroses as having roots in intrapsychic conflict rather than real external events (Freud, 1897). Such perspectives led to years in which the recognition of traumatic reality on
adult survivors of catastrophic events was minimized or denied, delaying the development of trauma-focused treatments (Berzoff et al., 2022; Felsen, 2017).
Winnicott
Winnicott (1960, 1964/1987, 1965/2018), a 20th-century pediatrician and psychoanalyst, understood the experience of trauma within the framework of object relations theory, and added an interpersonal element to understanding one’s internal experience, focusing on early relationships, particularly between mother and child. Winnicott’s (1960, 1964/1987, 1965/2018) seminal concepts of the “good enough mother,” and the “holding environment” were seen as central to his understanding of child development. The “good enough mother” construct challenged the ideal for “perfect parenting” and emphasized that minor failures in caregiving are not only inevitable and nontraumatic, but necessary for healthy development (Winnicott, 1965/2018). When the facilitating environment is characterized with responsive and attuned caregiving, the child develops a stable sense of self. Conversely, when the holding environment is lacking due to chronic neglect, abuse, or inconsistent caregiving, the child may experience psychological trauma, disrupting emotional and psychological development (Winnicott, 1960, 1964/1987).
Bowlby
Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980), the British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst best known for developing attachment theory, moved beyond the classical psychoanalytic understanding of trauma with its focus on internal fantasy to one of recognizing the potential impact from real-life experiences. Bowlby (1969/1982, 1980) understood that protective attachment relationships form out of proximity-seeking behaviors of young children and theorized that trauma emerges when
this relationship is disrupted from early experiences of separation or loss, leading to enduring impacts on emotional regulation and attachment behaviors.
Kohut
Kohut (1971, 1977, 1984), another prominent psychoanalytic theorist, developed a more nuanced understanding of trauma, specifically in the context of self psychology, which reframed it as a developmental deficit, or that which occurs when a person experiences inadequate or inappropriate selfobject functions in childhood. Selfobject functions refer to the early external relationships and experiences that help one develop and maintain a cohesive and stable sense of self (Kohut, 1971, 1977, 1984). In this way, trauma is conceptualized in terms of its impact on the early development and cohesion of the self, rather than understanding it through the Freudian lens of repressed conflicts or instinctual drives (Geist, 2008; Siegel, 1996; Wolf, 1988;).
Contemporary Theorists
More contemporary experts in the field of neuroscience and trauma theory have widened the understanding of trauma and its impact on the brain and the body. Van der Kolk (2014), a psychiatrist and trauma researcher, defined trauma as an experience that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, resulting in lasting changes to their brain and nervous system, affecting how they think, feel, and relate to others. Fisher (2017), a licensed clinical psychologist and an international expert in the treatment of trauma, understood it as an overwhelming experience that exceeds one’s capacity to make sense of and profoundly impacts neurobiological and psychological functioning. Implicit in these definitions of trauma, regardless of theoretical orientation, is the experience of external life-threatening events that result in a “cascade of biobehavioral changes” (van der Kolk, 1996/2007, p. 218) and overwhelm one’s capacity to respond and function effectively (Boulanger, 2007; Herman, 1992/2015; Levine, 1997).
Adult-Onset Trauma
Boulanger (2007), a clinical psychologist and researcher in the long-term consequences of surviving violence and victimization, suggested that one area of trauma that remains underexplored psychoanalytically is the experience of adult-onset trauma, or “the psychological effects of traumas that occur in adulthood” (p. 42). Kohut (1977) briefly alluded to secondary self-disturbances, or those “acute and chronic reactions of a consolidated, firmly established self to the vicissitudes of experiences of life…” (p. 191). Although he differentiated between death per se and the death of the self under traumatic circumstances, Kohut (1977) never pursued a more in-depth understanding of these disturbances or their treatment (Boulanger, 2007; Geist, 2008). As such, the phenomenology of adult-onset trauma has been almost impossible to address in psychoanalytic terms without revisiting one’s prior pathology, appealing to one’s aggression, interpreting one’s intrapsychic conflict, or noting one’s developmental arrests (Boulanger, 2007). Rather, adult-onset trauma turns our attention to the outside world and suggests that intrapsychic experience can be profoundly altered independent of dynamic content that originated in childhood (Boulanger, 2007). As Boulanger (2007) claimed,
There is always a relationship between the survivor’s psychodynamics, the psychological impact of the traumatic event itself, the psychological consequences and meaning that event assumes and current symptoms. To overlook any of these variables and their interaction with one another is to fail the patient. (p. 4)
Posttraumatic Outcomes
Important to note are the differences in psychological outcomes observed from early childhood trauma and those observed in adults who face a devastating life event (Boulanger, 2002; Felsen, 2017). As Felsen (2017) claimed, “When a child is overwhelmed with fear, they
defensively dissociate and form contingency selves as a protection against fragmentation” (p. 61). The trauma becomes embodied in these different self-states, leaving other self-states free to engage in a less threatening world (Boulanger, 2002; Davies & Frawley, 1994; Felsen, 2017). When trauma occurs in adulthood it disrupts the predictable, making it difficult for some to recover and reestablish their sense of what is familiar and assumed. Unlike the child, the adult survivor of catastrophe knows the experience happened. While one may minimize its impact through various psychological defenses such as dissociation or denial of affect, the traumatic experience lives on in memory. Boulanger (2002) claimed that “Awake and asleep, vivid and repetitive images, sensations, thoughts, behaviors, and fears concerned with the trauma plague adult survivors not simply in the aftermath, but for some, for many years and for others, for the rest of their lives” (p. 49).
Survivors of catastrophic events often experience a “death imprint, a lasting image of people dying in that disaster” (Lifton, 2023, p. 5). For many, according to Lifton (2023), this leads to a kind of “psychic numbing,” or loss of feeling in the service of protecting the self from unmanageable affect (p. 5). Similarly, as survivors experience ongoing intense emotions, withdrawal, denial and avoidance become necessary defense mechanisms that enable one to confront their trauma in more manageable doses (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Landsman, 2002).
Another’s response may be survivor’s guilt (Boulanger, 2002, 2007; Lifton, 1988), where individuals need to justify their own survival in the face of another’s death. Alternately, individuals may respond with feelings of helplessness, shame, or self-criticism regarding the pace of their recovery (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). For others, it is a profound sense of estrangement and isolation that becomes a central feature of their lived experience (Herman, 2015/1992; Landsman, 2002).
Stolorow (1999) reflected on his own experience of psychological trauma, which occurred 18 months earlier, while attending a psychoanalytic conference with many close friends and colleagues:
I seemed like a strange and alien being-not of this world. The others seemed so vitalized, engaged with one another in a lively manner. I, in contrast, felt deadened and broken, a shell of the man I had once been … They could never begin to fathom my experience, I thought to myself, because we now lived in altogether different worlds. (p. 464)
One must reckon with their own fallibility and mortality, and the fact that their otherwise constructed reality has been shattered (Boulanger, 2002, 2007). For survivors of catastrophic trauma in adulthood, “the difficulty in treatment is not dealing with uncertainty, but coming to terms with contingency and understanding the meaning of that state of helplessness” (Boulanger, 2002, p. 49). Without working towards an appreciation of the meanings that a traumatic experience represents, the trauma becomes a point to which one endlessly returns.
The Crisis of Meaning in Traumatic Experience
According to Lifton (2023), “We human beings are meaning-hungry creatures, and survivors are particularly starved for meaning that can help them ‘explain’ their ordeal. Only by finding such meaning can they tell their story and begin to cope with grief and loss” (p. 5). The exposure to trauma and loss pushes individuals to their limit, drawing forth a crisis of meaning at a foundational level of experience (Landsman, 2002). Landsman (2002) claimed that “Ordinary meaningfulness includes a sense that life has a structure that is both comprehensible and satisfying; that we understand the world, our lives and our roles; and that we feel sufficiently able to negotiate its demands and achieve our goals” (p. 14). In this way, ordinary meaningfulness rests on Janoff-Bulman’s (1992) unexamined assumptions regarding safety,
control, and justice, including one’s basic need for predictability, order, and self-determination. What is lost in traumatic experience is the disruption of one’s beliefs or illusions that organize one’s experience of self, relationships, and the world (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Landsman, 2002; Lifton, 2023). Even though the structures and essence of meaning are frequently out of one’s awareness, survivors attempt to determine, discover, or recreate a sense of meaning in life after the traumatic event (Landsman, 2002).
The Search for Meaning
The search for meaning has been reported across a broad spectrum of research on the aftermath of traumatic experience, including Holocaust survivors (Frankl, 2006); bereaved individuals (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006; Janoff-Bulman, 1992), survivors of incest (van der Westhuizen et al., 2022), survivors of 9/11 (McTighe & Tosone, 2015; Updegraff et al., 2008) and in the context of traumatic life events (Cowan et al., 2020; Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Herman, 1992; Park, 2022). Frankl (2006) discussed man’s “will to meaning” as the primary motivation in life (p. 99), claiming that one’s meaning may be discovered and expressed in different ways, including in accomplishments, in the experience of caring for someone, and in the attitude one takes especially during unavoidable suffering. As he claimed, “When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves” (Frankl, 2006, p. 116).
Lifton (1988) suggested the survivor’s overall task is the formulation of new belief systems that include the traumatic event. This requires one to find meaning or significance in their trauma “so the rest of one’s life need not be devoid of meaning or significance” (Lifton, 1988, p. 26). The author further claimed that exploring the psychology of the survivor is crucial to understanding their trauma experience, defining a survivor as “someone who has been confronted with death in some bodily or psychic fashion and has himself or herself remained
alive” (Lifton, 2023, p. 3). Lifton stated that in order to experience oneself as a survivor, “one must overcome the sense of being an incapacitated victim” (Lifton, 2023, p. 4). Lifton (1988) understood the notion of survival as an achievement with “a dialectical nature;” survivors either remain locked in the experience of their trauma and resultant emotional numbing, or they use their survival as a source of insight and growth (p. 8).
The Mourning Process
In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud (1917) characterized mourning as a healthy, though painful response to loss, and provided a way of understanding mourning as a generative process, or one that enables an eventual restoration of, and return to one’s normal functioning after a significant loss. When the work of mourning is complete, the individual is able to reengage in the external world and find new meaning in life (Freud, 1917). For acute trauma survivors, acknowledging the mourning process is necessary for the healing and potential wisdom one may acquire from their ordeal (Lifton, 2023). Survivors mourn for the people, places, and things they have lost as well as for their own shattered sense of invulnerability and “innocence of death” (Lifton, 2023, p. 65). They may mourn for the loss of physical or psychological wholeness, the loss of a way of life, or the loss of hopes and dreams for the future (Walsh, 2007).
Finding purpose in one’s suffering and loss takes on many active forms, including the act of connecting one’s newly formulated meaning to a kind of “survivor mission” (Lifton, 2023, p. 5). Current examples are found in myriad survivor groups in which members collectively bear witness to their experience and navigate loss and survivorship through community. Such activism and support groups following traumatic experiences have been established in the aftermath of mass shootings: www.momsdemandaction.org, www.sandyhookpromise.org; in the aftermath of COVID-19: www.markedbyCovid.com, www.covidsurvivorsforchange.org; in the
aftermath of 9/11: www.tuesdayschildren.org, www.voicescenter.org; and in the aftermath of cancer: www.stupidcancer.org, www.twistoutcancer.org. In each of these organizations, the recognition and shared support of suffering, together with the work of turning pain into purpose, provides a mechanism for one’s healing and personal transformation.
As Walsh (2007) claimed, “Meaning reconstruction in response to trauma and loss is a central process in healing (p. 211).” Reframing the traumatic experience in ways that help victims feel understood is one way to prepare them for the “terrifying work of coming to terms with the meaning of this catastrophic event that has, in fact, taken meaning out of their lives” (Boulanger, 2007, p. 5). This includes reflecting on the social, emotional, and psychological impact of the trauma, the ways it might interact with aspects of one’s past, and how it shapes one’s subsequent adjustment (Boulanger, 2002). In this way, coping with victimization is a process that involves rebuilding one’s assumptive world (Janoff-Bulman & Frieze, 1983).
Rebuilding Fundamental Assumptions
Janoff-Bulman (1992) claimed that
Traumatic victimizations are unwanted and unchosen. Yet the cognitive strategies used by trauma survivors attest to the possibility for some human choice even in the face of uncontrollable, unavoidable negative outcomes. These choices reside in the interpretations and reinterpretations, appraisals and reappraisals, evaluations and reevaluations made of the traumatic experience and one’s pain and suffering. (p. 140) What takes place in the immediate aftermath of trauma can be critical for the outcome trajectories of survivors (Watson et al., 2011). According Bromberg (2008), an American psychoanalyst and trauma theorist “the affect evoked by trauma is not merely unpleasant but is a disorganizing hyperarousal that threatens to overwhelm the mind’s ability to think, reflect, and
process experience cognitively” (p. 338). The emotional overload can be so great as to challenge one’s continuity of self and contribute to defensive processes such as dissociation, avoidance, or denial of affect that allow one to survive (Bromberg, 2003, 2008). Thus, the initial response to trauma must include interventions that promote safety, while tending to practical needs of victims, reconnecting survivors with their social support networks, and engaging in activities that remobilize one’s personal sense of control (Hagman, 2014; Watson et al., 2011; van der Kolk et al., 1996). As van der Kolk (2014) claimed, “For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and that one can live in the reality of the present” (p. 21).
Returning to a sense of relative safety and predictability is a precondition for individuals to be fully present and capable of responding to their own needs and the urgent needs of their children (van der Kolk et al., 1996/2007).
The Reconstruction Process
For adult survivors seeking to reconstruct a new, reassuring assumptive world, it must be one that recognizes and assimilates both their traumatic experience and prior positive assumptions of benevolence, meaning, and self-worth (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). These strategies are not consciously willed but rather natural efforts of an “essentially healthy system striving to recover from a dramatic blow” (Janoff-Bulman, 1992, p. 117). The process of rebuilding fundamental assumptions often involves comparing one’s lot with that of others who experienced the same kind of event with less fortunate outcomes (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). These “downward comparisons” address concerns about benevolence or self-worth as one looks to the experience of others, real or hypothetical, to minimize their own perception of loss (Janoff-Bulman, 1992, p. 120). For example, survivors of natural disasters who have lost their home compare themselves to those who lost a loved one; or women, whose breast cancer was treated with lumpectomies,
compare themselves to those who had mastectomies (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Downward comparisons are located in one’s recognition that “things could have been so much worse,” and in comparing one’s plight to what could have happened, the individual reestablishes a sense of reassurance.
Survivors also attempt to make sense of the traumatic event by asking questions more related to meaning such as, “why did this happen to me?” In asking and answering these explanatory questions victims might find themselves interpreting their own role in the victimization with instances of magical thinking or self-blame (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). One might question their own lack of courage or their inability to stop something potentially traumatic from happening. Janoff-Bulman (1992) reinforced that “survivors are motivated by recovery, not accuracy” so any reference to blame is understood as adaptive, in the service of minimizing the threat to the survivor’s implicit assumptive system and by the need to understand and integrate the trauma itself (p. 123). Survivor guilt is another example of attributing meaning in the aftermath of traumatic experiences (Lifton, 1988). The guilt from surviving, such as asking “Why have I lived when others did not?” often reflects a need to understand why something bad happened, and the feeling that one did not do enough for those who perished (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Lifton, 1988).
Although experienced at the cognitive level, the aforementioned downward comparisons, interpretations of meaning, appraisals of personal responsibility or guilt can also be understood as defensive in nature, functioning implicitly as emergency protective measures to manage affective overload (Herman, 1992/2015; van der Kolk et al., 1996/2007; van der Kolk, 2014). When used as a defense, trauma-induced dissociation bypasses cognitive processing by disconnecting the mind from its capacity to perceive what is too much to bear (Bromberg, 2003;
van der Kolk, 2014). The nature of this dissociated fear is real enough, “but the mind retains it as a dread of what can happen or is happening rather than as a memory of what has happened” (Bromberg, 2003, p. 560). Such defenses must eventually relax their grip upon the victims’ psyches so dissociated aspects of the traumatic event do not continue to intrude on their life experiences (van der Kolk et al., 1996/2007, p. 420).
Over time, the survivor’s interest in remobilizing fundamental assumptions is reflected in a strategy that fosters beliefs about benevolence and self-worth. This process focuses on reevaluating one’s traumatic experience in terms of benefits, purpose, or meaning-making.
Janoff-Bulman (1992) claimed that “By engaging in interpretations and evaluations that focus on benefits and lessons learned, survivors emphasize benevolence over malevolence, meaningfulness over randomness, and self-worth over self-abasement” (p. 133). Such interpretations are extremely important in reconstructing fundamental beliefs that afford individuals the trust and confidence necessary to feel safe, secure, and capable of reengaging in their world (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). In the face of tremendous psychological pain and suffering, many survivors are able to recognize life lessons and a newfound appreciation for life. As JanoffBulman (1992) claimed, “In the end, it is the rebuilding of this trust-the reconstruction of a viable, nonthreatening assumptive world-that constitutes the core coping task of victims” (p. 69).
Existing Research: Parenting in the Aftermath of Trauma
O’Donnell & Powers (2009) stated that
Exposure to violence appears to initiate a cascade of effects prompting negative changes in physiological, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive states. As the most proximal units of socialization, family plays a central role in moderating the experience of trauma and fear in both parents and children. (p. 161)
In their seminal paper on the experience of children in the throes of war, Freud and Burlingham (1943) concluded that the separation from family ties is more traumatic to children than the events of war. Their research “laid the foundation for conceptualizing family bonds as a protective factor for children in times of mass trauma, long before concepts of resilience and protective factors had been developed” (Cohen, 2009, p. 72). Only a few scholarly papers have since investigated the broad emotional reactions of parents whose children have experienced a potentially traumatic experience (Cobham et al., 2016; Cohen, 2009; Holt et al., 2017). Similarly, few studies explored the ways in which parents support their children who have been exposed to such a destabilizing event (Beckerman & Henshaw, 2020; Gewirtz et al., 2008; Hafstad et al., 2012; Hiller et al., 2018).
The existing literature suggested that a child’s postdisaster stress reactions are determined by “pre-existing conditions, characteristics of the stressor, and the child’s postdisaster environment” (Hafstad et al., 2012, p. 293; La Greca et al., 1996). Furthermore, a child’s recovery must be understood within the context of the parent-child relationship (Boyd Webb, 2004; Cohen, 2009; Hafstad et al., 2012; Ziegler et al., 2004). As children naturally assume their parents or caretakers will care for them, support them, and nurture them, surviving a trauma such as a mass shooting “creates for any child a loss of their assumptive world of safety, protection, and predictability” (Goldman, 2002, p. 193).
The Child’s Assumptive World
When the child’s assumptive world is shattered, their first question might be to wonder why this happened to them (Goldman, 2002). Having directly experienced such trauma, magical thinking may cause a child to feel a sense of guilt as they begin to believe, for some reason, they are to blame. For other children, their traumatic experience may question assumptions around
goodness in the world, or conjure a loss of faith as they wonder why God would let this happen (Goldman, 2002). When the protection of a child’s assumptive world is impaired by acute trauma they may regress to earlier childhood habits, such as thumb-sucking, fears of abandonment, bed wetting, or remobilized patterns of separation anxiety and frightening thoughts of being left alone. A parent might notice their child’s disinterest in playing with friends, or the emergence of school refusal issues. For other children, there may be a loss of what is familiar, as in beloved family traditions, or a loss of a healthy tomorrow as expressed in one’s own fear of death (Goldman, 2002). The bereaved child may exhibit all kinds of new behaviors, such as becoming withdrawn, feeling isolated and alone, worrying excessively about their own health, having difficulty listening or following directions, exhibiting reckless behavior, or complaining of physical issues such as stomach aches or headaches (Goldman, 2002). By becoming familiar with the natural thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of traumatized grieving children, parents and caretakers can normalize their experience and thus allow their children to recreate a safe, protected, and loving assumptive world (Goldman, 2002; Walsh, 2007).
Parenting After Mass Trauma
When something terrible happens to their child, parents’ reactions tap into the core essence of parenting, that being “to provide protection and serve as their child’s protective shield” (Holt et al., 2016, p. 2). Primary caregivers often face unique challenges following a shared experience such as mass trauma, defined as “a potentially life-threatening event that is experienced by a large number of people simultaneously” (Boyd Webb, 2004, p. 4). They not only have to manage their own posttraumatic stress but also have the additional burden of navigating the emotional distress of their traumatized children. When their children begin to struggle with posttraumatic nightmares, difficulty concentrating, or heightened fears of loss or
danger, parents may feel they have failed in their primary roles as protectors (Cohen, 2009). As such, parents may experience an even greater range of emotional responses such as helplessness, inadequacy, distress, or guilt for not being able to prevent bad things from happening to their loved ones (Cohen, 2009; Holt et al., 2016). They may experience anger towards the perpetrator or towards the community leaders for not preventing such an event, and they may worry excessively about something equally terrifying happening again, or how their children will cope with adversity in the future (Holt et al., 2016). As Cohen (2009) stated, “Claiming to protect the child’s innocence, they may project onto the child their own need to construct an imaginary space of innocence to protect themselves from their own sense of violation” (p. 74). Furthermore, extreme examples of parental behavior may present in the form of either paralysis or excessive over-protectiveness (Cohen, 2009). As children are particularly sensitive to the emotional climate around them, they may exhibit calm or panic after any given situation, depending on the reactive behaviors of influential adults, such as parents or other caregivers (Boyd Webb, 2004).
Two comprehensive reviews yield evidence for this claim, noting that emotional reactions of parents following a traumatic event play a crucial role in mediating the child’s posttraumatic symptoms. Scheeringa and Zeanah (2001) reviewed 17 studies that assessed parent and child functioning following acute traumatic events. Norris et al. (2002) summarized the research from 19 samples regarding the influence of family factors on child outcomes subsequent to trauma. What emerged from both reviews supported the relational link between high levels of parental distress and children’s distress following acute traumatic events (Norris et al., 2002; Scheeringa & Zeanah, 2001).
Cohen (2009) suggested that specific parenting variables associated with poorest outcomes for children included the presence of PTSD symptoms or a preexisting psychiatric condition in either parent, parental conflict, or inadequate family cohesion prior to the event.
Other parenting behaviors that negatively impacted the child’s posttraumatic adjustment are “the mother’s avoidance of the trauma, parental suppression of awareness about their child’s symptoms, and parental behaviors that induced guilt and anxiety in the child” (Cohen, 2009, p. 73).
Relevance of Psychoanalytic Theories
Although a willingness to respond flexibly in the aftermath of such an experience is essential, key ideas from attachment theory, object relations, and contemporary self psychology may provide some understanding of what is necessary for a child’s posttraumatic recovery in the here-and-now. Phenomenologically, these psychoanalytic theories each understand human development in the context of the interacting worlds of children and caregivers and each reinforces the centrality of supportive relationships throughout life (Bowlby, 1958; Geist, 2008; Winnicott, 1965/2018; Wolf, 1988).
In developing attachment theory, Bowlby (1958) theorized that attuned and responsive caregiving relationships provide a secure base for infants and children. Attachment, whether to parents or other caretakers, is universal across cultures (Bowlby, 1969/1982). The quality of these primary relationships lay the foundation for providing a sense of security, emotion regulation, the expression of feelings, and autonomous exploration throughout life (Boyd Webb, 2004). Winnicott (1960, 1965/2018) elucidated that facilitating healthy development depends on “good enough mother” responsiveness within the context of a secure holding environment, suggesting that the environment does not necessarily make the infant grow, nor determine the
direction of a child’s growth. Rather, Winnicott (1965/2018) claimed, when the relational environment is good enough, it facilitates the maturational process necessary for the sense of “going-on-being,” or the pattern of internal continuity, which he saw as the foundation of psychological health (p. 60).
These psychoanalytic insights into the importance of early caregiving relationships closely aligned with Kohut’s understanding of what is crucial for development of a cohesive sense of self (Kohut, 1977). From a self-psychological understanding, the self is “always a psychological construct reflecting the subjective experience of mental being and physical existence” (Ulman & Brothers, 1988, p. 5). The most fundamental construct in self psychology is that the emergence of one’s sense of self requires more than the inborn tendency to organize experience (Kohut, 1977, 1984; Kohut & Wolf, 1978). Also required is the presence, throughout one’s life, of others who provide responses that will evoke the emergence and maintenance of the self (Geist, 2008; Wolf, 1988). A healthy self, capable of regulating stress and self-esteem, develops in an environment of consistent and appropriate selfobject responsiveness, such as the experiences of feeling affirmed and recognized, soothed and protected, and a sense of belonging or likeness with others (Kohut, 1977, 1984; Kohut & Wolf, 1978).
Maternal Myths
Although these psychoanalytic theories have played a central role in defining ideals of parenting and child development, it is equally relevant to place them within their historical and cultural contexts. Each theory was developed during an era when belief in the existence and value of the nuclear family was at its height. It is not surprising that they focused more intently on the mother-child relationship, thus casting a myth of the mother as the primary agent of psychological health (Flanagan, 2022). Such theories, however insightful in describing an
optimal developmental environment, nonetheless relied on gendered assumptions that emotional containment and caregiving are inherently maternal, while rendering the role of father as more peripheral. Chodorow (1978), a feminist psychoanalyst and theorist, challenged these assumptions, suggesting the primary cause of maternal myths is the perpetuation of patriarchy. More contemporary scholars have expanded this critique, supporting models of parenting and child development that include fathers as emotionally available and capable caregivers (Silverstein & Auerbach, 1999).
Identifying the underlying causes of maternal myths was beyond the scope of this dissertation; however, rethinking Bowlby (1958), Winnicott (1960), and Kohut (1977) through a gender-inclusive lens opens the possibility of reframing healthy development as a shared parental task, rather than one bound to female identity. Doing so relieves mothers of the burden of unrealistic expectations, affirms the psychological significance of both fathers and nonmaternal caregivers in a child’s life, and recognizes the diverse forms of caregiving and family structures that are prevalent in modern society.
Case Study: Psychological First Aid in the Aftermath of Sandy Hook
The following case study provided a synthesis of how these psychoanalytic constructs informed posttrauma intervention efforts. As the leader of a disaster relief team in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting on December 14, 2012, Hagman (2017), a psychoanalyst and clinical social worker, shared the process by which clinical and other supportive services were conceptualized and delivered to students, teachers, parents and the administration of one nearby elementary school. Hagman (2017) relayed that
Fundamental to a psychoanalytic approach is first to attend to the availability and viability of basic supports, such as the emotional health of teachers, the relationships
between teachers and administrators, trauma-related resources for parents, supports for distressed children, and access to specialized clinical agencies outside the school. (p. 173)
The relief team’s strategy, informed by object relations and contemporary selfpsychological thinking, provided Psychological First Aid (PFA) that was structured to reduce initial distress and facilitate the adaptation and healing of all those impacted (Hagman, 2017). The PFA approach has become a widespread intervention of choice, targeting acute stress reactions and the immediate needs of survivors or emergency responders in the aftermath of potentially traumatic events (Fox et al., 2012).
Even though the students and faculty at this elementary school did not directly witness the mass shooting, everyone felt their sense of safety and security had been shaken (Hagman, 2017). As Hagman (2017) recalled, “Frightening affect states, acute feelings of vulnerability and exposure, loss of confidence in everyday institutions and protections, unremitting fear, and a sense of danger of impending traumatic loss were common experiences the teachers and students shared with us” (p. 170). In utilizing a PFA approach, interventions were aligned with a psychoanalytic understanding of what is most necessary for recovery: an attuned, flexible and responsive holding environment, good-enough mother supports, environmental provisions based on what is needed most by individual survivors, a revitalized sense of connection to one’s self and the community, and a way to “restore a sense of meaning in life and self” (Hagman, 2017, p. 170).
How do parents understand the needs of their children and help them cope in the aftermath of a potentially traumatic event? Not only is there a critical need to factor in the developmental context in which a trauma occurs, but also notable is the influence of the family environment on the child’s subsequent adaptation (Hiller et al., 2017). The reactions of children
may differ from what their parents are accustomed to and this may lead to uncertainty as to how to best support them (Hafstad et al., 2012). Ultimately, “children need help in establishing the boundary between their fears, what actually occurred, and the reality of possible dangers” (Ziegler et al., 2004, p. 164). As such, parents or caregivers need to engage in particular actions in order to help their children adapt to changes brought on by the psychologically painful experience.
Case Study: 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia
In exploring the naturally-occurring processes of parenting following a natural disaster, Hafstad et al. (2011) completed a longitudinal study to evaluate responses of Norwegian parents in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. The range of supportive parenting strategies employed centered around prioritizing the reestablishment of a sense of safety, resuming normal roles and routines, and actively helping children cope with symptoms (Hafstad et al., 2011). Although unreported by parents, their support strategies mirrored the PFA guidelines for helping children after disasters (Brymer et al., 2006; Hafstad et al., 2011). Efforts to remobilize a felt sense of safety and healthy coping behaviors included spending more time with their kids, not leaving children home alone, a temporary reduction in working hours, spending less time engaging in their own leisure activities, and a considerable amount of focus on being available when their children needed to talk about fears and concerns (Hafstad et al., 2011).
As Hafstad et al. (2011) claimed, “The main strategies described by the parents were watchful waiting, careful monitoring of the children’s reactions, and sensitive timing when providing support” (p. 293). Parental support was closely aligned to two main themes: having a heightened awareness of the children’s posttraumatic reactions and recognition of any behavioral
changes. Parents reported the need to interpret the meaning of these reactions according to cultural norms, the child’s age and stage of development, and the child’s typical personality characteristics. Paying attention to behavioral signs helped parents discern the extent to which a particular behavior was cause for concern and whether it required more intervention on their part (Hafstad et al., 2011). Halfstad et al. (2011) also claimed that “Attributing the child’s reaction to understandable posttrauma reactions and therefore as something to be expected, reduced the alarming impact of observed signs” (p. 297). Parents also reported making considerable effort to protect their children by minimizing external stimuli that could induce further distress (Hafstad et al., 2011). Finally, it bears mentioning that the families in this sample were from a privileged socioeconomic and educational status. As such “this may also have assisted the families in reestablishing a safe and secure everyday life more than what might have been the case in other samples” (Hafstad et al., 2011, p. 294).
Parental Influences
In a separate longitudinal study of parental influences on child posttraumatic symptom severity (PTSS) following acute trauma exposure (Hiller et al., 2018), results suggested several mechanisms by which posttrauma parenting practices may influence the child. As children are particularly reliant on their parents to make sense of frightening events, the ways in which parents talk to their children following the event may influence their own appraisals and exacerbate emotional distress (Hiller et al., 2018). Hiller et al. (2018) claimed that Appraisals relating to perceived child vulnerability or permanent damage, a focus on negative aspects of the event (e.g., how unsafe the child was, how significant the threat was), and a parental perception of self-blame each significantly predicted child PTSS at six months. (p. 786)
Potentially maladaptive aspects of parental support, such as encouraging behavioral and cognitive avoidance were also found to exacerbate child PTSS at six months. Such avoidance behaviors refer to promoting avoidance of people, places, or activities that might remind the child of the event. They are considered inappropriate coping responses as they prevent “necessary processing of traumatic memories and disconfirmation of maladaptive appraisals” (Hiller et al., 2018, p. 786). The impact of overprotective parenting styles were also examined, however there was no indication of associations with increased child distress (Hiller et al., 2018).
In contrast, exploring positive domains in this study was considered equally important when determining what guidance can be provided to parents of trauma-exposed children. The study showed that the adaptive coping practices, such as maintaining pretrauma routines, helping children process their experience, and focusing on positive aspects from the event (e.g., spending more time together) were not positively associated with child PTSS (Hiller et al., 2018). Even though the research strongly suggests that parents be advised not to engage in avoidance and other maladaptive behaviors, it is equally essential for them to know that the aforementioned adaptive coping practices will do no harm (Hiller et al., 2018).
As Coates (2003) claimed,
The greater the strength of the human bonds that connect an individual to others, and the more those bonds are accessible in times of danger, the less likely it is that an individual will be severely traumatized and the more likely it is that he or she may recover afterward. (p. 4)
Recovery from traumatic events for any individual is a gradual process, and coming to terms with a shattering life event means recognizing that various aspects of one’s grief may ebb and flow with unexpected intensity, particularly with anniversaries and other pivotal events (Walsh,
2007). In exploring the lived experience of parents and parenting practices in the aftermath of mass trauma, it is clear that interventions that strengthen their capacity to draw on available resources and promote healthy social interactions within the family will lead to better adjustment for all family members (Gewirtz et al., 2008).
Conclusion
This chapter has presented a summary of the relevant literature as it pertains to the lived experience of parents and parenting practices in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Although supportive parenting is acknowledged in the field, few studies have actually inquired into what parents do in order to support their children’s posttrauma recovery. This review contributed to the knowledge by addressing this gap and suggested that parenting practices may be potential mediators between children’s adjustment and traumatic events. The framework of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was appropriate for studying the phenomenon in question as it seeks a deep understanding of how parent subjects make sense of their experience, and the ways in which trauma theory and psychoanalytic thinking manifest in their real-time parenting practices. The IPA methodology is discussed in Chapter III.
Chapter III:
Methodology
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of parents who survived the Highland Park shooting and the consequences of this event on parenting. Specifically, I used IPA as the primary research methodology (Smith et al., 2022).
One’s lived experience was generally defined by the ways in which this traumatic event has impacted the participants’ daily lives. In particular, this involved the need to manage their social, emotional, and psychological health, the impact on one’s felt sense of safety or loss of safety, and the challenges in recreating a safe, secure base for their children. A retelling of the participants’ experiences the day of the shooting was elicited for background, but was not the focus of this study.
The central research question was: What is the lived experience of adult parents who survived the Highland Park shooting and its impact on their parenting? In seeking to appreciate and better comprehend this phenomenon, this study pursued the following subquestions (see Appendix A):
1. How has this traumatic event impacted the day-to-day lives of participants?
2. How has the social and emotional health of participants been affected?
3. What were assumptions of personal and public safety before and after experiencing the Highland Park shooting?
4. How did participants understand the needs of their children following the event?
5. What did parents do to help their children feel safe and secure following the event?
6. What was most helpful in their ability to support their children’s emotional well-being?
7. Was there any kind of meaning-making process that emerged from their traumatic experience?
8. Was there any aspect of personal growth that emerged in the months following this event?
Rationale for Qualitative Research Design
Qualitative research is used to explore and understand the meaning individuals assign to a particular circumstance or human problem (Bloomberg, 2023; Creswell & Creswell, 2023). It tends to use smaller samples that are explored in greater detail than the larger sample sizes necessary for quantitative studies (Bloomberg, 2023; McKim, 2023). As such, qualitative research is more suited to providing an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons behind the behavior (Choy, 2014; Daniel, 2016; McKim, 2023).
As Bloomberg (2023) defined, qualitative methodologies are grounded in a “philosophical position that is essentially constructivist in the sense that it is concerned with how the complexities of the social and cultural world are experienced, interpreted, and understood within a particular context and at a particular point in time” (p. 74). Where quantitative research tends to explain associations between variables, qualitative research tends to focus on how people make sense of what happens to them and what the meaning is of that specific happening (McKim, 2023; Smith et al., 2022). Furthermore, qualitative research enables participants to express their own thoughts and opinions rather than being confined to the predetermined responses of quantitative approaches (McKim, 2023). Qualitative researchers may ask questions as information unfolds, and participants are enabled to share their experiences in their own words. In this way, qualitative research is more likely to uncover subtleties of human experience
and richer observations than what may emerge from the precision and generalizability emphasized in a quantitative approach (Rubin & Babbe, 2016).
Rationale for IPA
This qualitative study followed the IPA methodology, as outlined by Smith et al. (2022). Given the role that hermeneutics plays within the model’s paradigm, IPA seeks to uncover and interpret the depth and meaning of human experience. The IPA process is designed to encourage a reflective engagement with the participant’s narrative while recognizing the researcher’s foremeanings and bias that may impact understanding the phenomenon being studied (Smith et al., 2022). As Smith et al. (2022) specified, “Inevitably, the analysis is a joint product of the participant and the analyst” (p. 77). Using this methodology, the researcher provides an interpretive approach to understanding the research participant’s point-of-view and meaningmaking from within their context and subjectivity. Consistent with IPA practices, the researcher views human beings as sense-making creatures, and it is thus conjectured, that one’s account of their experience will reflect their attempts to make sense of it (Smith et al., 2022). In this way the IPA researcher is “engaged in a double hermeneutic because the researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of what is happening to them” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 3).
IPA was my chosen research methodology as it was consistent with the epistemological position of the research question: What is the lived experience of parents in the aftermath of surviving the Highland Park shooting? Because IPA fosters an inductive research approach, it places the research subject in the role of expert. Inductive reasoning begins with the study of a small number of individual cases and infers patterns and meanings from them to form a better understanding of the phenomenon in question (Bloomberg, 2023). It is a bottom-up approach for
analyzing data with the ultimate goal of understanding the particulars of one’s experience (Bloomberg, 2023; McKim, 2023). The IPA methodology aims to know in detail, “what the experience for this person is like, what sense this particular person is making of what is happening to them” (Smith, 2022, p. 3). As a result, what a researcher comes to know was directly linked to the participant’s involvement in the phenomenon of study, including how they have made sense of their experience.
People often reflect on the significance of their experience when something major happens in their lives. The IPA research methodology aims to explore these reflections in rich detail (Smith et al., 2022). The methodology reflects both phenomenological and interpretive aspects in that IPA researchers focus on the subject’s experiences or understandings of the specific phenomenon and the researcher’s perceptions of the research participant’s experience (Smith et al., 2022). It is a methodology that is informed by three key areas of philosophy of knowledge: phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography (Smith et al., 2022).
Phenomenology is an approach that focuses on the study of experience. Rooted in the perspectives of philosopher Edmund Husserl, IPA research is primarily interested in what happens when the everyday flow of lived experience takes on a particular significance for those involved (Smith et al., 2022). For Husserl, phenomenology involved the careful examination of human experience, including one’s reflection on that which is experienced consciously in the here and now (Smith et al., 2022). In contrast to Husserl’s descriptive focus, his student Martin Heidegger moved phenomenology to a hermeneutic, or interpretive, endeavor that explores the human experience of being, which he termed as “Dasein” (Bloomberg, 2023, p. 90). Heidegger’s perspective recognized that human existence is always embedded within a world of meaning and within relationship to others (Bloomberg, 2023; Smith et al., 2022). The third philosophical
influence on IPA is idiography, or the commitment to “the particular” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 24). As such, IPA explores how particular people, in particular context, make meaning and interpret their experiences (Bloomberg, 2023).
The Research Sample
Sampling in this study was purposive in accordance with the qualitative paradigm of an IPA research methodology, utilizing strategies of criterion and snowball sampling. As purposive sampling implies, an IPA researcher has a purpose or reason for selecting specific participants who are able to provide the most appropriate data for the study (Bloomberg, 2023). In criterion sampling, “participants are chosen because they meet a certain set of criteria as predetermined by the researcher” (Bloomberg, 2023, p. 266). In snowball sampling, the researcher recruits others who possess certain characteristics, and asks them to “identify and refer others who are known to have the same or similar characteristics, and who might be good sources given the focus of the inquiry” (Bloomberg, 2023, p. 266).
IPA research utilizes small sample sizes and is “always concerned with the detailed examination of someone’s experience of something” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 42). The objective of sampling in this manner is to yield the most information-rich cases and in-depth understanding that is not possible through the random sampling of quantitative research (Bloomberg, 2023; Smith et al., 2022). In addition to small samples, “IPA researchers usually try to find a fairly homogeneous sample for whom the research questions will be meaningful” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 44). It is important to note that a fairly homogeneous sample does not reflect a sample of individuals who are identical. Rather, the sample reflects a uniformity based on demographic or social attributes and other factors that are relevant to the study.
Creswell and Creswell (2023) discussed the importance of selecting candidates who are most appropriate for the research study. Given the vulnerability of this population, I administered the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS)—a six-item scale designed to measure resilience in its original meaning, or the ability to bounce back or recover from stress— prior to finalizing the sample. This step was included in the recruitment process to ensure that potential participants could engage in the study without undue psychological risk (Smith et al., 2008; see Appendix B). For the purpose of this study, the research participants’ emotional health was determined by their level of resiliency, or their “ability to bounce back after stress” (Smith et al., 2010, p. 168).
Additionally, I intended to reduce risk to participants via thoughtful inclusion criteria, scheduling qualitative interviews more than two years after the 2022 incident, and avoiding any interview sessions on or around the anniversary of the Highland Park shooting.
Six to eight participants were selected to provide this researcher with insight and understanding of the phenomenon in question. The sample consisted of parents, aged 18 and older, who met the following study criteria:
1. They reside in Highland Park, IL or in its sister city of Highwood, IL.
2. They attended the 2022 Highland Park 4th of July parade with children, who were 3–13 years-old at the time of the incident.
3. They survived the Highland Park shooting without physical injury to self or loved ones.
4. They did not experience a death of a family member or close acquaintance related to the shooting.
5. They completed the BRS Scale prior to data collection (Smith et al., 2008).
Participants were recruited via email from researcher-related contacts who reside in the Highland Park/Highwood area (see Appendix C). I created an email script specifically for
recruitment purposes, informing the recipients of the research study, its purpose, the inclusion criteria, and how to contact this researcher if they wish to participate. Other participants could self-refer from flyers placed at public establishments in Highland Park, and Highwood, IL (see Appendices D & E). I also expanded the reach to potential research participants by posting the self-refer flyer to closed online groups on the social media platform, Facebook.
Although recruitment and data collection did not begin prior to Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, I conducted two pilot interviews prior to implementation of the study with personal or professional contacts who have a closeness to the phenomenon due to their place of residence or work. The purpose of this step was to review the interview questions and determine whether there were any flaws, limitations, or other weaknesses within the interview design (see Appendix A). No data were collected at this stage, so IRB approval was not required for this pilot work (Bloomberg, 2023). This step enabled me to refine the research questions, make any necessary revisions prior to formal recruitment and data collection, and “ensure credibility, dependability, and risk level” (Bloomberg, 2023, p. 263).
Informed consent is an important feature of ethical considerations in any research involving human subjects (see Appendix F). Each participant signed an informed consent document in accordance with the ICSW’s IRB requirements prior to the commencement of research. Referrals to individual therapists were provided to any participant who felt the need to seek clinical support at any point in the research process. Since the subject matter involved a sensitive topic, I offered individuals time to consider their participation to minimize any felt sense of coercion (Bloomberg, 2023). Furthermore, I took extra care to ensure that participants understood that they may leave the research study at any time without consequence. Not only was this explicitly stated in the Informed Consent document but I also reviewed participant rights
directly with each individual to confirm their understanding prior to the interviews and data collection.
The Research Plan
The research process began once I had received IRB consent and successfully completed the research proposal hearing. I conducted two pilot interviews with personal and/or professional contacts prior to implementation of recruitment and data collection. The purpose of these interviews was to validate my data-gathering instruments, clarify terms, gain comfort with the reflexive nature of the interviewing process, and make the necessary revisions to research subquestions and prompts (see Appendix A).
In accordance with the purposive nature of IPA research methodology, I used criterion and snowball sampling to recruit six to eight participants via the following strategies: (1) emailing recruiting letter to potential participants from personal and professional contacts (see Appendix C); and (2) posting recruitment flyers in business establishments in Highland Park and Highwood, IL (see Appendices D & E). The screening process utilized a prepared script for responding to potential subjects (see Appendix G). This script addressed inclusion criteria, provided all necessary information related to the research project, and their willingness to take the BRS via Survey Monkey (see Appendix B) prior to inclusion. If they did not agree to the standards set forth in this screening process, the researcher thanked the participant and informed them that they did not qualify for the study.
Once all screening work was complete, I scheduled a brief, in-person or online meeting with each participant to review the informed consent process. I emailed prospective participants the Informed Consent form (see Appendix F) in advance for their review and followed the informed consent script (see Appendix I) in explaining the process. The informed consent form
confirmed participants’ understanding of the research purpose, and their willingness to participate in the study via two, 60–90-minute interviews via Zoom, with the possibility of a third follow-up interview if needed. It confirmed their agreement to be audio- and videorecorded in the Zoom interviews. It also confirmed that they were willing to participate in member-checking procedures between interviews. It confirmed that they knew they may leave the study at any time without consequence and would be awarded a $25 Visa gift card following each completed interview. The consent form contained my contact information and the contact information of my Dissertation Committee Chair, Dr. John Ridings, PhD, should any complications or concerns arise at any time in the research process.
In this meeting, I confirmed the participants’ understanding of the study’s purpose and collected their signature on the Informed Consent form. I also asked the participants to complete the demographic questionnaire (see Appendix H), providing information related to their age, gender, marital status, race, religious affiliation, highest level of education, and the ages of their children (at time of the 2022 parade). Participants were also asked to provide a pseudonym for the purpose of maintaining confidentiality throughout the study.
I conducted the first interview using a semistructured interview guide (see Appendix A).
As soon as this interview was completed, I submitted the interview to a professional transcription service, Rev.com, for transcription. Next, I journaled any thoughts, feelings, or concerns about the interview process and bracketed any assumptions or biases that emerged. I followed with a brief analysis for possible themes or to uncover any changes that needed to be made for future interviews. Once the transcriptions were returned and checked for accuracy, I conducted a member check with each participant to ensure the data collected reflected their experience. The member-checking process engaged the participants in making sure I correctly understood their
experiences and enabled for amendment of meaning as needed (Creswell & Creswell, 2023; McKim, 2023). These steps reflected the iterative process of IPA, using what I learned from one interview and amending the process as needed for following interviews. Each interview thereafter was followed by transcription, reflective journaling and bracketing, a brief analysis of the data, and member checking.
I coded the transcripts from each interview personally and submitted them to NVivo 15 for qualitative data analysis within and between participants. After completing the above process for the first round of interviews, I scheduled and conducted the second interview. Third interviews were only utilized on an as-needed basis for further confirmation of the participant’s experience.
Once the interviews were complete, and it was determined that data saturation was reached in this sample, I wrote up the final chapters of this dissertation. When approval was received from my dissertation chair and committee members, I defended the final analysis. Afterwards, I shared a summary of the study findings with each participant who expressed a desire to see the final results.
Data-Collection Methods
Phenomenological research is an interpretive endeavor that involves studying a small number of subjects through extensive engagements to develop patterns and relationships of meaning around the studied phenomenon (Bloomberg, 2023). It is a research methodology that often makes use of multiple forms of data collection, referred to as triangulation, to ensure that all aspects of the phenomenon have been thoroughly explored and understood (Bloomberg, 2023; McKim, 2023). Providing data from different sources minimizes distortion from a single source or from researcher bias, and thus enhances the credibility of the study (Bloomberg, 2023).
As such, data collection in this study included a screening for potential participants, an in-person introductory interview to review the informed consent process and gather demographic information, two semistructured Zoom interviews, member-checking, and an allowance for follow-up semistructured interviews as needed for clarification. The phases for completing this study are listed as follows.
Phase 1: Screening
For the screening process, I utilized a prepared script in response to individuals who have expressed an interest in participating in the study (see Appendix G). This script confirmed those who met the following inclusion criteria: They are a resident of Highland Park, IL, or Highwood, IL; they attended the 2022 Highland Park 4th of July parade with their children, who were 3–13 years-old at the time of the incident; they survived the Highland Park shooting without physical injury to self or loved ones; and, they did not experience a death of a family member or close acquaintance related to the shooting. The screening process also confirmed the individual’s willingness to complete the BRS (see Appendix B). Furthermore, each potential subject was informed of all necessary information related to the research project, such as the purpose of the study, informed consent, projected time involvement, confidentiality and privacy needs, and the importance of their feedback via member checking.
Phase 2: Informed Consent Interview
Smith et al. (2022) claimed that “The most important thing at the beginning of the interview is to establish rapport with the participant” (p. 61). With this in mind, I scheduled a one-time interview with each participant to review the informed consent process, clarify specifics about the research study, and gather demographic information (Appendix H). This meeting took place at a location of the participant’s choosing, or virtually via Zoom, as long as it
provided a quiet place to talk. I followed an informed consent script (see Appendix I) to explain the purpose of the research study, and reviewed concerns around confidentiality. I described the Zoom format, frequency of meeting, and average time commitment for each interview. To further build rapport, I allowed space for any questions or concerns that the participant had before the interview process began (Turner, 2010). Finally, I collected the participant’s signature on the consent form, asked them to complete the demographics questionnaire, and had them select a pseudonym to disguise their responses and maintain confidentiality throughout the study. When requesting permission for the informed consent meetings, I was clear that these introductory meetings would take place after IRB approval was given (Bloomberg, 2023). In preparing for the subsequent Zoom interviews in this manner, I hoped to build a sense of safety and trust with participants—a necessary element, given the sensitive nature of the phenomenon in question.
Phase 3: Two Semistructured Interviews via Zoom
This IPA research study involved two in-depth interviews, conducted over Zoom with individuals who have experienced the phenomenon in question. A third follow-up interview was scheduled with participants as needed to clarify their responses, ensure the findings captured their thoughts or experiences, or address any other concern that might have arisen during the interviewing process.
The interviews were semistructured, following a series of open-ended questions and possible prompts, which were sequenced in descending order of magnitude: from those considered more general, to those thought to be more detailed and experiential in nature (Smith et al., 2022). Interviewing in this manner provided a deeper understanding of the lived
experience of parents in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting. As such, the 10 interview questions and following prompts consisted of three areas of exploration:
1. The ways in which this event altered the lived experience of subjects.
2. The ways in which this event has impacted their fundamental assumptions of self and the world.
3. The ways in which this event has impacted their parenting, including their capacity to provide a safe, secure base for their children. All interviews were conducted over Zoom, recorded audio-visually and audio-recorded as a back-up, and subsequently transcribed verbatim using an external transcription service, Rev.com
The Zoom online video conferencing service offers many benefits that can enhance the qualitative research process. Archibald et al. (2019) found that Zoom interviews were useful in building and maintaining rapport between qualitative researchers and participants. In general, online methods were preferable due to factors of convenience, ease of rescheduling, and minimizing travel and other related expenses that often pose barriers to participation (Archibald et al., 2019; Hewson, 2008). Zoom provides the ability to communicate in real time and securely record and store interview sessions, an attribute that is most critical in protecting highly sensitive data (Archibald et al., 2019). Other important security features of Zoom included its authentication of users, real-time encryption of interviews, and the ability to back-up recordings to online remote server networks, such as cloud computing (Archibald et al., 2019).
Despite the advantages of using Zoom, the disadvantages associated with this method of data collection include dropped calls, poor audio or video quality, difficulty in reading nonverbal cues, and lapses in real-time interaction due to delays in internet connectivity (Archibald et al.,
2019). Other technical disadvantages may reflect the participant’s unfamiliarity with Zoom, their outdated computer hardware, or limited access to reliable, high-speed internet (Archibald et al., 2019). Another disadvantage may be barriers to finding a space that is quiet and private enough to maintain confidentiality throughout the interview. One strategy to offset these potential disadvantages was to inquire regarding the research subjects’ accessibility to high-speed internet, an available computer, and overall comfort with online technology during the recruitment phase.
Phase 4: Member Checking.
Member checking is one common technique used to assure quality and accuracy of the researcher findings, minimize researcher bias, and enable the research process to remain iterative. In this phase, participants were emailed detailed themes and descriptions gathered from their first Zoom interviews, one to two weeks prior to the second interview. I personally developed the themes, and utilized the NVivo 15 software program to assist in organizing and analyzing the qualitative data. A core characteristic of IPA research is that the participant is the expert (Knapik, 2006; McKim, 2023). As such, the member-checking process engaged the participants in ensuring that I correctly understood their experience, and allowed for amendment of meaning as needed (Creswell & Creswell, 2023; McKim, 2023; Rubin & Babbie, 2016). The
Issues of Trustworthiness section of this chapter offer a more detailed description of how member-checking practices unfolded during the research process.
Phase 5: Follow Up Interviews
As previously mentioned, third follow-up interviews were only scheduled as needed to clarify participant responses, to ensure the findings captured their thoughts or experiences, or to address any other concern that might have arisen during the research process.
Plan for Data Analysis
Bloomberg (2023) claimed that “The goal of qualitative research is to learn from the data and to keep revisiting data extracts until you see and understand emergent patterns and explanations” (p. 343). With this in mind, the essence of IPA lies in its analytic focus. Typical data analysis in the IPA methodology is an iterative process with line-by-line analysis of the experiential claims and concerns of each participant (Smith et al., 2022). In addition to analyzing and coding the research data myself, I used NVivo 15 software to analyze, organize, and visualize the qualitative data that the research yielded.
As with other qualitative research approaches, the most fundamental component of IPA lies in its analytic focus. In the case of IPA, analytic attention focuses on participants’ attempts to make sense of their experience (Smith et al., 2022). Per Smith et al. (2022), the typical data analysis process includes the following steps:
1. Reading and Rereading: This initial step involves immersing oneself in the data, such as the initial interview transcript. In the current study, this step included listening to the audio-visual recording in addition to reading the transcript. The primary goal of this first stage was to ensure the participant was the primary focus of analysis.
2. Exploratory Noting: Next, I examined the interview transcript in an exploratory, openminded way. The purpose of this step was to become familiar with the way each participant expressed, reflected on, and understood their experience of the phenomenon under study. Additionally, I recorded exploratory notes on the transcript that further described what mattered most to each participant, such as key areas of concerns, the meanings each participant assigned to their concerns, and any other linguistic features that might have contributed to understanding their experience.
3. Constructing Experiential Statements: I consolidated the volume of the data from the transcript and exploratory notes and articulated what was most important. These statements directly reflected both the participant’s experience and how they made sense of their experience. They reflected a synergy between description of the participant’s original words and thoughts and my interpretation of their experience.
4. Searching for Connections Across Experiential Statements: I consolidated the experiential statements from the previous step to understand and articulate the most salient aspects of the participant’s account.
5. Naming, Consolidating, and Organizing the Personal Experiential Themes (PETs): In accordance with contemporary IPA standards, a collection of related experiential statements was clustered to create PETs that better reflect the analytic process essential to investigating the participant’s lived experience.
6. Continuing Analysis of Other Cases: This step involved moving on to the next participant’s transcript and repeating the process. It reflected the iterative process of IPA, treating each case as its own source of inquiry, rather than reproducing ideas from previous cases.
7. Develop Group Experiential Themes (GETs) Across Cases: In this cross-case analysis, the primary goal was to look for patterns of similarities and differences across the PETs for each case, and create a set of GETs that represent the shared experiences across participants.
Ethical Considerations
In accordance with the Belmont Report (1979), a researcher is mandated to adhere to three basic ethical principles in any research involving human subjects: (1) respect for persons,
which relates to avoiding abuse of research subjects and recognizing their decision-making capacity throughout the research process; (2) beneficence, which relates to the researcher’s commitment to doing no harm to research subjects, and weighing benefits against any exposure to risk as a result of participation in the study; and (3) justice, which relates to recognizing possible benefits or possible burdens to research participants, especially those who have historically been marginalized, underrepresented, or mistreated (Bloomberg, 2023).
Due to the sensitive nature of inquiry into the lived experience of individuals who survived a mass shooting event, special attention was given to recognizing the vulnerability of this population from proposal and sampling through the completion of the study. Participant vulnerability was defined from a contextual approach, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the situational circumstances from which they might be more vulnerable (Gordon, 2020). This method was used in contrast to defining participant vulnerability from a categorical approach, or broadly considering certain populations as vulnerable.
All participants in this research were volunteers. While I anticipated no serious ethical threats to the wellbeing of participants, it was possible that strong emotional reactions may have presented due to the evocative nature of exploring the lived experience of survivors of a mass shooting event. I hoped to keep this distress to a minimum by thoughtful inclusion criteria, following ICSW’s protocol and procedures for gaining informed consent prior to commencement of research, and by prescreening participants for emotional resiliency using the aforementioned BRS (see Appendix B). A list of referrals for counseling services was provided if necessary or upon a participant’s request. I also attempted to keep participant distress to a minimum by using clinical skills and knowledge gleaned over many years of practice as a licensed clinical social worker. Providing psychotherapy was not a component of this researcher’s role.
According to Creswell and Creswell (2023), researchers need to anticipate and utilize strategies for minimizing ethical issues “before conducting the study, beginning a study, during data collection and data analysis, and in reporting, disseminating and storing the data” (p. 93).
Informed consent procedures, confidentiality, and disclosure were managed and maintained with the rights of all human subjects given highest priority and in accordance with the NASW’s (2021) Code of Ethics. All participants received and completed an informed consent document (see Appendix F) prior to participating in the study.
Issues of Trustworthiness
I addressed issues of trustworthiness and controlled for potential bias throughout the design, implementation, and analysis of the research process. As Bloomberg (2023) indicated, “Trustworthiness in qualitative research includes four criteria: credibility, confirmability, dependability, and transferability” (p. 300). Consistency across these four dimensions provided a reliable reference point for addressing potential limitations inherent in the qualitative research process (Bloomberg, 2023).
1. Credibility: Refers to whether the researcher has accurately portrayed the participant’s experience.
2. Confirmability: Refers to whether the researcher’s findings, interpretations, and conclusions are clearly derived from the data, rather than the outcome of researcher biases and subjectivity.
3. Dependability: Refers to the stability and consistency of data via clear documentation and traceability of the process.
4. Transferability: Although the goal of qualitative research is not necessarily to produce generalizable outcomes, transferability of a qualitative study refers to whether one can
understand in-depth, the ways in which lessons learned in one setting might be useful in broader contexts (Bloomberg, 2023).
To ensure trustworthiness of this study and in keeping with IPA protocols (Smith et al., 2022), I utilized the strategies of reflective journaling, bracketing, and member checking. Reflective journaling included making notes after each interview, citing impressions of participant/researcher interactions, relevant nonverbal and verbal communications, and any issues related to the interview that may have impacted either participant or researcher contributions. Bracketing included writing memos throughout the data collection and analysis as a means of identifying and setting aside any assumptions or bias that might impact my understanding of participants’ experiences (Bloomberg, 2023; Tufford & Newman, 2010). Given my geographic proximity to Highland Park and the personal resonance of the shooting, it was essential to acknowledge and critically reflect on my own emotional responses throughout the research process. These reflexive memos formed an integral part of my broader strategy to enhance the trustworthiness and credibility of the findings—an ongoing commitment sustained throughout the dissertation process (Creswell & Creswell, 2023).
Furthermore, member checking addressed the accuracy of research participants’ feelings, intentions, and experiences, ensuring their meanings are captured and understood correctly (Creswell & Creswell, 2023; McKim, 2023). Member checking is a process where data transcripts, portions of transcripts, or major themes of the research are presented to some or all participants for feedback (McKim, 2023; Varpio et al., 2017). It is a tool that establishes credibility by inviting participants to correct errors and eliminate misrepresentation during the data analysis process (Candela, 2019; McKim, 2023). Member checking was utilized to minimize researcher bias, assure quality and accuracy of the researcher findings, and allow the
process to remain iterative, where ideas are allowed to develop and change throughout each stage of the research (Bloomberg, 2023; Smith et al., 2022).
As such, the member-checking process engaged the participants in ensuring that I correctly understood their experience and to enable amendment of meaning as needed (Creswell & Creswell, 2023; Rubin & Babbie, 2016). This phase included emailing participants a list of detailed themes and descriptions gathered from their interviews with me, one to two weeks prior to the second Zoom interview. In this email, I explained the purpose of the member checking phase and suggested the following questions for their review:
1. What are your general thoughts after reading through the findings?
2. How accurately do you feel these findings represent your thoughts or experiences?
3. What could be added to the findings to better reflect your thoughts or experiences?
4. Is there any part of these findings you would like removed? If so, what would that be and why (McKim, 2023)?
The purpose of these interviews was to build trust and strengthen the researcher/participant relationship. In this way, the member checking process further reinforced the participant as the expert, assured the findings were accurate, and sought answers to what other findings might be missing from the individual participant’s experience (McKim, 2023).
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations are potential challenges or shortcomings that are inherent in the research over which the researcher has little control. They may influence the interpretation of the study findings and affect the final outcome (Bloomberg, 2023). Since the qualitative approach explores the feelings and personal experience of research participants, it may not provide consistent and reliable data when compared to other quantitative approaches. Without the rigor associated with
quantitative analysis, the data may not be objectively verifiable and therefore may not generalize to larger populations (Choy, 2014; Daniel, 2016). Furthermore, the way I understood and interpreted participant experiences was subject to my own biases (Choy, 2014; Daniel, 2016). In this way, limitations may include threats to trustworthiness due to my own preconceived meanings and understanding of the research situation.
Delimitations are conditions or parameters that the researcher intentionally imposes in order to limit the scope of the study (Bloomberg, 2023). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of adults who survived the Highland Park shooting in 2022 and its impact on their parenting in its aftermath. One’s “lived experience” is generally defined by the ways in which this traumatic event has impacted the participant’s daily lives. Specifically, ‘lived experience’ included an exploration of any changes to their social or emotional health, the impact of this event on one’s felt sense of safety or loss of safety, and the challenges in recreating a safe, secure base for their children.
This study did not address the lived experience of adults who experienced injury themselves or the loss of a loved one from the shooting. Although a brief retelling of the participant’s experience on the day of the shooting was included for context, it was not the focus of this study. This study did not address the lived experience of children who witnessed a shooting death or the ways in which this traumatic experience showed up in their lives. Anecdotal information about children presented in select participant narratives, however their children’s experiences were not the focus of this study. This study explored the lived experiences of parents and parenting consequences in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting only. Hence, my hope is that this research expanded the body of literature on parenting consequences in the aftermath of a mass shooting, and offered useful information and recommendations for
researchers, policy makers, and mental health providers who work with this population (Bowen, 2023).
Researcher Role and Background
My name is Rebecca Strauss, LCSW, and I am an advanced doctoral student at ICSW in Chicago, IL. I have a private psychotherapy practice in Northbrook, IL, and work with adolescents and adults. As a psychodynamic psychotherapist, I am most informed by self psychology in the analytic realm and mindfulness-based practices in the cognitive behavioral realm. Currently, my client base ranges in age from 18–87 years-old, and I treat issues related to early development, interpersonal difficulties, emotional reactivity, trauma and specific mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. I believe a psychotherapy experience is one that nurtures the development of a cohesive sense of self which allows for greater adaptability and resilience throughout life.
Chapter IV:
Findings
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of parents and their parenting practices in the aftermath of the parade shooting in Highland Park, IL, on July 4, 2022. Equally important was examining what parents did, specifically, to help their children cope. In seeking to appreciate and better comprehend this phenomenon, the research questions this study sought to answer were as follows:
1. How has this traumatic event impacted the day-to-day lives of parents?
2. How has the social and emotional health of parents been affected?
3. What were assumptions of personal and public safety before and after experiencing the Highland Park shooting?
4. How did parents understand the needs of their children following the event?
5. What did parents do to help their children feel safe and secure following the event?
6. What was most helpful in their ability to support their children’s emotional well-being?
7. Was there any kind of meaning-making process that emerged from their traumatic experience?
8. Has there been any aspects of personal growth or goodness that emerged from the event?
Introduction to Participants
Using IPA (Smith et al., 2022) methodology, eight participants who reside in either Highland Park, IL, or Highwood, IL, completed two, 60–90-minute interviews via the video conferencing software, Zoom. All participants were present at the Highland Park parade shooting in 2022 with their children, who were aged 3–13 years-old at the time of the incident. The sample consisted of seven females and one male, with ages ranging from 37–44 (Avg. = 40.5
years). No family members of participants were physically injured, nor were there any fatalities in the participants’ families due to events of that day. Table 1 shows this demographic information in detail using self-chosen pseudonyms to protect participants’ confidentiality. A brief orientation to each participant follows.
Table 1
Sample Characteristics (N = 8)
Gender Marital Status Race Religious Affiliation
Highest Level of Education Ages of Children Present w/Parent on July 4, 2022
Rebecc a Female Married Caucasian Jewish Graduate or beyond Seven years-old
Erin Female Married Caucasian Jewish Graduate or beyond Five, seven, and nine years-old
Elise Female Married Caucasian Agnostic Undergraduate Five and eight years-old
Celine Female Married Caucasian Orthodox Graduate or beyond Five months, four yearsold
Howard Male Married Caucasian Jewish Graduate or beyond Six years-old
Lisa Female Married Caucasian Jewish Graduate or beyond Three years-old
Gilly Female Married Caucasian Jewish Graduate or beyond Six years-old
Jane Female Married Caucasian Mormon Graduate or beyond Nine, six, and five yearsold, and 11 month-old
Rebecca
Rebecca is 41 years-old, married, a mother of three children, and a licensed clinical social worker, who provides therapeutic consulting services to children and families. She recalled arriving a bit late to the parade with her husband and daughter, eventually meeting friends at a location that was a few blocks off the main square. “We were so fortunate we were not closer to
the shooting and grateful that [our sons], who surely would have connected the dots in real time, were away at overnight camp” (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025). Rebecca recalled that her first visual was the marching band suddenly running, loud noises that created a sense of alarm, then emergency vehicles suddenly making U-turns and speeding back towards the parade. She reacted quickly by grabbing her daughter, yelling to her husband and friends to leave, and they all ran to hide behind a nearby building.
While crouched together, Rebecca recalled seeing what she thought might be a transgender person standing in the alleyway, not more than 10 feet away. As an aside, the actual assailant disguised himself with a wig and a skirt during his retreat from the parade vicinity. Rebecca noted that this person’s affect was off. They were calm but looking left and right as though trying to figure out their next move. “It was notable enough that I took a really, really detailed kind of account of just how they looked and went” (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Rebecca and her family eventually made it back to their car and drove to her sister’s home, where a niece entertained Rebecca’s daughter while the adults searched for any updates on this tragic event. Rebecca became so bothered by the image of the person in the alley she eventually contacted the FBI and made a formal report. Later that evening, Rebecca and her husband saw a photo of the shooter on the local news and realized this was the same person she saw in the alley. “That sent me into a panic mode. I was shaking from that point on for a solid 24 hours” (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Erin
Erin is 38 years-old, married, a mother of three children, a former schoolteacher, and currently working for an organization that conducts education-related research. She reflected on
her husband’s annual 4th of July tradition of setting up blankets and chairs at their usual spot on the parade route. This year it was so crowded that he had to find a spot a little further down, closer to the beginning of the parade. “We were sitting there and everything was great, and then all of a sudden, I heard boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
At first, Erin and her husband thought it was fireworks. She could not remember how much time had passed before she looked at her husband, who is normally very calm, and saw a look of sheer panic on his face. Reflecting on the chaos and fear around not knowing where the shooter was, and finding somewhere to hide, Erin got separated from her youngest son. “Thank God, within two minutes my husband found him, threw him up on his shoulders, and caught up to us” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025). The family found safety in a bathroom of a nearby business, and Erin recalled repeating to her boys, “it’s okay. We’re safe. We’re good. We’re together” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025). Eventually they left their hiding place, found their car, and very quickly drove home.
At this point, Erin sent the boys to the basement to play video games because she didn’t want them to see what was happening. “It wasn’t even on the news yet!” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025). After a few hours, Erin and her husband told their sons there was a shooting at the parade, the police were still looking for the suspect, and that is why they had to leave. As she further elaborated, “my husband and I knew we were really lucky because unlike others, our kids didn’t see anything. They only heard things, they only saw the running, but they didn’t see. To us, that was the biggest blessing.” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Elise is 43 years-old, married, and a mother of two children and part-time substitute teacher. She noted that for many years, she and her family marched in the 4th of July parade with different sport or community groups before settling down at their usual place on the route. “That year, the kids said they wanted to do the bike parade, which happens beforehand, but essentially we were all feeling lazy … so we scrapped the bike parade and just went to our spot near the post office” (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025). The parade was very loud with police cars and fire trucks sounding their sirens. Suddenly, Elise saw a police car turn around and drive back up the hill, to where the parade originated. Then they witnessed band members running down the hill. When asked what was going on, one of the teens shouted there were gun shots. Elise recalled feeling a whole lot of panic in those moments. She and her wife packed up their chairs and tent, loaded the kids in their cars, and eventually made it home.
Shortly after getting confirmation that there was an active shooter at large, they realized that SWAT vehicles were in their neighborhood and helicopters were circling above. At that point, they locked everything up, went into the basement, turned on the TV and eventually saw a picture of the alleged shooter. Both boys yelled, “mommy, it’s the guy from the bike path!” (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025). For context, there is a forest preserve nearby where the family would frequently go on nature walks. It was here, in the community that they love so much, where everyone had previously seen the alleged shooter riding his bike. It was not until much later in the afternoon that Elise got word that the suspect had been caught and arrested.
Celine
Celine is 41 years-old, married, a mother of two children, and works in an educationrelated field. She was two days away from returning to work from maternity leave and really looking forward to going to the parade with neighboring families. That morning, the fathers went out first to find a spot, and the mothers and children followed soon after. “There was so much excitement. We were standing on the corner opposite of Ross, and I was like, this is such a great spot, right in the action” (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025). Then all of a sudden Celine heard loud bangs that sounded like fireworks. In a split second, she knew otherwise. “I don’t remember seeing anything to tell me something was wrong. It was all in the sound at that moment” (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025). Celine’s husband was carrying their five-month-old infant, while their daughter was sitting with her friends on the curb. “I just started screaming her name … and even though she was less than ten feet away from us, it was just enough where I couldn’t grab her right away” (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Celine took her son and her husband grabbed their daughter as they started running west on Central Avenue until they found an open store. Celine and her family ran out the back exit of the store and hid in a storage closet located in a nearby parking structure, along with many others. It was pitch black inside. Within minutes they decided to leave and walk home. After locking all the doors and windows, they waited until the shooter was apprehended. It was totally instinctual. It didn’t think about what the sound was. I didn’t think about what I was seeing. I didn’t think about what to do or what my next step was. I didn’t have to say anything to my husband and he didn’t have to say anything to me. It was as if we had one brain … and we went into this instinctual mode of protecting our children …
Saving my children, protecting my children. I didn’t care about anything else … My goal was getting my children the fuck out of there, and that was it … And I can’t say I was afraid until much later. I wasn’t. I guess maybe it was shock (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Howard
Howard is 44 years-old, married, and the father of two, who works as a civil rights attorney. It was important for Howard to highlight the lens through which he experienced that day, of being a community organizer who brought a group of families together from his children’s school to participate in the parade. He recalled his group leaving the parking lot across from the library to join the parade when the shooting commenced. “My initial reaction was disbelief. It was unclear what was going on … but then the look on the faces of those running towards us … it was very apparent that this was not just fireworks or something else” (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025). Howard recalled his priority in those moments was to ensure that his family and everyone in the group was safe. He spoke of the chaos after realizing it was a shooting and witnessing streams of people running to safety. He reflected on the intensity of his son’s reactions, who was six years old at the time and inconsolable. Howard’s wife and son left the area, rushed to a friend’s house and Howard joined them soon after.
Besides the enduring impact of this shooting on his family, Howard spoke often of the apathy that he felt shortly after the parade, especially from those who were not present. As he recalled,
I was surprised how quickly they stopped seeming to care that it happened and that we had been impacted, particularly my son … I don’t blame anyone for it, but
the apathy really hurt and was hard to come to terms with (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Lisa
Lisa is 43 years-old, married, and a mother of two children and works as an administrator at a private country club. Her family moved to Highland Park, IL because of its reputation for being a safe and secure community. That year, Lisa and her oldest child (3.5-year-old) were excited for the parade and planned on meeting up with friends near Walker Brothers, a beloved pancake restaurant. Soon after settling in, they began hearing what sounded like fireworks and saw people running. It immediately became obvious the sound was from gunfire. A bit paralyzed at first, Lisa managed to grab her son and start running away from the noise. Lisa remembered holding her son close because she did not want him to see anything. “I did see things, but he didn’t” (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025). For some time, they huddled with others in an underground garage. When her child asked what happened, Lisa responded with an answer she knew he would understand, given his age and stage of development. “There was an accident, buddy, and the parade had to end. Now we’re here to make sure we are safe” (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025). They eventually made it to the car, maneuvered around many detours, and drove to Lisa’s husband’s office for much-needed comfort. Soon after, they arrived home and kept all the doors locked as the shooter was still at-large.
Lisa reminisced that one of the hardest parts was the guilt she still carries for not being protective enough or fast enough while trying to figure out what was happening. And like many others, she could not believe this was happening in Highland Park. “It’s sad because in addition to the violence and the lives that he took, he stole a sense of safety and security away from an entire town, if not more than that” (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2027).
Gilly
Gilly is 37 years old, married, the mother of one child, and works in the child welfare system. She brought her son, who was six at the time, to the parade along with his visiting cousin. They set up chairs towards the end of the parade route, near the post office. From the beginning, she worried more about a reckless driver intentionally ramming their SUV into paradegoers, similar to what happened at a Wisconsin parade the previous year. The significant police presence, however, calmed all of her fears.
Shortly after the parade began, Gilly witnessed kids from the marching band running down the hill, screaming that there was a shooting. She reflected on the chaos in those moments, feeling dumbfounded, and could not really grasp what just happened because she did not see or hear anything. She recalled feeling a sense of disbelief that this was really happening in Highland Park. While running with the kids to their car, Gilly remembered feeling hypervigilant, like “a pair of eyes on pivot, just looking everywhere” (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025). She recalled not wanting to say too much to her son or niece and make them more scared than they already were, especially because she did not know the extent of everything that just happened. Once safely at home, Gilly reflected on her earlier debate about where to watch the parade: On Central Avenue, where the shooting occurred, or near the post office, which is where they settled in. As she recalled,
I think that was one of the bigger moments for me … If I made the decision just a little bit differently, our lives might’ve been different, or even ceased to exist. It was kind of alarming how one little decision became so big (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Jane is 37 years-old, married, and a stay-at-home mother of four children. She recalled her family watching the parade and how extremely loud it was in those early moments because the fire trucks had just passed. Suddenly, members of the high school marching band started frantically running down the hill. Initially she thought they were doing a kind of marching band scramble, but within seconds, it became clear that something was not right. The parade went from a normal event to total chaos and panic. Jane and her husband grabbed the kids and found their way to her parents’ apartment, only one block from where everything happened. She remembered feeling relieved that they had a safe, familiar place to go.
The mood became exceptionally somber when a family friend sent a text stating that dozens of people were shot, including children. “You see things like this on the news all the time, but when it’s happening in your community, on a street you drive on multiple times a day, it was just surreal” (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025). Jane’s family eventually made their way home after the shooter was apprehended. “That’s when I broke down because it became real that a human being did this terrible thing” (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
The next day Jane and her children left town on a previously planned cross-country trip. Jane recalled feeling guilty leaving her community when it was grieving, but also grateful that they were able to have some separation from the events of that day. It was not until school began in the fall when she began seeing posttraumatic symptoms, such as nightmares and constant safety concerns, manifesting in her oldest child.
Presentation of Findings
This section presents key findings collected during 16, 60–90-minute in-depth interviews conducted with eight participants. The focus of each interview was to facilitate the telling of individual narratives without leading or interfering in their story. It is worth noting that across many interviews, I became increasingly aware of the fragmented quality of the participants’ narratives. They often spoke in nonlinear ways, with partial thoughts, often shifting tenses or pronouns abruptly, conflating responses with earlier statements, or abandoning a response without resolution. These moments were not limited to the parade shooting itself, but emerged in their descriptions of parenting decisions, the role of instinct in bringing their families to safety, their personal distress, and everyday life in the days and months following the event. Although initially struck by the incoherent quality of certain narratives, I came to understand this fragmentation as reflective of the traumatic material being revisited. As such, I used the data reflexively by asking more nuanced questions and gathering more clarity around their lived experience. Realizing my countertransference was likely an embodied response to the participants’ unresolved trauma, it became a critical aspect of my analytic process and I treated the fragmentation as data itself. As such, fragmented or non-linear narrative expression was retained in the service of reflecting the lived experience of participants.
The interviews resulted in 314 pages of data that highlighted salient features of experience across the contributing participants. In order to capture their lived experience of the phenomenon in question, initial analytic attention was geared toward understanding each participant’s attempt to make sense of their experience before moving to more general claims (Smith et al., 2022). Data analysis proceeded through an iterative process that moved from detailed idiographic engagement to cross-case synthesis. I read and reread each interview
transcript, followed by analyzing verbatim transcripts and developing experiential statements that reflected psychologically meaningful aspects of each participant’s experience. Experiential statements, as described by Smith et al. (2022), are interpretive claims about participants’ lived experience, serving as building blocks for further theme development. These experiential statements reflected not only the participants’ original words and thoughts, but also my analytic interpretation. The process of creating experiential statements represented the “initial preliminary marker of our analytic work” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 87).
Experiential statements were clustered within each case to form PETs, reflecting patterned meaning at the individual level (Smith et al., 2022, p. 76). By examining convergences and divergences among PETs across participants, the shared patterns of experience were then synthesized into subordinate themes. The subordinate themes were further consolidated into five GETs, which represent higher-order experiential patterns shared across the sample while remaining grounded in participants’ accounts (Smith et al., 2022, p. 100).
Table 2 illustrates how development of the PETs for each participant informed the development of GETs across cases. As one can see from the information presented, each GET retains idiographic grounding through participant accounts.
The Double Hermeneutic
Although the primary concern in IPA is the lived experience of the participant and the meaning the participant makes of that lived experience, the end result is always the result of how the analyst makes sense of how the participant makes sense … this is the double hermeneutic… (Smith et al., 2022, p. 77).
The movement from PETs to GETs reflects the double hermeneutic central to IPA (Smith et al., 2022). Table 3 illustrates the analytic process, whereby I interpreted patterns in how participants made meaning of their experiences.
Table 2
Mapping PETs to GETs by Participant
Participant GET 1: World No Longer Safe
Rebecca PETs Collapse of assumed safety; loss of trust in public traditions
Erin PETs Reevaluating community spaces as unpredictable
Elise PETs Clear experiential divide between before and after
Celine PETs Loss of innocence in familiar environments
Howard PETs Collapse of trust in civic and communal spaces
Lisa PETs Disruption of predictability and safety
Gilly PETs Reframing safety as fragile and contingent
Jane PETs Public space experienced as permanently altered
GET 2: Invisible Wounds
Carrying fear privately while maintaining parental composure
Family coregulation; gradual softening through time
Community validation and relational containment
Healing through family closeness and time
Coregulation within family; shared meaningmaking
Community engagement as healing
Relational healing via family and peers
Validation through shared experience; collective healing
Time and community as healing forces
Table 3
The Analytic Process: Moving From PETs to GETs
Group Experiential Theme (GET)
GET 1: Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe
GET 2: Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds
Personal Experiential Themes (PETs)
• Sudden collapse of assumed safety
• Experiencing a permanent “before and after”
• Loss of trust in familiar community spaces
• Suppressing fear to remain functional for children
• Living in constant vigilance without acknowledgment
• Carrying trauma privately while caregiving
GET 3: Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children
GET 4: Finding Meaning in Survival
• Feeling responsible for rebuilding safety
• Constantly recalibrating parenting decisions
• Using normal routines as soothing
• Providing information with thoughtfulness
• Intentionally monitoring for signs of distress
• Struggling to make sense of survival as chance
• Holding gratitude alongside guilt
• Recognizing shared but unequal trauma
• Preserving belief in human goodness
GET 5: Healing as a Relational and Collective Process
• Coregulating emotions within the family
• Finding validation through community connection
• Experiencing time as gradually softening distress
Group Experiential Themes
Idiographic Meaning (Within-Case)
The parent experiences the world as fundamentally altered, no longer predictable or benign, even in familyoriented settings.
The parent experiences trauma as something that must be managed internally and invisibly in order to continue parenting.
The parent experiences caregiving as an ongoing project of attunement and responsive repair, marked by uncertainty, thoughtfulness, and with intentional provisions of care.
Cross-Case Contribution (GET Logic)
PETs across participants converged on a shared experiential rupture of safety, supporting a group-level structure centered on loss of innocence, control, and trust in safety and security.
PETs demonstrated a shared pattern of unseen emotional labor, grounding the GET’s focus on vigilance, suppression, guilt, and disenfranchised grief.
PETs converged on remobilizing a sense of safety for their children as intentional and effortful rather than assumed, supporting a GET focused on relational action and attuned caregiving practices.
The parent actively negotiates meaning in the face of randomness, moral discomfort, and comparison with others’ suffering.
PETs revealed common existential concerns across cases, informing a GET centered on chance, sense of agency, inequality of suffering, and moral meaning-making.
The parent experiences healing as unfolding as ongoing through relationships and time, rather than through individual resolution.
PETs supported a group-level understanding of healing as relational, collective, and ongoing, rather than linear or complete.
Building on the analytic process described above, GETs were developed through a close engagement with transcripts that provided a nuanced understanding of the participants’ lived
experiences. Equally central was my interpretive insight into the meaning participants assigned to their lived experiences, including their parenting tasks. The five GETs were: (1) Living in a world that no longer feels safe, (2) parenting while carrying invisible wounds, (3) actively rebuilding safety for one’s children, (4) finding meaning in survival, and (5) healing as a relational and collective process. The GETs with related subordinate themes are presented in Table 4. Within the following discussion of each GET, individual participant quotations are presented with minimal editing to preserve their meaning and experiential texture. Ellipses indicate omitted material, and square brackets are used sparingly for clarification.
GET 1: Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe
Across participant accounts, the Highland Park shooting was described not only as a terrifying event, but one that profoundly altered how participants experienced safety in their world. What had been familiar and routine was abruptly transformed into chaos, leaving parents scrambling to understand what was happening while instinctually acting to protect their children from harm. Many described the moment of shooting as a sudden and disorienting rupture of ordinary life, shattering their illusion of safety and security, and fundamentally changing their experience of a beloved American family tradition. Participants described the experience as moving from a normal July 4th to chaos in seconds, capturing the jarring contrast between the family-friendly setting and the violence that ensued.
Parents spoke of a clear before and after timeline, marked by a loss of assumed security and a heightened awareness of vulnerability that persisted long after the tragic event unfolded. This shift was experienced as embodied, relational, and existential, shaping how parents moved through their lives, how they understood their role as protectors, and how they bravely navigated family life amid newfound uncertainty. They all spoke of instinctual reactions, grabbing their
children, scanning the area for quick exits or safe spaces, and focusing narrowly on providing basic survival needs. The three subordinate themes under this heading are:
1. The Shattering of Assumed Safety and Innocence
2. Experiencing a Loss of Control
3. The Collapse of Trusted Community Spaces
Table 4
GETs and Subordinate Themes
GET Theme
Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe
Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds
3. Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children
Subordinate Themes
1.1 The Shattering of Assumed Safety & Innocence
1.2 Experiencing a Loss of Control
1.3 The Collapse of Trusted Community Spaces
2.1 Living in a State of Heightened Vigilance
2.2 Suppressing Personal Distress
2.3 Persistent Guilt and Second-Guessing
2.4 Posttraumatic Distress
2.5 Validation Through Shared Experience
2.6 Disenfranchised Grief
3.1 Providing Age-appropriate Information
3.2 Providing Assurances of Safety & Security
3.3 Re-establishing Routines and Normalcy
3.4 Limiting Media and Other Exposures to the Shooting
3.5 Monitoring Children for Signs of Distress
3.6 Focusing on Attuned Listening and Responsiveness
3.7 Seeking External Supports
4. Finding Meaning in Survival
5. Healing As a Relational and Collective Process
4.1 The Function of Chance/Luck
4.2 Re-connecting to Agency through Action
4.3 Recognition of Shared but Unequal Trauma
4.4 Belief in the Goodness of Others
5.1 Coregulating Within the Family System
5.2 The Importance of Community
5.3 Time as Healing
The Shattering of Assumed Safety and Innocence
This subordinate theme explored parents’ accounts of how fundamental assumptions of safety and security were shattered in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting.
Erin:
Immediate was fear and definitely disbelief that it was really happening. Fear, disbelief. And yeah, I’d say those were the two biggest ones and panic and also not reassurance, but somehow trying in my brain to be like, calm that anxiety down to say we’re okay right now in this moment and to be calm for the kids. Yeah (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Howard:
I don’t want to be trite. Your community always changes, but there’s an innocence when violence is absent. And with violence of this scale, I don’t think people can look at our downtown the same, without thinking about what happened … The tragedy of it is beyond words, what it did to the families affected, from those who died to those who were injured, to those who witnessed. I think that just changes people forever, this loss of that innocence and or purity or whatever it was… That’s a change you don’t want for any community, let alone yours. To know that when you walk through a grocery store, you don’t know who was there or who was hurt. Every interaction had that layer on it for a very long time (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Celine:
I think it’s one of those things where you hear this stuff happening on the news, but do you really think it’s going to happen to you? And now I always think it could happen to
me. I don’t assume safety really at all anymore. It’s been obviously a few years now, and so I don’t have the same sense of heightened anxiety about it. I can be in large crowds now. I can be in public places. I don’t avoid things or situations, but I never really assume that something is going to be safe. I’ve just learned to live with that possibility (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Gilly:
I guess it really drove home that bad things can happen truly anywhere, even if you feel like you’re in a safe or safer place than elsewhere … Oh yeah. Yeah. I think I mourned for this loss of safety. It was a trauma for the whole community, a horrible event in a community that always felt so safe (Gilly, personal communication, November 14, 2025).
Rebecca:
I wasn’t immune to understanding that bad things happen, but I think growing up in the Highland Park bubble, having had that experience, I didn’t fear any of that or think that it was possible in Highland Park prior to it happening. I think in the immediate aftermath, I moved away slightly from my parenting style and came in as more of a protector, hovered a little bit more than I like. Not that I didn’t want to be a protector, but hovering or holding back or being overly anxious or overly cautious. I think naturally those things did have an uptick immediately after the event as well as avoiding certain events … I just kept things really calm and very basic. We weren’t going out to eat. We were just home more (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Jane:
The day was surreal because I mean, generally you see stuff like this on the news and it’s always terrible to see. But when it’s your own lived experience, when it’s your parade,
when it’s your street that you drive down all the time, things were brought to a whole different level. And then I think it’s insane and unthinkable that something like that could just happen in your normal life. We all know it can, but when it did, I couldn’t even wrap my head around what was happening. I think that’s why I didn’t feel sadness until the evening because it took hours to even comprehend what happened (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Lisa:
Scared, sad? Yeah, those are the big ones. It’s sad because in addition to the violence and the lives that he took, he took a sense of safety and security away from an entire town, if not more than that… But to me the biggest thing was this loss of innocence, of living in this quaint town that we were so excited we moved to. If a shooting can happen here, it can happen anyway (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Elise:
I don’t think there was a sense of well-being or safety, even when he was caught. I think the fact that it was so close to home and he was a neighbor and somebody we saw often in this community that we love so much… That was the part I could not get over and still have the hardest time getting over … I didn’t ever feel unsafe until I wasn’t (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Experiencing a Loss of Control
This subordinate theme described parents’ accounts of personal fallibility in being able to protect children from harm, realizing one’s ability to control things was only an illusion.
Jane:
Just the realization that I can’t control everything. There’s only so much I can control in my children’s lives, so all I can do is give them the tools to be strong in a world that requires them to be strong. All I can do is help teach my kids to be good people, make sure they know that we love them, and hope that everyone makes it home for dinner (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
Erin:
It’s ironic because we had just gotten back from Israel two weeks before the parade happened and I love Israel, but sometimes I’m on edge being there from the terrorist perspective. Then that morning, I’m like, oh, I’m safe now, I’m home. I don’t have to be worried about a terrorist coming to suicide bomb me. And then it happened five blocks from my house. I was like, okay, well whether it happens in Israel or it happens in Highland Park, I can’t control that. So yes, in a way it was that first reminder of if that’s going to happen to you, it’s going to happen to you and you can’t control that (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Rebecca:
Loss of control was probably the hardest one. I am a perfectionist who’s always in control and always on top of things. That panic I was experiencing for the first 24 hours or whatever, with my hands shaking. It felt so uncomfortable … I also think, just like, I can’t believe this is happening in Highland Park. You watch these things all over TV, this doesn’t happen here. And then just a fair amount of grief around I grew up in Highland Park and I was like, is it ever going to be the same? (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Elise:
I am now aware that I can be in control of a lot more of what I choose to do. So if there is something that I don’t feel good about … I’m not going to put myself in that position. I will absolutely control that. No, I’m not doing that. I know I still can’t control other people and what they do, but I can at least be more aware of my surroundings and situations I put myself in for sure and what I’m putting my family in (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Gilly:
My son still has to go to school. We still have to go to the grocery store. We still want to go to some events that are for fun. So I have to push my worries aside and hope that I am only thinking about them to a healthy extent where it’s enough to be cautious and aware of my surroundings and of the things that can happen, but knowing I don’t have control over whether something happens at those events or those situations, which can be scary (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
The Collapse of Trusted Community Spaces
This subordinate theme examined parents’ loss of security and predictability in both their beloved community and the broader world.
Gilly:
The worry of someone causing harm or being the bad guy is not always from an “other.”
Especially in the North Shore, which does not have a lot of diversity between race and socioeconomic status. You’re not going to be able to pick out the next mass shooter because he looks a certain way. It could be the person next door who looks just like you, which can be scary (Gilly, personal communication, November 14, 2025).
Lisa:
To think that the Highland Park 4th of July parade could be the center of such violence. I couldn’t have fathomed it before … What was lost was this sense of not thinking twice about this as a safe environment. Before, if we were walking around downtown Highland Park, and my kids wanted to run ahead and go get ice cream, I would have stayed back with my husband because it wasn’t a big deal … Now everything gets a second thought, a second look (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Jane:
Yeah, I just thought Highland Park was the perfect place and we lost that feeling. I just loved living there. It wasn’t the perfect place anymore. And then there was anger because it was all caused by one person. A whole community can be rocked by one person. And then obviously, it was just sad that so many people were affected, especially those who died and those people who were shot. It’s just knowing the mental and emotional struggles that my family went through when we weren’t even right where it happened. And then multiplying that by, I don’t know, thousands? The scope of the whole thing just made me so sad that so many people were suffering (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
Elise:
I think that community piece is what I have really struggled with the most because I love our town so much. And I feel like when you love something so much and then there’s this crack, that piece still hurts a lot (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
GET 2: Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds
Following the shooting, parents described living with a persistent sense of danger, constantly scanning the environment for possible shooters, looking for exits, monitoring the
behaviors of suspicious others, and assessing when anything, from local farmer’s markets to large sporting events, felt safe enough to attend. Public spaces that once felt benign were now approached with heightened vigilance and often avoided altogether. Most participants were particularly unsettled by the fact that the shooter grew up and resided in the Highland Park/Highwood community.
While parents diligently worked to stabilize their children in the aftermath of the shooting, they simultaneously had to manage their own posttraumatic experiences of shock, helplessness, anger, fear, panic, sadness, and grief. Across participants’ interviews, emotional and psychological wounds were often deliberately set aside in the service of not creating further distress in their children. The six subordinate themes under this heading are:
1. Living in a state of heightened vigilance
2. Suppressing personal distress
3. Persistent guilt and second-guessing
4. Posttraumatic distress
5. Validation through shared experiences
6. Disenfranchised grief
Living in a State of Heightened Vigilance
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of heightened vigilance following the shooting, including scanning environments for signs of danger and readily accessible exits.
Gilly:
I don’t know if most parents feel the hypervigilance like I do when they go out to some festival or parade or something like that. I do feel like if I’m able to take a scan and assess the area, then I’m able to quiet down the thoughts a bit. If I’m seeing someone
who’s just acting like there might be a mental health issue, I’m keeping an eye on that person while also trying to focus on what my kid is doing at the same time. Following it?
I definitely became very suspicious of White men of a similar age to the shooter. That seemed odd to me in a way because living in Highland Park you’re surrounded by white men of all ages, but typically people are more concerned about the person who’s a minority member, who’s an outsider in the area, why are they here, and do they belong here … A lot of shooters are White males of early twenties or around that ballpark age so now I am more concerned when I see people like that (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Celine:
I was on high alert for a long time. First of all, I didn’t go anywhere. I kept my children at literally an arm’s length. Well, my son was always in my arms anyway, but I did not let my daughter go further than an arm’s length from me for a very long time. If we were at the pool, if we were at the park, wherever it was, I had to be close enough to grab her for months. I just always had this sense of high alert. If I heard a siren or an ambulance, I was immediately trying to figure out where that was coming from and why for a long time. If we were on a street in the open, I was looking at rooftops all the time, just scanning … I still think about what I’m wearing and what my kids are wearing on their feet when we go to large gatherings (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Erin:
I think I had heightened anxiety and fear of anywhere I went in public. It still comes up occasionally, in the context of big outdoor gatherings … In the following weeks, any time my husband and I went anywhere, I was always looking for the exits and thinking about,
okay, if a shooter comes in here, what am I going to do (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Elise:
Everything was a trigger. Everything. The helicopters that were flying around on July 4th was like a noise that I couldn’t get out of my head afterwards. Anytime there were sirens, there was immediate panic. I will forever check high up on buildings. I don’t think there’ll ever be a time when I won’t look for an exit strategy again (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Rebecca:
I would certainly say heightened anxiety. I had some irrational fears, maybe not so irrational after you experience something like that, but just thinking that others are out to do harm, not trusting the average person. And again, that physiological panic as you drive into downtown Highland Park, as you look down the alley, where I saw that person, that kind of thing. You can’t fully, fully enjoy something because there may be some perseverative thought or some wondering, or just even a moment of are we safe (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Jane:
I didn’t take my kids many places for months. It was just too much for me. So it actually probably took a couple of years for me to feel like I could go to the grocery store with all four of my kids … There’s one of me and four of them. And if something were to happen, I wouldn’t have had enough hands, or it just was too stressful to think that I would be responsible for these four kids (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
Lisa:
On the outside I played the role of the unafflicted, calm, happy parent, while on the inside I was spanning the crowd looking at exits, just trying to be calm … I would never not take my kids downtown for an activity or not go on a walk, to the beach, or to the pool. If they want to go ahead to the ice cream shop, they can, but I’d just be closer to them than had we not had this experience. We’re still going to live our lives, we’re still going to enjoy ourselves and it’s important for me to give my kids some sense of independence and autonomy. It’s just going to be my mental burden of checking the surroundings and doing a pro list in my head in the moment (Lisa, personal communication, November 3, 2025).
Suppressing Personal Distress
This subordinate theme centered participant accounts of the unseen emotional labor of parenting in the aftermath of trauma, working to manage their own fears in order to protect their children from further harm.
Rebecca:
I think I was just really dysregulated the first couple of days and I didn’t want my daughter to see me that way. Not that I didn’t want her to see me experiencing sadness or that kind of thing, but I felt really out of control and shaky and I didn’t want to scare her. And so I was able to hold it together and kind of buckle down for being in her presence and certainly talking through her feelings and saying, I’m feeling really sad too or that sort of stuff, but I just didn’t want her to see me incredibly distraught or anything like that (Rebecca, personal communication, September 12, 2025).
Erin:
I would say that kids are resilient and they take the lead from parents. The choices we make as parents definitely influence the outlook of our children … And I think it is important to understand that everyone makes different choices in times of crisis on how they process and handle things as a family unit as an individual. That really came to light too, and teaching that to our children was also important (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Lisa:
I think it was just learning how to put aside my own fears and sadness to not let my kids see it. He was three and a half, he didn’t need to take on what I was grasping, what I was seeing, the tragedy that happened … If my son was to ask a question, I would never shut him down or not answer his question if it was about the parade. But I did kind of build this little story for him and stuck with that, just the one sentence, that there was an accident and we had to leave (Lisa, personal communication, November 3, 2025).
Gilly:
I didn’t want to be too upset and make them too afraid in the moment everything was happening, especially when we didn’t know a lot about what happened … And I think when you have issues with anxiety, it’s easy to go down the “what if” path. And so it was important in that moment when you don’t quite know what happened but you know it was bad, you don’t want to say too many “what ifs” and make things possibly more scary than they would be if you knew exactly what was going on (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Persistent Guilt and Second-Guessing
This subordinate theme explored parents’ accounts of how guilt and second-guessing permeated self-reflections both in the immediate aftermath of the parade shooting and in the months that followed.
Howard:
My priority was to ensure that everyone in our group was safe … I didn’t leave with my wife and child right away and there was some guilt associated with that in reflection. I mean if something had ever happened to them, how could I have ever lived with myself. My immediate responsibility was to them first and foremost, but also to our group. Both things could have been accomplished but there was guilt … The impact on my son was pretty dramatic and that caused me some self-doubt … how I stayed and didn’t go with them. My wife was having a very hard time calming my son and part of that difficulty was the fact that I wasn’t there, that I wasn’t with them, that I was still potentially at risk (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Jane:
I did feel guilt that I was feeling so sad for our own experience. I knew, obviously people lost loved ones. People were physically hurt and physically changed for the rest of their lives, and people witnessed terrible, terrible things. And so I felt kind of some guilt (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Lisa:
And the hardest part has always been guilt. That I wasn’t protective enough, fast enough. I stood there trying to figure out what was happening for much longer than I wanted to. I should have dove on him right away … I talked to a therapist and she’s like, “just
remember you’re safe. You’re both safe. Don’t get hung up on waiting too long.” I was safe, but I was also sad, and the guilt is the part that stays with me. Like I said, I have guilt for not reacting faster. That kept replaying for me (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Elise:
After you had asked the questions about what we did, and how we handled things with the kids, my main thought was, shoot, should we have done more? Are there things that I didn’t do that maybe I should have done? I have thought about that a lot. I was like, “man, should I have had the little one start checking in with the social worker too?
Should I have started him with therapy because he’s the only one that doesn’t go now?”
So I was second guessing what I did or didn’t do afterwards, I guess, because it feels like we didn’t make major changes in our parenting. I don’t know what those major changes would’ve looked like, but it sort of felt like maybe that we didn’t do enough. But I don’t know if that’s the case, just what I’ve been thinking about (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
Rebecca:
I think feeling unsure about how I was responding to my daughter and her questions, and am I sharing too much? Are we meeting her needs knowing that trauma comes out over time? Are we just waiting for the shoe to drop? That to me, was the hardest beyond any of my own feelings and functioning and that kind of thing (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Posttraumatic Distress
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of posttraumatic symptoms, including delayed stress responses that were deferred in the service of caregiving, and emotional awareness emerging unevenly over time.
Jane:
It was a really unique time because me, my husband and my oldest were all dealing with something so heavy that none of us had ever dealt with before. It was hard to take care of myself and my husband and my three kids who needed me. So I really just feel like that through prayer and through feeling heavenly help, I was able to just do the essential things that needed to be done (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Elise:
I threw myself into helping at the school that is five houses down from us … I was just there and throwing myself into this and trying to help these kids and this community … Then I think it was on July 12th, the school district said they wanted to do a community night at every school. So I was in charge of planning community night because I was the PTO [Parent Teacher Organization] president … and we absolutely crushed this community night. It was just wonderful… And then the next day I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t do anything. And that’s when the depression hit. I started therapy the next day and every single week for the last three years … I was diagnosed with PTSD probably a month and a half after the shooting … Yeah, I was not a good mom or functioning member of society for the next few months (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Gilly:
Checking in with my therapist just to get the feedback that what I was feeling seemed reasonable, what I was thinking seemed reasonable, that was the most helpful … I knew that I had to take care of myself to be able to take care of my son and to help him with his feelings. And so taking care of myself and going to the therapist was a way to help me gauge how I was feeling and if that was within the bounds of an appropriate response, and then I could go to him and I could help him manage his feelings better, if he were to feel upset or to feel scared or anything like that (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Erin:
I think that people need to know that there’s a separation between the individual and their parenting style. Just because someone chooses to parent through keeping routine and not ruminating on it, doesn’t mean that individually they’re not struggling with everything themselves … The parade was in my mind 24/7, at least for the first few weeks afterwards. There are things that I never shared with my kids and don’t want to share with them that I’m still thinking about and going through now (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Jane:
It was not good. I had panic attacks and sadness. My heart would race. My hands and face would tingle. I would feel like I couldn’t breathe. And this would come on totally randomly. I didn’t want to go places. And even still, with big crowds, I’m like, no thank you. And I worried about my kids more at school. And I guess overall feelings of sadness and anger just were very prominent, angry that my family was affected, angry that our community was affected, angry, obviously, that people died … And it’s interesting
dealing with mental health issues because me, my husband and son were all dealing with PTSD. It was really kind of private and personal. I mean, we went through some pretty dark days and so much of it stemmed from this traumatic event and just the mental and emotional time it took to recover from that. I think my panic attacks after the parade were just from experiencing something so traumatic that my brain couldn’t keep up. I really just took a lot of therapy and time to let things settle a little bit … I tried to bury a lot of my feelings towards the parade shooting. I feel the EMDR [Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing psychotherapy] kind of purged some of those feelings of anger and sadness and helped me process things (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Validation Through Shared Experience
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of finding validation through shared experience with others similarly affected by the shooting.
Rebecca:
I think there was an interesting dynamic going on for a while between those who were at the parade and those who weren’t and those who were at the parade really got it. And you leaned in more to those relationships and those who weren’t just didn’t get it and they couldn’t get it, and they couldn’t be supportive, they didn’t understand. There was definitely, and it wasn’t just my feeling, it was a general consensus that those who were at the parade needed to be supported by those who were at the parade … It’s almost like for people who were not at the parade, they could not understand your experience and therefore there was sort of like a separation (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Celine:
I cannot separate myself from my parenting. I didn’t end up doing any advocacy because I was too traumatized to advocate for anything. I was like, I just have to take care of my own family and my own kids. We were in this weird gray space where we were not directly affected, but we’re not, not affected. And I don’t know what support group was for that. I didn’t lose a child to gun violence so I didn’t want to try to connect to a group with people who did experience an unspeakable loss that I did not experience. I needed to just be in the same lane as other people who were like me, who went through this really awful experience, but their family’s fine. I was just trying to figure out how to navigate that and there were a lot of us out there (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Elise:
The two friends that we were with at the parade … Our son really wanted to be spending time with him so we would try and make that happen in fun ways. The beach, go to the pool with them and I don’t know if the two of them ever talked about it together, but I think it was maybe a comfort level and maybe I’m projecting because it did bring me comfort to be with their moms as well … Yeah, so they shared the same experience for the most part, like the confusion and the loud noises, the sirens, all of that part they shared with us. They experienced the exact same viewpoint of what was happening. They saw the same sites, and so being able to be around them and kind of talk it through and how they were feeling because there were so many similar experiences, brought me comfort for sure. Again, because if you weren’t there, it’s hard to explain (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Howard:
There was a real value in being together after feeling like somebody had torn us apart in the seams. There was a sense of rebellion against division and a rebellion against loss by coming together (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Disenfranchised Grief
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of feeling invalidated by others, resulting in feelings of isolation and constraint around expressing their grief and loss.
Howard:
The amount of people who reached out immediately after was extraordinary but that faded pretty quickly. The apathy was so great … I don’t blame anyone for it, but it hurt and was hard to come to terms with. People wanted to turn the page really quickly. I just was surprised how quickly some stopped seeming to care that it had happened, that we had been impacted, particularly my son … I had a buddy who at the time had a podcast and they were talking to various people who were impacted by the shooting so he had me on to talk about how I experienced it. And that was helpful to feel like I was giving voice [to my experience] because the apathy piece was feeling pretty sticky at that point. So often people talk about how many people die and they don’t talk about all the other people who are witnesses and injured and how devastating that can also be to one’s worldview or to a sense of comfort or safety (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Jane:
I mean, it’s interesting because at the time and even now, I felt kind of selfish being sad about the way my family was affected because we were all physically safe and we
actually didn’t see any of the violence. I’m still sad that I have to worry about a shooting every time I go to my kid’s baseball game, soccer game or whatever. It’s just this loss of our safety net that seemingly was ripped out from under us. And honestly, I’m also angry at politicians who will not even begin to address the gun issues in this country. And anytime there’s been a school shooting or any other mass shooting, I just feel so sad for everyone involved because it’s a headline for two days, and then everyone just goes on their merry way (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Gilly:
I had worked with a therapist before and so I called her. I forget how soon after the parade I called, but I know I just needed to sort out my feelings and thoughts about it. And so I scheduled an appointment and I went for a session or two just to see if how I was feeling was making sense with what had happened because my husband, he is, I don’t know what, I don’t know if he really downplayed our part. I would say we were at the parade. He was like, ‘yeah, you were at the parade but you weren’t right where they were shooting and stuff.’ And so that made me feel like, okay, well if I feel a certain way, is that inappropriate given where we were like, should I not feel so upset because I wasn’t right downtown where the shooting happened? And so knowing how to feel and if what I was feeling was normal was confusing for me and I needed some help with that (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Celine:
I still feel like I don’t want to trauma dump on other people. And it obviously impacted me so much that it was hard to not think about it and not talk about it for a very long time. It was the main thing in my head for a long time. And when I was with people who
weren’t there, I was constantly negotiating how much to talk about this or not talk about this. Am I making someone uncomfortable? Are they wondering about me, how I’m feeling? Whereas with a particular subset of the neighbors or this group of friends who hadn’t experienced the deeper trauma, I could just be more open, talk about things or not talk about them … I think sometimes I didn’t want to upset people, particularly my own immediate family. My parents and my sister just, I felt so disconnected from them … It’s like they didn’t know how to talk to me about this. They tried, but they didn’t know how to talk to me about it. We didn’t talk about hard things when I was growing up in my family. So we didn’t have that framework. And so it was just kind of like, are you okay? Yes, I’m okay. And then just move on (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
GET 3: Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children
This portion of the findings answered the research question of “what, specifically, did parents do to help their child/children cope.” Following the shooting, parents described engaging in intentional, ongoing efforts to reconstruct a sense of safety and security for their children.
Safety was no longer something that was assumed, but actively nurtured and reinforced through various parenting practices. Their lived experiences were overwhelming at times, leading to second-guessing, guilt from not doing enough, and the mental burden of constantly scanning new environments for exits and other safety measures, while consciously or unconsciously hiding their own fears and anxiety. The seven subordinate themes under this heading are:
1. Providing age-appropriate information
2. Providing assurances of safety and security
3. Reestablishing routines and sense of normalcy
4. Limiting media and other exposures to the shooting
5. Monitoring children for signs of distress
6. Focusing on attuned listening and responsiveness
7. Seeking external supports
Providing Age-Appropriate Information
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of sharing age-appropriate information about the shooting in ways they felt were responsive to their children’s developmental understanding.
Erin:
[I understood what they needed] by their personalities, who they are. I just know which one’s more sensitive and which one can roll with it and which one doesn’t ever share their feelings. And so it was based on that and age appropriateness. The five-year-old at the time really didn’t need to know that much information in our perspective, beyond you’re safe. There was something that happened. There was a bad guy, but, and the older one who had more questions, we answered them really with the facts directly, and we were like, this is what happened. And that was it. And then my middle guy is the more emotional one, and that came out later. He’s the one that at night, weeks later, who worried that someone’s going to come in the house and shoot me. And that again, it was all about their lead and how they reacted (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Rebecca: At first I told my daughter it was a fire because I thought that would be easier for her to wrap her head around and she would understand why there was urgency because kids
learn about that stuff. She was only seven and we didn’t want to tell her details until we knew the person had been caught, not that we told her all of the details, but we said something like this person made a bad choice and brought a gun to the parade and some people got hurt … So we had a couple conversations clarifying things and just letting her know that it’s okay, we don’t have to go to downtown Highland Park anytime soon, but just so you know, Highland Park’s safe and this person’s in jail (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Erin:
Yes, we knew if they were showing signs that they needed extra help and we needed to call in a psychologist or something, we would get that help … We didn’t want to instigate memories of the experience. In our opinion, we thought that given their ages, the less they thought about it the better… Our kids were all in elementary school. I think that if they were older, there definitely would be more of a conversation about the shooting. For my kids though, and especially the one that is more prone to anxiety, the more we ruminate on something, the more he ruminates on it… We didn’t want to be putting things in their head or constantly having them thinking about it. But if it came up we would address it directly and we would move on. And the reality was that at their age, there really wasn’t much to say besides there was a bad guy, he did something bad, he was caught. People got hurt and some people died… If one of the kids said, I’m scared, we would talk about their feelings because they were valid. We would acknowledge them. We would also try to explain that this is a safe place, it was a one-time thing that happened, the bad guy was caught, and that we’ve got to go on with our lives (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Jane:
I understood what was age-appropriate by cues from my children. My oldest had a lot of questions and a lot of fears and nightmares, and so I knew he needed information to settle him … So from him it was cues, but my daughter who was in kindergarten, life kind of just went on as normal for her. I could tell that it wasn’t affecting her as much … When we’d go into a public place, I could tell my oldest was worried, my kindergartner was fine, and my second grader was kind of somewhere in the middle. He is the one who now I’m like, oh, did we do enough? (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Celine:
Her birthday is in September, so she was almost five … And eventually she sort of picked up on what was happening, even though I was trying to pretend like nothing had happened. I think she felt safe once we got home and our neighbors came over … And then that night, as I was putting her to bed, she said, “mama, is the shooter going to come in here and get us?” We kept telling her “No, he’s in jail and he’s not coming out.” That was the most important thing for her to know … Not even just that first day, but anytime that we did talk about it, her concern was, is this man going to come get me? And so when we talked about it, usually it was around, “he’s in jail. He’s never getting out. No, the police are not going to let him out. No, he doesn’t have a gun in jail. He can’t use a gun to get out of jail and come get us.” I mean, those were the things that she kept asking about (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Lisa:
He [3.5-year-old son] just wanted to know why the parade ended abruptly when it did and why we had to go down those stairs. So automatically my line was “there was an
accident, look at all these police officers. They came to help and now we have to go home” (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Providing Assurances of Safety and Security
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of offering repeated assurances of safety and security to their children, as they sought to manage fear and restore a sense of stability in the aftermath of the shooting.
Howard:
I think there was a lot of assurance, extra layers of assurances that had to be layered on things when we were going places that were safe. This is a safe community that there was not risk. There was a lot of discussion about death and trying to grapple with what death is, and that’s if you have that with any child. But it felt like that came quicker. But there was safety in trying to understand that concept, I guess. And there were some efforts, I mean, he’s [the son] someone who’s needed a lot more proximity and comfort. That might just be the nature of him, I’m not sure. But I do feel like this led to a very hard couple years where he was very fragile. And I don’t know, it’s hard to apportion that somewhat, but there were just very hard moments for a while after as it related to the goodbyes. So he’s into sports now, and it’s incredibly powerful for him to have that ability to move and feel confidence in something. And it’s been a great outlet. But for a while, the goodbyes [before practices] were 20, 30-minute affairs and there was immense emotion, heavy deep sadness, and it was very, very difficult (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Elise:
I truly think they needed together-time. They wanted to feel safe, and they feel safest with us, and we made sure that happened. I think they needed their core family altogether
… For days and months, I made sure I was always with ‘em. They didn’t go anywhere without me, even to my parents’ house, to their grandparents’ house. They wanted to be with us. They would not have sleepovers. We made sure that they were with us. I think that was more of a me. I think my wife would’ve been okay, but I was not. I for sure was concerned about their trauma, their experience. I took them to the school and had them talk with a therapist. We did a family session with a therapist at the high school, and then they did individual ones in case there was anything they didn’t want to talk about in front of us. I truly focused with the exception of them having to be in school during school hours, being with them at all times. Outside of that, I wanted to know where they were at all times (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Erin:
I just kept saying, “we’re fine, we’re safe, we’re good.” We were going to go home soon
… I’ve never been in that situation. Sometimes I think it was a coping mechanism for my own anxiety, and it was like I don’t necessarily know if my kids weren’t scared. They weren’t really asking questions. They were just kind of standing in a bathroom watching a cell phone video that someone handed them … And so it was also reassuring myself that we’re okay, but in the back of my head I’m like, and we might not be shortly, so what are we going to do if this person is running down the street and comes in here?
(Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Gilly:
I wanted my son to feel safe. All of this had to just happened where we live, and he was in public school, and I know it was during the summertime, but when we were growing up, we had tornado drills and fire drills and stuff like that. Now they have mass shooter drills or whatever they call ‘em. And so it’s just wanting to make sure that he felt safe, that we lived in a generally safe area despite what the news was saying with articles involving Highland Park afterwards. But then also making sure that checking in with him to see how he felt after a soft lockdown at school or when they might’ve been practicing those drills … Trying to let him know that his feelings aren’t wrong, that if that’s how he’s feeling, then that’s how he’s feeling. But for instance, if he’s feeling scared, well, okay, I understand that you’re feeling scared, but why are you feeling scared and promoting or making sure he knew about all of the reasons why he can feel safe or that he didn’t have to be afraid of whatever the situation was (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Reestablishing Routine and Sense of Normalcy
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of deliberately reestablishing routines and a sense of normalcy as a way of supporting their children and restoring stability in the aftermath of the shooting.
Elise:
Yeah, we kept the routines, we obviously kept the school, we kept the sports that they would play, which at that time was baseball. That all felt very safe, right? It’s small scale everything. We rode bikes a lot. We did a lot of things just as a core group of the four of us. Just not major events. That’s the only thing that really, in terms of what was probably
different for them, like I said, no Cubs games, no, no big festivals, just nothing big (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Celine:
We were always together in those months after, we were always together. I think physically, I hugged them a lot more. I mean, moms are always hugging their kids, but I remember … I never ended up sleep training him [my son] because every night I would just hold him and I had no desire to put him down in his crib, which ended up biting me in the ass because he still does not sleep through the night… Actually, it brought me comfort. So I would just sit there with him in my arms for hours, and I would do the same with my daughter. I would just sit in her room ... my husband would do the same thing, and we would make sure we were following the same routines. That might’ve been something we would’ve done either way. But I think the routines were really important. This is how we get ready for bed. I would sing the same song at night … but it was something that brought her great comfort, and I sang that same song to her every night for years (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Erin:
It was really helpful to stick to that routine. We didn’t change our plans. The next day.
Two of my sons were supposed to go golfing with my husband, and he still took them and they didn’t say, well, we’re outside. They didn’t say anything and he didn’t say anything. He just continued on. And my other son went to camp and had his normal day the following day … And so our strategy to avoid them constantly thinking about it was just to continue on (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Lisa:
We kept living our life. He went to preschool the very next Monday, nothing happened and kept going to his activities. We kept going on walks around our Highland Park neighborhood. Ever since then, we’ve traveled. We’ve gone to public places often. Yeah, we didn’t stop … My world changed forever that day, but we didn’t want his to, my son’s. We keep going. We keep living (Lisa, personal communications, October 27, 2025).
Rebecca: “Just normalcy. Just following routines, being present for her and not allowing her to see some of the yuck around it all” (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Limiting Media and Other Exposures to the Shooting
This subordinate theme centered on parents’ accounts of making deliberate choices to limit media and other environmental exposures to the shooting in order to protect their children from further distress.
Jane:
Honestly, the whole time we were in my parents’ apartment, the kids were watching movies … We needed to know what was going on in order to help them. It was just to help me be able to have the tools and the knowledge to provide each of them with their age-appropriate information, I guess. My two oldest, who are boys, they were nine and almost seven at the time. We let them know what happened. And I think we even let our daughter who was six, know that there was a bad guy, but honestly I don’t know if she knew that he had shot people (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
Elise:
Yeah, I mean, limiting TV was a hard balance, right? Because we as adults wanted to know every update, but we didn’t want them to see this on TV. So a couple things would happen. Either my wife and I would be attached to our phones and watching and reading information from that so that they didn’t see or hear it. Sometimes we would give them the living room TV and we would sneak upstairs to our bedroom or to the basement so that we could, if there was something targeted on that we knew we wanted to watch. I remember when they were showing the footage and talking about where they caught him that day, I knew that I wanted to see him actually be apprehended, but the kids didn’t need to see that … I don’t want them to know how frequent, I mean, they’ve already been in one at eight and five years-old. I don’t want them to think about the next one. I know they will at some point. I don’t want them to have to be concerned about that yet (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Celine:
Yeah, I tried to, and it wasn’t hard. I mean, she was only four, so she was already mostly watching preschool stuff. We are not in a household where she was watching things beyond her age anyway. She didn’t have any older siblings. She doesn’t have any older cousins, so she wasn’t exposed to things that were very violent or that had a ton of guns in them or anything. Anyway, so I don’t want to make it seem like there was a change, but I was much more conscious of what she was watching (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025).
Erin:
So it wasn’t so much the social media that you had to manage. It wasn’t just media.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we really had to manage what they heard at camp … There were a lot of kids at the parade with them at camp, but because they go to private school, they weren’t in Highland Park schools. That also changed it a little bit for us because we didn’t have to manage it at school (Erin, personal communications, August 28, 2025).
Gilly:
Just remaining at home, we kind of went back and forth with do we want to keep the news on? Do we not want to keep the news on? I think after a while we did turn it off and just waited for updates on our phone so that we weren’t just constantly immersed in it, but trying to figure out how much information is too much information, but also getting them the information that they needed to know that they can feel okay as well (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Monitoring Children for Signs of Distress
This subordinate theme explored parents’ accounts of closely monitoring their children for signs of distress by remaining attentive to changes in behavior, mood, or emotional expression following the shooting.
Rebecca:
I think we were just checking in with her a little bit more intentionally and being more on guard, just having the alarm bells up to observe her responses, to see what she was saying and to reinforce that she was safe is how I responded or how I showed up. I was pretty sensitive to making sure she didn’t see me upset and that she had no access to television or news or anything like that. Even driving certain routes. We didn’t want her to see the news vehicles or anything like that. So just more protective and more on alert, I would
say, and providing more reassurance than we normally would (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Celine:
Yes, she definitely expressed how she felt through her behavior. I don’t want to say it was like a tantrum, but she got upset more easily. She didn’t listen to directions in the same way. Maybe that wasn’t related, but it happened that same summer and it happened right after so my husband and I connected it to the parade. She was in bad moods more often. She got into more conflict with the other kids in her class at school … One thing that I don’t think I mentioned or I didn’t emphasize was that she had a really wonderful teacher and she was also in a school where she had the same teacher over time. She was in a preschool that had a mixed classroom. She was able to talk about it with her preschool teacher and this was an important aspect of helping her that summer. I just don’t think that I mentioned that part. So that was an important parenting piece too, of being able to communicate with the person who spent most of the day with her on a weekly basis (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Erin:
And you read their signs and we were confident that if they needed additional help beyond what we could give them, and it really was sticking with them that we would get that help. But I also keep falling back on the fact that we kept saying, we are so lucky that they only heard something. They didn’t see anything. They had to be part of the running, they were part of all that, but didn’t see anything … And to me that was a huge difference. And I was so grateful for that. I was like, we can recover from a sound. It was a bad experience, but you don’t have images that are stuck in your head. And to me,
because of that, I think we parented differently than had we been closer and they had heard and seen things (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Gilly:
We had questioned about him watching the news because it’s something that he started at a very young age. He just had an interest in it, and we wondered if it was too much for him with the parade happening, and then eventually later on with what happened in Israel, but checking in with him and asking him, are you okay? Do you feel worried or upset, or is the news upsetting to you? And he’s like, no, I would rather know what’s going on. And so checking in with him to see, engage what he needed. And so he always gave us the feedback that he needed to know what was happening and to hear. So that’s something that we would do with him. And even now we watch the nightly news with him (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Elise:
They would ask a lot of questions, and I say this, they most specifically, I’m referring to the older one. Everything was, where are you going? When are you going to be back?
Are we coming with you? Who’s staying with us? Are you going to be back by the time we’re home from school? Is mama going to be here? And she travels a lot for work. And so when she was gone, they actually handled that piece knowing that she was traveling as long as I was here with ‘em … Yeah. I mean, it was easy to tell they were concerned. And they had never said, “no, I don’t want to sleep over at Auntie’s,” or “no, I don’t want to sleep over at Gram and Pop’s’ before.” And then that started happening. So it was pretty easy to tell that they felt it too (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
Focusing on Attuned Listening and Responsiveness
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of heightened attentiveness and responsiveness to their children’s verbal and nonverbal cues following the shooting.
Gilly:
He’s not very expressive, and so it was by having to ask him questions and get his feedback about how he was feeling about if anything was worrying him, if he felt safe, which for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out why he did not feel safe on the second floor of the house. He was worried someone would come in the window. So we would try to assure him that you, you’re safe. You’re living in a safe home. We have an alarm system. We live down the street from the police department. Just checking in that way. He’s also not a big cuddler and not big on physical contact, but if he showed signs that he needed that, making sure that we were there or that I was there, especially to do that with him, to cuddle him or ask him, do you need a hug? And he would say “yes” or “no.” And if he did say yes, then obviously to be there for him (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Erin:
I think we tried to lead with questions and have them try to get to it on their own. Just like I said, even recently, maybe our parenting style is that I’m very hesitant to put things on my kids or to say things that would impact or change how they’re actually feeling. So I think it was a lot of questioning and then responding to those answers … We provided the facts, and then tried to move on. We answered it. We didn’t ignore it. If it came up, we would state whatever we needed to state, and then we would try to move on. I think now as more time has passed, the discussion’s longer, it’s not as, we’re more okay with
it, we know they don’t need as much, but yes, at the time it was facts (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
Howard:
Being much more open to what he needed and being tolerant and accepting that this doesn’t have to be what your traditional approach to things. I don’t know. I mean, we were a lot more fluid and flexible maybe is the word. And really listen to what he needed instead of trying to have him conform to something with some expectations that we had about what’s traditionally normal or whatever. So lot of, but also trying to challenge him so he can grow and get beyond some of the fears. There was both, but I would say, at our best moments we were really receptive to what he needed (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Seeking External Supports
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of seeking external supports for their children when necessary as part of their efforts to help their children cope.
Rebecca:
It wasn’t until September-ish that I started seeing some posttraumatic signs from our daughter, and actually that was harder to face. Just the guilt of her having struggles, the guilt of her not being okay, and the panic around that, right … It came out as she started having sensitivity to loud noises. She also developed a fear of first responders, and so every ambulance, every fire truck, everything was kind of, you could see it in her, just a panic … And then I got feedback from school too, like locker slamming, just a panic that they observed in her. So I ultimately ended up reaching out to a colleague of mine who does Theraplay … And I brought her for sessions there … for, I want to say three months
or so. And it felt like she had a really pretty quick and positive response to that over time. And so when she was good, I was good (Rebecca, personal communication, August 25, 2025).
Howard:
There was a sense that he had to grow up a little too fast and that he had to face those fears in public settings at too young of an age. It led to us … getting him support on lots of levels. He has a therapist and that work began right afterwards, but we also realized he had anxiety already baked into his DNA as part of his identity and ADHD [AttentionDeficit/Hyperactivity Disorder] … The consequence of those comorbidities with that event, which he described as the worst day of his life and would talk about for a long time afterwards … His core anxiety doesn’t come in the form of fear of shootings, but is weather-related now. It’s manifested now in thunder and lightning and even rain really upsets him, really upsets him … Whether that would exist [without the parade experience], that I don’t know. The immediate response was to hold him as close as possible and to be very present with him and get him the support he needed to be functional … And we had to do what any good parent would do, which is lower the temperature whenever possible when there’s high emotions, trying to walk those down, be more patient if someone with ADHD and anxiety. There was a lot of emotion, a lot of tough days for him and us. There was a lot of effort to educate ourselves about what to do, to seek out resources so that we could be as good a parents as we could be for him. He struggled in school a lot afterwards. We had to get him a tutor on top of it and then there was the whole effort to find something that brought him joy and strength, a sense of
identity. And that’s really been gymnastics for him (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Elise:
I think me getting help was in turn helping them because being a not great functioning mom was certainly not helping them. So me getting therapy and me upping medication and a new medication to help me through the major depression. My oldest started seeing the social worker at school once a week just to check in to see how he was doing. Our youngest still wants us to fall asleep with him every night. I mean, there was a lot of lying in bed with both of them until they were asleep … So about six months afterwards, our oldest started weekly therapy outside of school and he still goes to her. He also has ADHD so it was kind of a combo situation of we were wanting to try and figure that out, but also to see if there was anything unresolved parade-wise (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
Jane:
Once they returned to school, I remember thinking my kids are doing okay. But then my oldest was talking to a friend at recess and found out that his friend’s grandma had been shot. She survived but that made it real for him. And he, myself and my husband all had EMDR therapy afterwards. My second oldest, like I said, he’s not a talker and never really expressed too much about it. And then my kindergartner, same thing. She has never really mentioned it. I always let my second oldest know that his brother’s in therapy. Do you feel like you need to talk to anybody about your feelings? And he always said no (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
GET 4: Finding Meaning in Survival
In the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting, parents described an ongoing struggle to reclaim a sense of agency and meaning in a world that felt unpredictable and unstable. This event disrupted not only the parents’ sense of safety but also fundamental beliefs in their ability to influence outcomes, protect their families, and make sense of why a human being deliberately set out to harm others in such a brutal manner. Equally salient was the existential threat of gun violence that not only continues to occur throughout American cities but has become somewhat normalized throughout society. Each participant grappled with these existential questions and their own limits of control while continuing to fulfill their parenting roles.
Equally meaningful was the deeply profound awareness of how ‘chance’ often factored into one’s unique experience of survival. Several participants reflected on small decisions regarding when and where they set up on the parade route, which suddenly felt loaded with meaning. Numerous families positioned themselves differently on the parade route than in previous years, allowing them to safely leave the area without injury, fatality, or any visual memories of human casualties. This awareness often coexisted with a kind of survivor guilt and confusion when comparing the totality of their experience to that of many others who were not as fortunate. The four subordinate themes under this heading are:
1. The function of chance/luck
2. Reconnecting to agency through action
3. Recognition of shared but unequal traumas
4. Belief in the goodness of others
The Function of Chance/Luck
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of survival as contingent on chance, with small situational decisions influencing their proximity to and experience of the shooting.
Gilly:
Chance. It was just chance … If I had decided the other way, we would’ve been up by Walker Brothers. We just got lucky. I had debated between going to sit with the kids near the beginning of the parade over by Walker Brothers or if we would go by the post office. And I think about what could have happened (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Erin:
Had my husband made a different choice to sit a little further down, my kids would’ve seen something else. And so it was all luck that there was a space in our general area because things could have been so much different. I think that that’s luck. I have friends whose children saw blood and so their children’s discussions and questions were very different than mine. And so I felt lucky that their brains weren’t scarred with images the same way that I know others were. And so to me that was also lucky (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Howard:
I could have picked the beginning of the parade when I filled out the paperwork or the end of the parade. I chose middle. I never thought about it, but that’s luck. There wasn’t some instinct why I would want to be there versus somewhere else, not knowing what would happen that day. He could have picked any minute to pull that trigger. Could have been us a few minutes later. I mean [we were] surrounded by politicians. I mean the
Dems [Democratic Party members] were right in front of us. I mean, again, we don’t have any understanding of his motivations so who knows. I just see where we were in the parade as luck (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Reconnecting to Agency Through Action
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of reclaiming a sense of agency through purposeful action and advocacy following the shooting.
Howard:
What was really important and a catalyst to kind of chase the most demons away was knowing that we were doing something so that this didn’t have to be felt by others. And so a lot of those efforts that people were undergoing, like Moms Against Gun Violence, I participated in some of those calls. I mean, again, this is admittedly a few years ago, so I can’t recall all, but … that sense of building the community, being with others in solidarity and being proactive, being conscious and just being empathetic and listening and being there for people was really important and helped me (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Lisa:
As the following 4th of July was coming up … I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be somewhere safe in my home or my backyard, and I wanted to hear children laughing. I wanted them to be happy, and I wanted to hear it and see it and be it. So I started a tradition of having a fourth of July party in my backyard with my really close friends. We’ve done it every year since, and it’s exactly what my soul needs … I think in terms of resilience, I’m really proud of spinning that day into something meaningful and creating that party that brings a lot of joy to me and my friends that come over (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Elise:
Everyone from the schools to the community, to people from across the country. It just felt like everyone was trying to do anything they possibly could to help cheer people up, make a difference somehow. And that’s what I tried to do for those first 10 days afterwards or eight days afterwards. And it felt so good to be a part of that and to help (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
Gilly:
There was an organization in Highland Park that was collecting money, I think, for the survivors of the parade. And so that was very helpful and it gave me something to do. So I made key chains actually … And I made them until my fingers were numb. And I was selling them, I think it was through Facebook, but then at the art fair in Highland Park. I think I raised a few hundred dollars and it just made me feel like I was doing something to help our community. Giving back to others helped me get through it (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Recognition of Shared but Unequal Trauma
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of understanding their experience as shared yet unequal, as differences in harm and access to resources shaped how such an event was experienced across individuals and communities.
Gilly:
I think that it made me more sad about the other communities that don’t have the same resources. It’s like when we went through this, I called up my therapist who was in network with my insurance, and I was able to access mental health services right away. A family in a neighborhood that is more underserved with their mental health resources or
who’s on Medicaid, they’re going to have a long wait time. They might not have somebody in that moment where they are in crisis or needing someone to help them process what they just saw or experienced. And so I think it made me more sad that there’s a lot of people who live with this, in my mind, a greater chance of experiencing gun violence or a mass shooting and not having the tools to deal with it (Gilly, personal communication, November 6, 2025).
Howard:
I’m aware that lots of positive things can come from bad things, but without proper supports and without a community of care around you and their sensitivity, I don’t know how people can recover effectively. And it really scares and saddens me how many communities can’t provide what a highly resourced community can. I mean, we had an immense capacity and did so many powerful things to support people, but not every community has those supports. I worry about that (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Belief in the Goodness of Others
This subordinate theme reflected parents’ accounts of preserving belief in the goodness of others and a shared humanity despite the violence that occurred on the 4th of July parade.
Erin:
And I think you see the heart of a community in those times, and we are lucky to be part of a community that really showed up and not just Highland Park, the greater North Shore community. Yeah, I’m crying again about just walking into the school and seeing what people brought just because they didn’t know what else to do was really inspiring. And I will be honest, I didn’t know what I could do, but I decided to do something even as small as bringing stuffed animals or the cookies I baked. I know how much just a small
gesture meant. It’s not even about the taste of the cookie, it’s the thought … Sometimes you’re the recipient and sometimes you become the giver. You never know which end you’re going to be on (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Celine:
There was humanity and beautiful stories of people helping one another in a very dark time. There was the importance of human connection. I said I felt really connected to my neighbors for a long time. I think that was also coming out of the pandemic and how we just hadn’t had a chance to be social for a long time, that it just felt good to be with people. I just felt like all of Highland Park was so good that summer. There was so much more good than bad. And I still worry about what causes a person to do an evil act, but overwhelmingly, people don’t do those things. They help each other (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Elise:
The very best of the world came out that day. My community, the people I know, the very, very best showed up on July fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth. Anything and everything that people had to offer, whether that was services or goods or whatever it was time, those people all showed up. What I always go back to is all of the goodness that came that day (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
GET 5: Healing as a Relational and Collective Process
Across participants, healing following the Highland Park shooting was not experienced as an individual or linear process, but rather one that was deeply embedded in relationships and community. Parents described their family’s recovery as unfolding through connection with spouses, children, extended family, close friends, and the broader community. Parents
emphasized the importance of meaning-making that came in the form of pro-social helping, advocacy, the benevolence of others, validation through shared experience, and collective support in navigating the aftermath of such a tragic event. As the years went on, most parents reflected on time as a healing presence, allowing one to feel lighter and “more normal” again. The three subordinate themes under this heading are:
1. Coregulating within the family system
2. The importance of community
3. Time as healing
Coregulating Within the Family System
This subordinate theme examined parents’ accounts of coregulating within the family system as emotional states were shared and managed through everyday family interactions.
Howard:
The idea that a mass shooting is conceptually possible is a reminder that every day forward should be with purpose and love as a forefront. And for me, that has squarely placed my efforts into circling my arms around those that I love dear. And of course that includes most fundamentally those who are in my immediate family, my two children and wife. And so I think a lingering consequence of all this is a renewed commitment to family (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Lisa:
But in a more broad sense, we’re very connected as a family. We always talk about things like before we go on a trip or before we go on an outing, we’re like, here’s what you’re going to expect. Here’s what that outing is going to be. We make sure the kids know their names, their address, still working on my phone number, other safety plans. If we get
lost, here’s what you do. We’re a very communicative family and we like to be very prepared … And I think it’s maybe even been heightened since I, but we always kind of have a plan and a guide so that they feel comfortable and safe, and we all have our expectations (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Elise:
The most meaningful is that you can get through the hard stuff, and it was really fucking hard … Things were not easy between my wife [and me] … I didn’t realize trauma brings up trauma and so it was like I was going back to all sorts of childhood shit and stuff that I hadn’t really dealt with. And so it was a hard time in our marriage, it was a hard time for me personally, and we got through it as a family (Elise, personal communication, September 19, 2025).
The Importance of Community
This subordinate theme centered on parents’ accounts of community support as critical sources of connection, shared experience, and healing in the aftermath of the shooting.
Erin:
Yeah, we don’t raise our children in a bubble. They are part of communities from camp, school, etc. and the people in those places are cognizant and want to help. The school postponed active shooter drills till the end of the year and really talked to the kids. The camp counselors checked in with the kids … Having other adults in their lives that maybe weren’t there but understood what they went through and helped them process their experience in appropriate ways was important, otherwise we might feel alone (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Lisa:
Our very first return was going to Highland Park high school where they’d set up all those supports and counseling. That was the first outing and the first populated area. They purposely made it very comforting, very safe. There were police around for security. There were stuffy animals you could cuddle with and support dogs and all those things that were set up to help after a tragedy … What’s most helpful depends on the children, how old they are, what their needs are, and how much they saw. If my kids had been older, if they had seen more, or if I needed to get into counseling right away, that’s where all my energy would’ve gone. And having therapy be covered by insurance. It was also helpful that the community offered guidance on filling out the paperwork for some who were not able to go to work right away, or for those who needed support financially in the aftermath. Yeah, it was part of the services they provided at the high school (Lisa, personal communication, November 3, 2025).
Elise:
I need perspective from somebody who wasn’t there or wasn’t living it because I still feel like I’m still living it sometimes. So it helps to have other thoughts, opinions, and perspectives on things like [parenting decisions] that are going to help these kids grow up … I want them to have some sort of sense of independence because I know how important it is. And my son is showing me the way he is because every morning he hops on his bike and rides to school. He no longer wants me to go with him. He wants to do this all himself. Knowing that he feels comfortable is helping me feel comfortable, if that makes sense (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
Gilly:
And so I found a community that helped me to do that, which was sometimes the actual community of Highland Park, the temple, the organization Mom’s Demand Action, the coffee clutch group, or my therapist. They are all part of my community. And so it was the community that helped me figure out and take care of myself so I could take care of my son and whatever he needed (Gilly, personal communication, November 14, 2025).
Jane:
We had a friend who was a block further down from us who was there with her three kids. And so we would kind of check in with each other, say, how are you doing? How are your kids doing? So it was nice to have someone who understood and to know that her kids who were friends with my kids had a similar experience. I had church friends reach out to me a lot, and it was kind of nice because some of my church friends did not live in Highland Park. They lived a little further out, so they weren’t at the parade, but they were close enough that they knew how terrible it was, but not right there. So it was nice to have friends who were slightly distanced from the event, but their communities were still mourning with us and stuff (Jane, personal communication, November 8, 2025).
Howard:
And I mean our community did wonderful things in the aftermath to try to come together. I’m really proud of who we were at that moment. Yeah, there were so many opportunities to give back to those who were injured, who perished, to be an advocate. There was the Highland Park Community Foundation, several of whom the board members at the time were people I knew did amazing work and there were lots of ways to be charitable. The synagogue obviously had its own pathway for work. Schools did a great, great job and I
was able to help a little bit on that. And yeah, just the way we came together was special, to care for people to make sure that they had the resources they needed to recover as much as they could (Howard, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Time as Healing
This subordinate theme contained parent accounts of experiencing the passage of time as healing, gradually softening the intensity of their emotional responses in the aftermath of the shooting.
Celine:
I think at this point with so much time has passed, I’ve moved from the need to feel safe, to having a baseline feeling of safety. Now it’s about keeping things predictable. We don’t expect any surprises, only good surprises. We’re just going to do the things that we know are coming up, and that’s a good thing … My husband and I have a saying between us that you have to be able to “do hard well,” and I think my life trajectory probably has not changed. I think that it hasn’t drastically changed the course of my life, but I think it has changed the way that I approach life. I know that I can do hard things. I know that I can get through hard times. I know that you can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow. All you can do is again, build up resiliency in yourself and strengthen yourself to be able to do hard well. I don’t think about the parade every day anymore. I was waiting to be able to say that for a long time. And I remember the first day I realized that I hadn’t thought about it the day before, and it felt really good (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Howard:
I feel like I became a better parent and there’s strength and resilience in that and a feeling that I’m proud of what we did to support our son in that way … Definitely, what is most obvious is our son’s resilience in really challenging athletic endeavors. His ability to do that was really, really special and really defining, and it’s been that ability to find that reserve or reservoir and tap into it that’s been really powerful for him. And he is much steadier in some ways because of it.… Again, you want every child to find something that brings them joy and some sort of confidence, and we just were fortunate, found something that has worked for him and makes every day for him a little bit happier (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Jane:
I think time away from the experience helps. And I couldn’t have talked about this within the first year. So the fact that I can now talk about it and I’m not bawling my eyes out and I’m not having a panic attack, it’s pretty good (Jane, personal communication, November 13, 2025).
Elise:
What I feel most proud of and where I get my strength from is the place that I was in three years ago at this time, to where I am now. That was the hardest and worst time of my life, and I didn’t know if I was going to come out of it … And knowing that I was able to learn how to, I don’t know the wording, get over PTSD. It’ll still pop up, but now I know how to handle it. I know that even if I do feel some sort of depressive episode coming on that I know it’ll lift. Three years ago, I didn’t know any of this and I was in a horribly dark place (Elise, personal communication, September 26, 2025).
Lisa:
I don’t sweat the small stuff so much. Even if the kids want an extra candy bar where before it might be like, no, it’s too much. Now it’s like I try and find ways to say ‘yes’ as much as I can (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025).
Rebecca:
More often than not, I do not think about that experience anymore. I remember a time where I would have said there’s no way I’ll ever not think of it. I was so angry that my ideal environment was so tarnished. I mean I grew up in Highland Park so I felt like it would never get back to normal but I think we’re almost there (Rebecca, personal communication, September 12, 2025).
Celine:
Humans have had to survive really terrible things for a long time. I am the descendant of genocide survivors. And I have family stories, my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ stories of survival. Those stories are in my bones. And when I was running with my children in my arms and hiding, and I was thinking about my ancestors and how they had to run and hide. And I ran for all of ten minutes? And they endured this for weeks and months and years, and they’re not the only ones. Right? There’s so many terrible chapters of history like that and so I think my survival of that incident was so small compared to the stories of survival that make up our history. And I’m lucky that I can just kind of move on. I feel like we’ve moved on for the most part, and I feel incredibly blessed to be able to say that (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).
Synthesis of Lived Experiences
Viewed together, these five group experiential themes highlighted the complex and evolving ways contributing participants lived through and made sense of their parenting experiences following the Highland Park shooting. Participants reflected on the shattering of their fundamental assumptions of safety and innocence, the burden of parenting amid their own invisible emotional and psychological wounds, and the deliberateness with which they worked to rebuild safety and security for their families. Alongside these protective measures, parents grappled with existential questions of chance, agency, and finding meaning from such a senseless and human-caused tragedy. Across themes, parents revealed an ongoing tension between vulnerability and responsibility, loss of control and the power of choice, and an acute awareness of the unequal suffering of others both locally and in less-resourced communities. While additional experiential elements surfaced within individual accounts, such as the role of sibling support, feeling safer in Jewish environments, relational strain, or meaning-making that centered around control, they appeared episodically rather than consolidating into discrete, shared experiential themes.
Reflexive Journaling and Member Checking
Throughout the analytic process, methodological rigor was supported through ongoing reflexive journaling and participant member checking. In keeping with IPA’s concept of ‘bracketing,’ I wrote memos following each interview, during transcript reviews, and throughout the analysis process to document emerging observations, similarities and differences, theoretical ideas, interpretations, and preliminary theme development. These memos served as a reflexive audit trail, allowing me to track shifts in understanding and to remain attentive to the double hermeneutic inherent in IPA.
After each first interview was completed, initial descriptive notes, participant quotations, and emergent themes were sent to the research participant for their evaluation. I specifically referenced the term, “member checking,” to reinforce the significance of the participant’s role in this phase of the research process. As such, each participant was invited to review preliminary interpretations of the findings, read through portions of their transcript, and provide feedback by affirming, clarifying, or expanding upon my understanding of their experiences. The feedback from participants supported the credibility of the findings while maintaining my interpretive role, consistent with IPA methodology.
All research participants shared to varying degrees that the member-checking process reassured or validated their experience. No participant offered any suggestions or revisions to the material presented in their member check. They thanked me for providing such a detailed record of their experience and later appeared more relaxed in subsequent interviews. This could have been my own projection; however, it was an overall different feeling I sensed with each participant in our second meeting. A detailed description of the analytic procedures, including the use of reflexive journaling and participant member checking, is provided in Chapter III.
Summary
This chapter presented an interpretive phenomenological analysis of parents’ lived experience in the aftermath of the Highland Park parade shooting on July 4, 2022. Special attention was given to examining how this traumatic experience shaped their parenting practices and more specifically, what parents did to help their children cope. Across cases, parents described an immediate disruption of their sense of safety and predictability, accompanied by enduring internal distress that was often carried quietly in the service of addressing the recovery needs of their children. Contributing participants recounted a range of actions they took to
rebuild a sense of safety for their children. Parents found meaning in their survival over-time, situating their experience in relation to chance, persistent resilience, advocacy, and in recognizing the shared but unequal traumas that occurred following the tragedy. Healing was experienced as gradual and characterized by periods of relative stability alongside moments of renewed distress. It was described as an ongoing process within the context of family, community, shared recognition, and the passage of time, which seemed to lighten the burden for most participants and their families. These findings illustrated the complex and layered ways parents navigated this trauma while sustaining an environment of care for their children.
The following chapter situates these findings within the broader literature on trauma, the necessary functions of parenting, and the collective nature of recovery for families who experienced a mass shooting event.
Chapter V:
Discussion
Chapter V extends the findings as presented in Chapter IV by situating them in a broader interpretive context, with reference to the extant literature and psychoanalytic theory (Smith et al., 2022). Whereas Chapter IV focused on the detailed presentation of the lived experiences of participants, Chapter V offers a summary of the research, discussion and interpretation of the data, contributions from the findings, limitations of the study, and areas for future research. This final chapter concludes with reflections on the important role parents play in creating an environment that supports the posttrauma recovery of their children.
Although an extensive literature review was conducted prior to engaging participants, experiential themes emerged during the analytic process that were not anticipated, requiring the inclusion of literature not previously referenced in Chapter II. With IPA research, it is acceptable to introduce selective literature in the service of adequately framing these new perspectives within the context of the study (Smith et al., 2022).
Summary of Research Findings
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of parents in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting, including the specific actions they took to help their children cope. Few scholarly papers have investigated the emotional reactions of parents who have experienced a potentially traumatic event alongside their children (Cobham et al., 2016; Cohen, 2009; Holt et al., 2017). Even fewer studies have explored the specific ways parents help their children cope after having been exposed to such a destabilizing event (Beckerman & Henshaw, 2020; Gewirtz et al., 2008; Hiller et al., 2018; Hafstad et al., 2012). This dissertation has addressed this important gap in the literature by exploring how parents
interpreted what their children needed and the parenting strategies they engaged in to support their children’s recovery. Central to this inquiry was also understanding how parents navigated their own distress while supporting the emotional well-being of their children.
In seeking to appreciate and better comprehend this phenomenon, the research questions this study sought to address were as follows:
1. How has this traumatic event impacted the day-to-day lives of parents?
2. How has the social and emotional health of parents been affected?
3. What were assumptions of personal and public safety before and after experiencing the Highland Park shooting?
4. How did parents understand the needs of their children following the event?
5. What did parents do to help their children feel safe and secure following the event?
6. What was most helpful in their ability to support their children’s emotional well-being?
7. Was there any kind of meaning-making process that emerged from their traumatic experience?
8. Has there been any aspects of personal growth or goodness that emerged from the event?
Through two, in-depth interviews with eight participants who attended the 2022 parade with their children, this study illuminated the complex and layered nature of parenting following an acute traumatic experience. Rather than offering a singular narrative of recovery or adaptation, the findings revealed parenting efforts as ongoing, relational, and placing the needs of their children at the forefront of every decision. Within a profoundly altered sense of safety, participants managed their own invisible distress while restoring a sense of security and emotional stability for their children. Taken together, the interpretive analyses presented in this
chapter suggested that parenting in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting was experienced as an effortful reorganization of everyday family life.
Parenting accounts demonstrated that the parade shooting was experienced not only as a discrete traumatic event, but one that represented a fundamental rupture in their beliefs related to safety, predictability, and sense of agency. Parenting unfolded within a landscape of uncertainty, vigilance, and existential complexity as they struggled with the realities of their family’s survival in comparison to the devastation experienced by others. Guilt, second-guessing, and disenfranchised grief emerged as salient aspects of their lived experience, reflecting the emotional labor inherent in parenting after such a traumatic event. Efforts to rebuild safety further revealed the interpretive dimensions of the parenting experiences as safety was no longer assumed. Instead, parents deliberately constructed a sense of safety through routine, attuned communication, and a heightened responsiveness to their children’s emotional cues until a sense of their psychological continuity was gradually reestablished.
Participants reflected on their recovery as unfolding within myriad relationships of family, community, and therapeutic contexts. Across the sample, participants reflected on their unwavering belief in the goodness of others, while actively turning their pain and loss into purpose through acts of service and advocacy. Meaning-making emerged as a particularly complex and unsettling process as participants struggled with the randomness of their survival, the inequity of outcomes, and the moral discomfort in being spared while others suffered profound loss. The process of rebuilding fundamental assumptions involved comparing one’s lot with that of others who experienced the parade shooting with less fortunate outcomes, and finding some level of assurance in their efforts (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Participants attempted to make sense of their survival by asking questions related to meaning, such as trying to understand
why their family was spared devastating loss when others were not. They sought needed support from others in the community who experienced similar outcomes, rather than from friends or family who were not in attendance or from those whose families were devastated by loss.
Healing did not reflect a return to pretrauma assumptions of safety or predictability, but a recognition and assimilation of their traumatic experience and prior positive assumptions of goodness, meaning, and self-worth (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Viewed as a whole, these findings further offered a phenomenological account of how participants inherently understood what was most important for their children’s recovery: a flexible and responsive holding environment, good-enough parenting supports, and environmental provisions based on what each child needed most, based on their stage of development, unique personality traits, and level of distress.
The Hermeneutic Framework
From an IPA perspective, my analyses of participant experiences were not truer than those of the participants. Rather, they represented a detailed analysis of the interview transcripts themselves, informed by patterns emerging from the larger data set, with an understanding of each participant as a “person-in-context” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 13), and within the intersubjective nature of our shared interactions. Interpretation within this study was iterative, shaped by moving back and forth between the data as a whole and each individual statement, “examining a small section of text in its own right, but also in the context of the whole transcript” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 77). In this way, my understanding of each participant’s narrative changed in light of the entirety of their experience, and this level of introspection was deepened due to participants’ discrete experiences, allowing each to inform and refine the other.
Similarly, while each subordinate theme was relevant and necessary to my understanding of the findings, the five GETs provided a deeper, integrative understanding of the phenomenon
as it unfolded through each subordinate theme. Thus, while the following section was organized by GETs, with each situated in relation to the literature, there was a naturally occurring interdependence within and between the subordinate themes throughout. This reciprocal process of meaning-making supported an interpretive understanding that remained grounded in the experience of participants while attending to the wider experiential patterns that emerged across cases.
Discussion of GET 1
Living in a World That no Longer Feels Safe
The first GET was more about rupture than fear. It reflected a fundamental disruption in the participants’ assumptive worlds following the Highland Park shooting. Across accounts, safety, previously an implicit backdrop of daily life, was no longer experienced as stable or reliable, but something fragile and in need of ongoing appraisal. Rather than representing a transient emotional reaction, this theme captured the enduring existential shift in how parents understood their environment. This shift encompassed their role as protectors, their sense of predictability, and the limits of their control. For some time, ordinary spaces, such as the neighborhood streets, shops and restaurants, community events, and even local playgrounds, were experienced as dangerous and threatening, marking a clear ‘before and after’ distinction in participants’ worldview. Interpreted through an IPA lens, this theme highlighted how the traumatic event marked a rupture in the continuity of everyday life and reshaped how safety was perceived and assessed long after the events of that day.
This experiential shift closely aligned with Stolorow’s (1999) conceptualization of trauma as the shattering of absolutisms, or those unquestioned assumptions that provide a sense of safety and continuity in everyday life. Stolorow (1999) suggested that trauma organizes one’s
experience around “a catastrophic loss of innocence” in which the taken-for-granted assumptions that allow one to function in the world are profoundly altered (p. 466). For the parents in this study, the Highland Park shooting appeared to erode fundamental assumptions about the safety of their community, disrupting the taken-for-granted quality of daily life and the civic protections on which they always relied. These losses were not confined to the moment of the shooting or even shortly after the tragic event. They persisted as an organizing feature of parenting experience, influencing which public events were safe enough to attend, how they moved through public spaces, and the sustained alertness necessary to protect their families. What emerged from their lived experiences was a fundamental shift in how the world itself was perceived. Parents had one understanding of safety before the parade and a different understanding afterwards.
Like Stolorow’s (1999) absolutisms, Janoff-Bulman (1992) suggested that human beings build their lives on core assumptions that are out of one’s awareness yet enable one to feel safe and secure. The author also claimed that one’s own vulnerability may become painfully obvious in the aftermath of traumatic events (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Following the Highland Park shooting, participants’ accounts highlighted their sense of fallibility by constantly questioning their parenting decisions, worrying about not knowing the ‘right’ things to do, and hoping their actions would not cause further harm to their children. Although parents defined their early responses as instinctual, they made a habit of scanning for exits and looking up at rooftops for shooters long after the event had passed. These findings suggested that safety no longer felt assumed, but something that had to be actively assessed, negotiated, and monitored.
From a deeper level of experience, Lifton (1988, 2023) recognized that public acts of violence can also be understood as an assault on meaning and continuity. The author
conceptualized trauma as an experience that disrupts the symbolic structures through which individuals make sense out of life, safety, and survival (Lifton, 1988, 2023). Lifton’s (1988) work suggested that traumatic exposure often results in a heightened awareness of vulnerability and randomness, requiring individuals to renegotiate their relationship to the world and their mortality. In this regard, the research findings of this study suggested it would be insufficient to understand the impact of this mass shooting through posttraumatic symptoms alone. Several parents reported a fundamental interruption of agency, continuity, and symbolic ordering, leaving them further alienated from their formerly stable sense of self. Their lived experiences were not solely defined by new fears or anxieties, but rather their confrontation with death, randomness, and the moral ambiguity that often presents while reckoning one’s survival in comparison to others. As one parent stated, “now, crowds mean danger.” Their ongoing vigilance functioned not only as explicit strategies for safe keeping but as symbolic processes through which they attempted to restore a sense of order and control, predictability, and protection in a world that instantly felt unsafe.
Boulanger (2007) referred to adult-onset trauma as an experience triggered by the immediate and very real threat of death. It frequently destabilizes one’s inner self, even when the individual is able to function outwardly (Boulanger, 2007). In the aftermath of this adult-onset trauma, several participants reported functioning on the outside by immediately returning to work or family routines, while feelings of sadness, guilt, irritability, and heightened fears persisted on the inside. They alone experienced sustained psychological strain due to checking surroundings for safety, watchfully waiting for possible signs of distress in their children, and responding appropriately to their needs. From a conceptual standpoint, parents had to reconcile
with ever-evolving levels of vigilance in the days and months following the parade, while coming to understand that safety is an illusion.
Summary of Living in a World That no Longer Feels Safe
Seen holistically, this GET underscored how exposure to mass violence can fundamentally alter one’s lived experience of safety, embedding vigilance and uncertainty into the fabric of everyday life. This disruption served as the contextual ground from which subsequent parenting experiences unfolded, shaping how parents understood the emotional needs of their children, their caregiving responses, and their efforts to restore a sense of security within their family system. In this way, the loss of safety functioned not only as an outcome of the traumatic event, but as a central organizing principle influencing all other personal and parenting practices in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting.
Discussion of GET 2
Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds
The second GET reflected the psychological burden parents had to contend with as they continued to function as caregivers while privately managing their own emotional responses subsequent to the shooting. Rather than being defined by overt distress, their parenting practices captured the largely unseen labor of containing fear, guilt, anger, and vulnerability in order to preserve stability for one’s children. Their lived experiences suggested that trauma was not absent, but deliberately managed, deferred, or implicitly silenced in the service of providing whatever their children needed most for their own recovery. Interpreted through an IPA lens, this theme illustrated how parents navigated a tension between internal dysregulation and external composure, revealing trauma as something that was experienced quietly and hidden, rather than
expressed openly. In this way, parenting itself became the context within which the parents’ own emotional wounds were carried, negotiated, and often rendered invisible.
Protecting their children first became the means for protecting themselves from parenting failure. Boyd Webb (2004) suggested that children are particularly sensitive to the emotional climate around them and may exhibit calm or panic after any situation, depending on the reactive behaviors of influential adults or other caregivers. Two comprehensive reviews of the literature yielded evidence for this claim, noting that emotional reactions of parents following a traumatic event play a central role in modulating the child’s posttraumatic experience (Norris et al., 2002; Scheeringa & Zeanah, 2001).
In this dissertation, one participant was a full-time mother and the other seven worked in fields related to education, civil rights, administration, protective services, or clinical social work. Whether informed by personal or professional experience, each parent seemed to understand that their children’s recovery needed to take place within the context of the parentchild relationship. As such, parents reflected on compartmentalizing their own feelings in the service of helping their children feel safe and secure. They shielded their children from their own sadness, shakiness, anger, or other signs of distress because either the children were too young to comprehend what happened, too impressionable, or too distraught themselves.
When faced with a potentially life-threatening event, parent reactions tap into the core essence of parenting, namely, “to provide protection and serve as their child’s protective shield” (Holt et al., 2016, p. 2). Participant narratives reflected an existential shift in how their parenting responsibilities were understood and navigated. Their world was no longer experienced as benign and neutral, but one that required constant interpretation and appraisal. Individuals recalled the difference between being with their children in public places before the parade, and
their ever-present vigilance afterwards, including the constant worry of who in the crowd might have a weapon. When their children began to struggle with posttraumatic symptoms, parents often questioned their primary role as protectors, adding to their own emotional distress.
Persistent guilt and second-guessing became a fundamental part of the lived experience for each participant involved in this study. Decision-making sat side-by-side with uncertainty, instinct, active listening, worry, observation, and the hope that they were doing the best under very difficult circumstances.
Although certain individuals may be more vulnerable to life stressors, no one is protected from suffering in situations as extreme as a mass shooting. Survivors of such human-made disasters, compared to those who experience natural disasters, are at a higher risk of developing psychological distress (Cowen et al., 2020; Lowe & Galea, 2017; Vargus & Hemenway, 2021). As Rowhani-Rahbar et al. (2019) indicated, the randomness and unpredictability, combined with the “helplessness of the targets” makes these events far more traumatic than other threats to one’s survival (p. 1765). Although all participants in this study identified as uninjured survivors of the Highland Park shooting, each experienced some level of psychological or physical imprint from the event. Parents reported acute panic attacks, clinical depression, unexplained weight gain, increased fears, emotional numbing, difficulty sleeping, prolonged guilt, or lingering levels of sadness and grief. Their understanding was that these embodied responses were directly related to the parade shooting. Participants actively addressed them with EMDR and other psychodynamic therapies, while others explicitly or implicitly compartmentalized their distress. Their healing journeys did not reflect a singular adjustment to the traumatic event but an ongoing process of awareness, action, and tolerance until their distress subsided.
Lifton (1988) suggested that under extreme stress, the self may become disconnected from its usual organizing structures, leading to dissociation, psychic numbing, and fragmentation. Similarly, Boulanger (2007) suggested that there is always a relationship between the survivor’s inner world, the traumatic event itself, and their psychological and behavioral consequences. Of those involved in this study, one parent hyper-functioned for approximately two weeks after the shooting, working at every school and community event meant to provide supportive resources to anyone in need. In the morning following the last of these events, she could not get out of bed. Although delayed, her response to the parade shooting resulted in a major depression that required intensive outpatient therapy and medication management for months before relief was in sight. Finding a psychodynamic therapist with whom she could explore the impact of this trauma, as well as examine the reactivated remnants from early affective neglect was essential to her healing. Another parent reported extreme confusion over how to feel following the event, because neither she nor her children saw any victims, heard any shots, or were situated close to where the shooting took place. With the help of an insightoriented therapist, this participant was able to make sense of her confusion in the context of the dismissal of her feelings throughout childhood, as well as the disenfranchised grief she felt due to invalidating responses from others who were not at the parade.
At the conceptual level, the experience of ‘disenfranchised grief’ was prominent in the lived experience of numerous study participants. Doka (1989), a renowned expert in the field of bereavement, first introduced this term referring to the experience of grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly mourned, such as the death of an ex-spouse, pet, or suicide. Corr (2002) later expanded the term to suggest that disenfranchisement disrupts the mourner’s ability to do the work of grieving, including the dismissal of certain processes that
emerge from one’s grief such as meaning-making. Kauffman (2002b) added that these processes can also be internalized so that the mourners dismiss their own grief, indicating a psychological as well as a social phenomenon. In the aforementioned case, a glimpse into this internal disenfranchisement was implicit in the participant’s questioning of the legitimacy and validity of her emotional experience following the parade. Acknowledgment of her posttraumatic experience was not only central to her own recovery but equally salient in her ability to help her son understand his feelings around that fateful day.
The perceived indifference from others became especially prevalent through interactions with individuals who were not in attendance at the parade. While friends, family members, or coworkers eagerly showed support in the days following the shooting, their caring thoughts or behaviors soon evaporated as they moved on to the normalcy of their own life. Feeling unseen and emotionally unacknowledged by important others was particularly painful at times, even though participants understood this lack of concern as not knowing what else to say or do.
Parents reflected on the competing moral and emotional demands in trying to be strong for their families, jobs, and others in their community while feeling broken at the same time. An element of disenfranchised grief was also experienced on a macro-level with the continued absence of federally mandated gun legislation capable of producing uniform protections throughout the country.
Across participants, their position in the world shifted as they became part of gun violence statistics, rather than observers from a distance. Not only did they gain a new, defining aspect of lived experience, they relied upon sources of support in new and unexpected ways. Despite their efforts to recalibrate towards a sense of normalcy, parents generally found a discrete separation between those who were at the parade and those who were not. Close family
and friends who were not at the parade were not excluded from providing support; it just became clear that they could not grasp the totality that this traumatic event had on loved ones. Instead of receiving support, participants reflected on having to provide support to extended family members in the service of containing their anxiety, or deliberately minimize conversation about the parade shooting to protect them from further worry.
Participants uniformly understood that real comfort in the aftermath of the shooting came from others who were there, and more specifically, from those whose level of trauma mirrored their own. They found most support from people who survived this mass shooting without injury or death, with their family still intact. These important others shared the same experience of confusion, chaos, and loud noises on that day. They experienced similar emotional vulnerabilities, worries about their children, and insecurities about the ‘right’ things to do as parents. What emerged was not a resolution, but a gentle path towards healing that brought validation, comfort, and a sense of normalcy in the context of shared experiences.
Summary of Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds
This GET captured how parents continued to care for their children in the aftermath of the parade shooting while privately managing their own distress. Aware that their emotional responses to this trauma would likely shape their children’s responses, parents contained, deferred, or silenced their own concerns. This protective stance, while adaptive, was accompanied by hypervigilance, parenting guilt, and second-guessing as parents recalibrated their role as protectors in a world where safety and predictability were no longer assumed. For many participants, their suffering was compounded by the perceived indifference or explicit invalidation by others who were not at the parade. Across accounts, healing emerged as a gradual
and relational process, where experiences of caregiving were shared and supported by other parents whose exposure to the event mirrored their own.
Discussion of GET 3
Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children
The third GET highlighted how parents understood the individual needs of their children following the Highland Park shooting and what, specifically, they did to help their children cope. Contributing parents experienced safety not as something they could naturally return to, but as a purposeful and ongoing process towards reconstruction. Rather than relying on previously assumed layers of protection, parents described a heightened sense of responsibility for restoring their children’s emotional and psychological health through intentional, effortful caregiving. Interpreted phenomenologically, this theme reflects a shift in parenting from routine provisions of care to deliberate repair, in which reassurance, attunement, and monitoring became central organizing tasks. Through this lens, parenting practices were understood as a responsive and adaptive process, shaped by uncertainty and second-guessing, monitoring their children for signs of distress, and sensitively providing support.
Even though most parents did not directly witness the mass shooting, they all experienced frightening affect states and acute feelings of vulnerability while prioritizing the recovery needs of their children. In the immediate aftermath, participants who felt particularly traumatized reported difficulty assessing their children’s reactions, resulting in lingering concerns of not providing optimal support. Furthermore, posttraumatic reactions of children often differ from the behaviors their parents are accustomed to, often leading to uncertainty as to how to best support them (Hafstad et al., 2012). As such, participants focused on reestablishing a sense of safety, minimizing further distress, and facilitating their children’s coping.
Parents in this study engaged in very deliberate actions in order to help their children adapt to the changes brought on by their psychologically painful experience. Specifically, parenting practices centered around helping children feel safe, spending quality time together, providing age-appropriate information, and being available for children to talk about their distressing experience. Parents regularly monitored their children for signs of distress, they were sensitive to the different needs of different children, soothed worries by being calm role models, avoided further exposure to the trauma, and maintained a family life as close to normal as possible.
Providing Age-Appropriate Information
Hiller et al. (2017) emphasized that parents need to understand each child’s adaptation from within their developmental arc and the influence of their family’s environment. Across the board, parents took into consideration the unique personality traits of each child, their stage of development, and what they could comprehend before conveying information pertaining to the shooting. Taking the time to field their questions gave most parents a sense of what each child needed to understand and work through. For months afterwards, parenting tasks were arranged around this openness and patience, allowing the children to guide conversations around their experience and any residual worries at their own pace. Parents of preschool-aged children discussed the shooting using concepts they would most likely understand. “There was a bad guy who did bad things. The police caught him, now he’s in jail and never getting out.” For schoolage children, most parents felt it necessary to provide a brief, but factual account of the day’s events once the shooter was apprehended and in custody. Across the sample, participants felt it was important to share the facts of what happened so their children were not caught off-guard by inevitable conversations with peers.
Providing Assurances of Safety
For parents in this study, recreating a sense of safety became something actively produced and understood as foundational to “going-on-being” (Winnicott, 1965/2018, p. 60), or one’s most basic experience that life can proceed with a sense of security and predictability. By providing regular assurances of safety, parents not only helped children manage their distress but also actively protected their children’s capacity to go-on-living as a child.
Although there was no universal template for parenting traumatized children following a mass shooting, each participant focused on getting their families to safety and providing ongoing assurances of safety after returning home. As Ziegler et al. (2004) claimed, “Children need help in establishing the boundary between their fears, what actually occurred, and the reality of possible dangers” (p. 164). Instinct, rather than parenting guidelines, informed parenting decisions as they listened and responded to their children’s concerns about the shooter’s whereabouts, worries of it happening again, or preoccupations with levels of security at home, camp, or school. In this way, safety was cognitively and affectively negotiated for both parent and child. Participants spent more time with their children, comforted them a bit longer at bedtime, and shared in prosocial activities as a way of giving back to others. They informed teachers or other caregivers of their child’s traumatic exposure in order to engage their support. Parents helped younger children tell their stories through drawing and other art forms, and put considerable focus on being available when older children needed to talk about safety concerns or related fears. It was in these needed provisions of assurances, attuned listening, and adequate responsivity that parents became active agents in reclaiming a sense of safety for their children.
Reestablishing Routines and Normalcy
Participants across the board provided statements that reflected their desire to get back to normal family life as soon as possible. Reestablishing routines was not only important for remobilizing a sense of safety and security, but for scaffolding the foundation from which many other naturally occurring parenting practices could resume. Participants felt it essential to regain their family’s functioning despite their own feelings of anxiety or uncertainty for what is yet to come. As such, parenting practices reflected action rather than ideology. They returned to work and other responsibilities, while their children returned to camp or summer school, had play dates with friends, or attended regularly scheduled sporting practices.
Parents intuitively understood routine as beneficial to the social and emotional health of their children, and yet finding safety in routine was experienced differently for different families. For some, it was experienced in daily prayers, family meals, neighborhood walks, weekly religious services, and bedtime rituals. For others returning to routine meant going on family bike rides or resuming their neighborhood soccer matches. One parent sang the same song to her daughter every night for years because it brought her child great comfort in the aftermath of what their family experienced.
Participants reflected on maintaining normal family routines for some time after the parade shooting. In the three years following the parade, parents across the study reflected on having to push their own safety worries aside as their children expressed emerging needs for greater and greater independence. This phenomenon, although developmentally appropriate, was interpreted as somewhat of a parenting success by most participants. It appeared their children’s worldview integrated the events of July 2022 into new assumptions of safety and security, allowing them to function more freely with their peers.
Limiting Media and Other Exposures to the Shooting
The children who were present at the parade with participants were between the ages of five months to nine years-old. As such, most had limited access to any kind of media up to this point in their lives. Following the shooting, however, parents were concerned that too much exposure to the news might make their children aware of the frequency of mass shootings in this country, and thus increase worries of this sort of thing happening again. For these families, limiting media and other exposures to the shooting was understood as essential to preventing additional distress in children.
One parent of a six-year-old was particularly conflicted about how much information was too much, given her son’s age and the harsh realities of their experience that day. From the time he was a toddler he had a keen interest in watching the news with his parents. In keeping with this tradition, mother and son watched details of the parade shooting unfold on TV. This parent reflected on regularly checking in with her son to get a sense of what he was feeling, partly because of the frightening subject matter but also because he was a child who did not show much emotion. Such monitoring and interpretation of signs of distress served as her guide in determining her son’s needs and how to best support him. His feedback was consistent, that he needed to know what happened, that the bad person was caught, and that he would not be able to break into their house at night. Once news of the shooter’s capture was conveyed through reporter accounts, the parent turned off the program and pursued further updates privately on her phone.
Monitoring Children for Signs of Distress
Based on a review of the literature on children’s PTSS, youth exposed to traumatic events exhibit multiple responses, with only a very small proportion of children likely to exhibit chronic
PTSS in need of intensive mental health services (Lai et al., 2017). The PTSS include persistent psychological and behavioral responses that follow exposure to a traumatic event, such as intrusive thoughts, nightmares, avoidance behaviors, ongoing fears or sadness, and social withdrawal, among others (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). The professional literature widely accepted that healthy family connections are not only important protections against further distress in the aftermath of trauma, but also serve as a mechanism for healing afterwards (Cobman et al., 2016; Cohen, 2009; Gewirtz et al., 2008; Hiller et al., 2018; Holt et al., 2017; Scheeringa & Zeanah, 2001). With very few exceptions, the general tendency in this sample was that healing for both parents and children took place within the constellation of their family system.
When the protection of a child’s assumptive world is impaired by acute trauma they may regress to earlier childhood habits, such as thumb-sucking, fears of abandonment, bed wetting, remobilized patterns of separation anxiety, and frightening thoughts of being left alone (Goldman, 2002). Across the sample, participants reflected on having a heightened awareness that their children may display negative behaviors following the parade shooting. They observed their children for any signs of possible distress, balancing concerns of adding to their fears, on the one hand, while making sure they provided adequate support, on the other. When they noted specific reactions from a child, they had to interpret the meaning of these behaviors and try to understand the underlying cause. Through interpretation, parents made assessments according to what they quickly learned about potential child behaviors after a traumatic event, and according to their own understanding of each child’s unique characteristics and stage of development. One mother focused on the different reactions of her three children and understood their discrepancy as a function of their general personality traits. As she recalled, “I just knew which one was more
sensitive, which one can roll with it, and which one doesn’t ever share their feelings” (Erin, personal communication, August 28, 2025).
In the days and months following the Highland Park shooting, participants observed a wide range of new behaviors in their children, such as excessively worrying about their own safety, difficulty listening to and following directions, heightened separation concerns, greater emotional reactivity, or sudden phobias related to events of that day. Other children showed few signs of distress in the immediate aftermath; however, fear-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors emerged once school resumed in the fall. Despite the actual threat to their children’s life and the shattering of their own fundamental beliefs about safety and security, parents reflected on monitoring the progression of any reactions or symptoms in the service of trying to understand their underlying cause, discerning whether the behaviors were in response to the parade shooting, or something else that may be going on in their lives. Parents reflected on engaging with their children in this way for months afterward, doing what they could to help their children make sense of their experience, and integrate it into the fabric of their daily lives.
Attuned Listening and Responsiveness
Salmon and Bryant (2002) explored the ways parents converse with their children following a traumatic experience. Their findings suggested that when discussions with children are attuned to the child’s needs, this contributes to language development and narrative production, both necessary elements of trauma processing. Participants reported that younger children, between the ages of three and five years-old, expressed their feelings through behaviors, such as getting upset more easily, not listening to directions in the same way, more than usual conflicts at daycare, regressive sleep issues, and the reemergence of separation anxiety issues. For older, school-age children, they were often more verbal and active about their
safety concerns, such as making sure family alarm systems were turned on before going to bed, or refusing to go to public spaces where exposure to sirens or loud noises was inevitable. Children repeatedly asked questions related to safety, such as, “when are you [the parent] going to be home, who is staying with us, what if this happens again, is the shooter in jail, is he going to be released anytime soon?” Other children wanted to know discrete facts pertaining to the number of people shot, how many of them died, and how many victims were kids. In most of these parent/child interactions, participants interpreted facts as comforting to their children, rather than destabilizing in any way.
Each and every participant mentioned the importance of having dialogue and supportive conversations as one of the most important strategies for helping their children cope. For months (and in some cases, years) following the Highland Park shooting, parents reported the need to frequently check-in with their children to explore how they were feeling. Peer conversations, soft lockdowns at school, stories of what other families endured, and any human-made or natural disaster reported in the news were all possible triggers for reexperiencing postparade worries and concerns. All participants voiced a heightened attunement to their children in order to provide needed support. Whenever a child wanted to talk, their parents engaged in conversation in an effort to interpret possible signs of discomfort or to prevent symptoms from reemerging.
Seeking External Supports
Youth exposed to traumatic events are at risk for developing posttraumatic stress symptoms; however, few experience symptoms that last beyond six months (Lai et al., 2017). In a review of the literature on children’s postdisaster symptoms, Lai et al (2017) identified four symptom trajectories for youth: (1) symptoms that persist over time, (2) symptoms that are initially high followed by a decrease in severity, (3) others that are persistently low, or (4) in
limited cases, symptoms that are delayed with an increase experienced later. Despite the fact that participants directly experienced a mass shooting event, the findings showed that only two parents and two children received a clinical diagnosis of PTSD, although there was a wide range of posttraumatic symptoms that many others reported. Bonnano et al. (2010) suggested that severe and persistent levels of PTSD are found in a relatively small minority of exposed individuals, “typically 30% or much less” (p. 34). For parents in this study, this may have also reflected the favorable nature of their recovery environments as participants and their children were able to return to the safety of their homes, without significant injury or deaths to anyone in their family, and with almost immediate access to social and psychological support services. Many parents expressed gratitude for the extensive community and professional-based services that allowed for individual, familial, and communal healing. Simultaneously, participants reckoned with the inequities of limited support in less-resourced communities where gun violence was experienced on a regular basis.
The amount and type of external support parents provided for their children depended on the severity of their child’s symptoms. Due to intrusive memories and heightened levels of emotionality, one participant, her husband, and one of their children were treated with EMDR. This is a structured, trauma-focused psychotherapy designed to reduce distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 2018). In reflecting on her family’s experience, this participant expressed both surprise that feelings from that day were so deeply buried, and relief that these feelings were somehow purged in the process of treatment. Another participant’s child did not show any posttraumatic symptoms until late August, when she started having a sensitivity to loud noises, a fear of first responders, and panic at the sight of ambulances and fire trucks. Besides monitoring her daughter for further signs of distress, providing assurances of safety, and
providing parenting support in-the-moment, this participant sought out play therapy for her daughter’s PTSD and witnessed significant symptom reduction after a few months.
Yet another participant reflected on his six-year-old son who presented with unprovoked emotional outbursts subsequent to the parade shooting. These behaviors eventually morphed into a pattern of weather-related fears where just the sound of thunder and lightning created an experience of intolerable affect for this boy. Beyond helping his son regulate strong emotions and offer assurances of his safety, this participant sought external support for his son in the form of trauma-informed psychotherapy services. Now nine years-old, this child continues to attend therapy on a weekly basis and has engaged in competitive gymnastics, an embodied kind of support that has allowed for the reestablishment of a more stable and cohesive sense of self.
Summary of Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children
This GET captured how participants actively remobilized a sense safety for their families after the Highland Park shooting. Safety was no longer naturally experienced as it required an ongoing process of reconstruction, largely guided by the specific needs of their children.
Parenting shifted from routine caregiving to deliberate caregiving that included providing ageappropriate information, repeated assurances of safety, reestablishing family routines, limiting exposures to the shooting, and closely monitoring children for signs of distress. Even while managing their own fears, parents positioned themselves as active agents of protection, attunement, responsiveness, and availability. Phenomenologically, rebuilding safety was experienced as a dynamic, relational process that was marked by their continuous and fluid adjustment in the service of their children’s recovery.
Discussion of GET 4
Finding Meaning in Survival
This GET reflected parents’ efforts to make sense of their survival in the context of randomness, loss, and moral discomfort following the shooting. Rather than understanding their experience by wondering why another human being would perpetrate such an act of destruction, parents engaged in ongoing meaning-making, shaped by downward comparisons, chance, gratitude, and unease. Downward comparisons referred to comparing one’s outcome to those with less fortunate outcomes (Bulman & Frieze, 1983). Chance was understood in the decisions made prior to setting up for the parade that ultimately kept family members safe. Gratitude was expressed by each participant for returning home safely and for having access to needed resources afterwards. Feelings of unease were expressed in acknowledging the devastating loss experienced by so many others or the lack of supports in communities with regular gun violence. As seen through the IPA framework, parents grappled with existential questions about why their family was spared while others were not, often holding gratitude alongside feelings of guilt and sorrow. Meaning-making emerged not as a definitive outcome, but rather as a purposeful and ongoing process through which parents sought their own levels of healing in the face of irreducible uncertainty and the unequal suffering of others.
Lifton (1988, 2023) insists that meaning-making is not optional following trauma, rather it is a psychological necessity that is rarely complete or resolved. The survivors who participated in this study struggled to reformulate their experience in ways that allowed life to continue without erasing the reality of what happened. Reframing their traumatic experience was one way participants came to terms with the catastrophic event that had, in fact, taken meaning out of their lives (Boulanger, 2007). For many participants, their commitment to living life was
understood as not letting the traumatic event define them, or as Lisa stated, “not letting the shooter win” (Lisa, personal communication, October 27, 2025). For others, it was in the profound recognition of how one decision could impact the trajectory of their lives. This sentiment was especially salient for participants who situated themselves on the parade route away from where the shooting commenced, a decision they could only attribute to luck or chance. As one parent stated, “We just heard things. We didn’t see things. I felt lucky that their brains weren’t scarred with images the same way I know others were” (Erin, personal communication, September 16, 2025).
Participants experienced finding a sense of agency following the parade shooting in different ways. For the participant who could no longer fulfill her parenting responsibilities due to severe depression, her decision to seek professional help enabled a revitalized sense of agency. As she became better equipped to manage her own emotions, she also became more capable in helping her son manage his anxiety. Other participants became more active and engaged in their community schools, supporting gun legislation groups, raising money for social service agencies, or donating blood on a regular basis. For others, it meant a renewed commitment to family and getting the most out of life by not taking anything for granted.
Participants routinely acknowledged the impact this tragic event had on themselves and their children. They were also keenly aware that their experience of being a mass shooting victim was substantially different from others, especially compared to families where loved ones were seriously injured or killed. For many participants, their survivor guilt coexisted with their survivor gratitude, often leaving them unsure of how to reconcile the two. One participant reflected on a new level of knowing “how much shit everybody carries with them” (Celine, personal communication, October 2, 2025). Others expressed sadness and grief at knowing that
many individuals and families live with gun violence on a regular basis, yet without access to the resources that were so prevalent and available in Highland Park.
Across the study, participants reflected on the comfort they felt from witnessing the goodness of others in the aftermath of the parade shooting. Participants reflected on the efforts in their community to bring healing to anyone in need, including immediate access to psychotherapy, employment assistance, and other sources of support provided by crisis response teams. They reflected on the financial aid offered through a local foundation and various crowd funding campaigns. Parents reflected on the levels of attuned care and attention their children received by teachers and counselors in day camps and schools. One parent referenced Mister Rogers’ famous quote about “looking for the helpers,” when difficult feelings or safety concerns emerged subsequent to the shooting (Erin, personal communications, August 28, 2025). Parents frequently reminded their children that there are always good people in the world who want to help. Other participants reconnected to their faith, finding solace in knowing there was someone who was watching over and helping them find their way.
Summary of Finding Meaning in Survival
This GET captured how participants struggled to make sense of their survival in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting. Their process of meaning-making was shaped by chance, downward comparisons, gratitude, and moral discomfort as they had to reconcile why they survived without injury, while other families were devastated by loss. Parents grappled with these existential questions, holding gratitude alongside grief, sorrow, and the distinct awareness of the unequal access to support for many underserved populations. They rekindled a sense of agency through pro-social helping, community engagement, gun advocacy, and renewed commitments to family, faith, and the continuity of everyday life. For participants in this study,
meaning-making was experienced not as a discrete outcome, but as an ongoing commitment to live with intention while reconciling with the uncertainty of life.
Discussion of GET 5
Healing as a Relational and Collective Process
This GET captured healing as something that unfolded through relationship, connection, and time rather than through individual resolution or symptom reduction. Rather than conceptualizing recovery as a private or linear process, parents described healing that occurred within families, communities, and experiences of validation and support. Parents alluded to having to establish their continuity on different terms by finding a new normal. From an interpretive phenomenological perspective, this theme reflects how healing was not understood as a return to a pretrauma self, but as an emergent process shaped by connection and shared meaning in the aftermath of the traumatic event.
One participant reflected on their experience as “being in a grey space” (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025) where they were not directly impacted by the shooting because no one was injured or they didn’t lose a child to gun violence, but they were not, not impacted either. Connecting to others who did experience this unspeakable level of loss seemed untenable for most participants. In contrast, seeking support from others who were not at the parade was experienced as generally unhelpful as they could not understand or relate to the terror and resulting struggles that emanated from that day. Across the board, participants expressed the need to “be in the same lane as other people who went through this really awful experience, but their family was fine… and there were a lot of us out there” (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025). Participants uniformly reflected on finding safety in this shared experience.
Participants understood family as the primary resource for healing and recovery following this tragic event. Although no participant reflected significant changes to their parenting style, each participant reflected temporary adjustments to their parenting practices in the service of helping their children feel safe and secure. They reflected on keeping their children closer, managing worries and concerns as they arose, and engaging in family-together activities rather than nights out without their children. Participants varied on their engagement with community services or public memorials designed to foster the healing process. For three of the participants, the thought of returning to downtown Highland Park was potentially retraumatizing for quite some time. For the other five participants, being together in community felt deeply powerful, especially in witnessing the shared pain and healing efforts of so many standing together. As one participant stated, “there was rebellion against loss by coming together” (Howard, personal communication, October 16, 2025).
Most participants described their experience as one that will stay with them forever, while also identifying time as a healing force. By the time of this study, participants no longer carried the same sense of heightened anxiety, and when fears did emerge, they were less persistent and enduring. As time passed, most participants loosened the reins on their children, who were three years older than at the time of the shooting, allowing them more freedom and independence to engage, unsupervised, with their peers. All participants recognized the limits of their control and fallibility as parents, and have returned to living their lives with more ease. Most did not wish to attend a parade ever again.
Summary of Healing as a Relational and Collective Process
This GET captured how parents understood healing not as a personal or symptomfocused achievement, but as something that unfolded in relationship, shared experiences, and
over time. Participants established their own sense of continuity on new terms, finding safety and validation within their family and in connection with others who had lived through the Highland Park shooting with similar outcomes. Healing was more significantly experienced with other parents whose families were unharmed, yet profoundly impacted by their experiences on that fateful day. Understood from a phenomenological perspective, healing emerged as an ongoing, relational process shaped by connection, shared meaning, and the gradual reengagement with everyday life.
Synthesis of GETs
Parenting after mass violence becomes a profoundly relational, moral and existential experience, rather than a set of discrete caregiving tasks. Across themes, parents who participated in this study were simultaneously living with their own ruptured assumptions, carrying their own distress privately, and engaging in ongoing efforts to actively reconstruct a sense of safety and security for their children. Participants struggled with questions of survival, chance, and the unequal suffering of others, both in their community and in less-resourced areas where ongoing gun violence occurs on a regular basis. Processes for rebuilding safety and healing through family, friendships, and community were experienced as interdependent and ongoing, rather than occurring in a linear fashion. From an interpretive phenomenological perspective, parenting practices were tempered with tensions between vulnerability and responsibility, and the competing pulls between gratitude and grief. Parents grappled with knowing that assumptions of safety and control are illusive, and yet they felt compelled to protect their children and preserve their right to a childhood. Living with uncertainty had new meaning for these parents and they worked to reconstruct a life with purpose, both for themselves and their children.
Theoretical Integration
Although a willingness to respond flexibly in the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting was essential, key ideas from attachment theory, object relations, and contemporary self psychology offer a useful lens for understanding the specific actions participants took in helping their children cope. Phenomenologically, these psychoanalytic theories understand human development in the context of the interacting worlds of children and caregivers, and each reinforces the centrality of supportive relationships throughout life (Bowlby, 1958; Geist, 2008; Winnicott, 1965/2018; Wolf, 1988). Although parents did not explicitly reference psychoanalytic or developmental theories in their accounts, their narratives reflected an inherent understanding of core assumptions regarding the ways children rely on caregivers to create safety, restore emotional stability, and maintain a cohesive sense of self following disruption.
In developing attachment theory, Bowlby (1958) theorized that attuned and responsive caregiving relationships provide a secure base for infants and children. From an attachment perspective, the centrality of parental availability, emotional monitoring, and frequent reassurances is consistent with Bowlby’s (1969/1982) foundational work, in which the author conceptualized caregivers as the main source of safety and affect regulation when a child’s sense of security has been compromised. Across participants, the heightened attentiveness to children’s emotional cues, their sustained proximity following the shooting, and their repeated efforts to provide reassurances of safety could be understood as attempts to remobilize the “secure base” from which the children could once again engage in their everyday lives (Bowlby, 1969/1982, p. 182).
Object relations theory highlights the “complex relationship of self to other,” (p. 92) whereby people experience themselves as separate and independent from others, while
simultaneously needing attachment to others (Flanagan, 2022). Donald Winnicott’s contributions to this theory offered an additional and particularly generative lens, especially for interpreting participant accounts of rebuilding safety and security for their children. Winnicott (1965/2018) indicated that facilitating healthy development depends on a “good enough mother” (p. 145) responsiveness within the context of a secure “holding environment” (p. 47). When the relational environment is good enough, it facilitates the maturational processes necessary for the sense of “going on being,” (p. 60) or the fundamental experience that life can proceed with a sense of continuity, reliability, and emotional safety (Winnicott, 1965/2018). Within this theme, parents’ deliberate efforts to limit media exposure, provide developmentally attuned explanations, maintain routine, and preserve ordinary family rituals could be understood as attempts to protect their children’s ability to continue living as children, rather than becoming organized around the possibility of danger and future threats. In this way, what parents specifically did to help their children cope was not only directed towards reducing their distress, but towards protecting the conditions necessary for their ongoing development.
Self psychology further illuminates how parents function as a stabilizing emotional support for their children. The most fundamental construct in self psychology is that the emergence of one’s sense of self requires more than the inborn tendency to organize experience (Kohut, 1977, 1984; Kohut & Wolf, 1978). Also required, is the presence of others throughout one’s life, who provide responses that will evoke the emergence of a healthy self, capable of regulating stress and self-esteem (Geist, 2008; Wolf, 1988). Necessary environmental provisions include consistent and appropriate selfobject responsiveness, such as providing experiences of feeling affirmed and recognized, soothed and protected, and a sense of belonging or likeness with others (Kohut, 1977, 1984). From a self-psychological perspective, children depend upon
empathically responsive caregivers to help regulate overwhelming emotions and preserve a cohesive sense of self. In this study, the parents’ sustained efforts to assure safety, empathically listen and respond to the needs of their children, and remain emotionally available could be understood as forms of selfobject responsiveness that mitigated further affective distress in the days and months following the Highland Park shooting.
Viewed together, these theoretical perspectives converged in helping to make sense of the unique recovery experiences for participants and their families following this traumatic event. As stated in Chapter II, while each theorist historically played a central role in defining ideals of parenting and child development, they also cast the myth of the mother as the primary agent of psychological health, thus relying on gendered assumptions that emotional containment and caregiving are inherently maternal (Chodorow, 1978). Rethinking Bowlby, Winnicott and Kohut through a gender-inclusive lens opened the possibility of reframing healthy development as a shared parental task, rather than one bound to female identity. It is within this contemporary framework that I interpreted and understood the caregiving practices of all participants in this study, including their sustained efforts to restore a sense of safety and security for their children.
Reflexive Considerations
The IPA approach recognizes meaning-making as co-constructed through the interaction between participant experiences and the researcher’s engagement. In this way, reflexivity is not positioned as a task already completed, but as an ongoing stance that shapes how findings are understood and discussed. Throughout this study, I remained attentive to how my own emotional responses and clinical sensibilities influenced the interpretive process. As such, it is appropriate at this stage of the research to revisit the eight assumptions presented in Chapter I of this study, which stemmed from my own lived experience as a woman, wife, parent, psychodynamic
clinician, and as someone who experienced the Highland Park shooting from a distance of less than three miles away.
Participants Were Adversely Affected by Directly Experiencing the Highland Park Shooting
This assumption held true according to the second finding, Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds. The research participants clearly reflected on adverse psychological, emotional, physical and relational symptoms following the mass shooting. Adversity was experienced in heightened states of vigilance, the need to suppress their own distress at times, persistent second-guessing parenting decisions, feeling validated through shared experience, and feeling dismissed by others who doubted the intensity of their trauma.
Participants may Have new Psychological or Other Symptoms in the Aftermath of This Traumatic Event
Not only was this assumption well-documented throughout the literature review, but it was also clearly reflected in the posttraumatic narratives participants experienced. It held true for Finding 1 (Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe) and Finding 2 (Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds). Heightened vigilance, feelings of anxiety and sadness, grief and loss were interwoven with one’s loss of safety, security, and the inability to protect their children from harm. For some, feelings of distress were an unwanted distraction, while for others they were debilitating and in need of outside therapeutic care.
Participants may Have Experienced a Kind of Catastrophic Loss of Innocence Related to Personal and Public Safety and Internal Security
This assumption held true according to Finding 1 (Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe) and Finding 3 (Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children). Not only were their fundamental assumptions of safety and security shattered, but participants also had to manage the
loss of innocence and internal security for their children as well. Parents actively utilized their family unit as the holding environment in which to rebuild a sense of safety and security for their children. Resuming routines, attuned listening, empathic responsiveness, and providing regular assurances of safety were understood as ways to remobilize security and allow children to go on being children.
Participants Have to Find Some way to Manage Their own Distress While Rekindling a Felt Sense of Safety and Security for Their Children
This assumption held true according to the Finding 3 (Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children) and Finding 5 (Healing as a Relational and Collective Process). Across accounts, parents’ management of their own distress unfolded alongside the responsibility to help their children cope. Parents across the study managed their own distress through action: Staying attuned and available to their children, providing age-appropriate information, observing their children for any signs of distress, seeking external supports for themselves and their children when necessary, engaging in advocacy and other prosocial behaviors, and finding solace with other families who had similar experiences from the parade shooting.
Participants may be More Hyper-Aware, Guarded, or Protective of Self and Their Children in Public Spaces
This assumption held true for Finding 1 (Living in a World That No Longer Feels Safe), Finding 2 (Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds), and Finding 3 (Actively Rebuilding Safety for One’s Children). Parents across the study reflected on a level of hypervigilance that was unprecedented, and often expressed in regularly scanning rooftops, looking for exits, and avoidance of public spaces outside of regularly attended camps, schools, or religious services.
One parent made a habit of always making sure her children wore sneakers whenever they attended a public event (so they could run if they needed to).
Participants may be Less Likely to Allow Their Children to Participate in Heavily Populated
Public Events
This assumption held true for Findings 1–3, as listed above. Avoidance of heavily populated events was experienced across the sample and for some time after the parade shooting. Participants across the sample were explicit in their decisions to avoid large gatherings due to their own shattered sense of safety, their own sense of heightened vigilance, their need to protect their children from further harm, and in response to what their children needed to feel safe.
Participants may Experience Some Level of Survivor Guilt or Complicated Grief in the Aftermath of This Traumatic Event
Components of this assumption held true for Finding 2 (Parenting While Carrying Invisible Wounds) and Finding 4 (Meaning in Survival). Every participant expressed a deep sadness and grief for the families who were devastated from injuries or the death of a loved one.
Although only one participant explicitly referred to feelings of guilt for surviving, they each presented as more humbled by their survival. Four of the eight participants wondered about why they were able to survive when others were so seriously impacted. I interpreted their sentiments more in the realm of seeking an existential understanding of their outcome, rather than an expression of survivor guilt. The discussion of guilt was more profound in the second-guessing of parenting decisions, either in relation to fears of not doing enough to keep their children safe during the parade, or not doing enough to support their children in the shooting’s aftermath.
Participants may Experience Some Form of Personal Growth That Emerges From Their Struggle in Dealing With This Traumatic Event
Upon reflection, I could not say that this assumption held true in the responses by participants in this study. I believe that my original assumption related to “personal growth” would have been better articulated in the assumption of “personal meaning-making,” which was true in Findings 4 (Finding Meaning in Survival), and Finding 5 (Healing as a Relational and Collective Process). All participants experienced a level of meaning-making following the parade shooting. For some it was in acknowledging they could “do hard things well,” or that they could go on with their lives despite limits to their control. Four of the eight participants understood their survival as a function of luck, as circumstances forced them to position their family farther away from the actual site of the parade shooting. For others, meaning was situated in the connections they nurtured with important others and in their direct witnessing of the goodness of others. For three of the eight participants, personal meaning-making came in the form of service, turning their pain into purpose through volunteering or advocating for stronger gun legislation. Across accounts, “time as healing” remained a significant part of their recovery story. It allowed for the processing of their traumatic experiences, the eventual relaxation of fears and other distressing emotions that had such a grip on their lives, and the opportunity to rebuild fundamental assumptions of predictability, order, and self-determination that enabled one to function in the world.
Contributions of the Study
The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of parents who survived the Highland Park shooting with their children, the pathways for their children’s posttraumatic recovery, and the specific parenting practices that contribute to their recovery. This study
confirms what is currently in the literature which suggests that parents actively influence how their children cope following a single-incident trauma such as a mass shooting (Gewirtz et al., 2008; Hafstad et al., 2011; Hiller et al., 2018; Holt et al., 2017; Walsh, 2007). The findings contributed to the field by highlighting parenting challenges in the aftermath of a single-event trauma, and the specific ways parents adjust their caregiving practices to address the recovery needs of their children. From these findings, we may better understand why some children actually do cope well despite their direct exposure to a traumatic event, such as a mass shooting.
The following contributions of this study extended our understanding of trauma beyond the potentials for psychological, emotional, or physical responses, and offered very specific strategies for supporting parents and children following a potentially traumatic event. These contributions to the literature are:
1. A deeper understanding of the lived experience of parents who survived a mass shooting alongside their children. Specifically, the findings highlighted the invisible distress parents endure while continuing to function as attuned, responsive caregivers.
2. A deeper understanding of the existential and moral dimensions of parenting following this shared traumatic event, including persistent tensions between responsibility and vulnerability, gratitude and grief, agency and uncertainty. Across the sample, these tensions permeated the parent’s interpretation of what their children needed most and subsequent caregiving decision-making.
3. A deeper understanding of what, specifically, parents do to help their children cope following a traumatic event. It was through these specific caregiving practices that parents attempted to preserve their children’s psychological continuity. Caregiving was deliberate and efforts to reestablish a sense of safety included:
Providing age-appropriate communication and responsiveness
Resuming family routines
Strategically limiting media and other exposures to the shooting
Providing regular assurances of safety
Monitoring children for signs of distress
Seeking external support as needed.
4. A deeper understanding of healing as a process that is relational, contextual, and evolves over time. Validation and feeling understood was most accessible through shared experience, or the connection with other families, whose parade experiences mirrored their own.
5. A deeper understanding of the importance of making-meaning out of one’s traumatic experience. These efforts are essential to posttrauma parenting, recovery, and one’s sense of continuity. Meaning-making efforts are situated in purposeful activities, such as the renewed commitment to family, the resolve to keep on living life, and in paying support forward through prosocial helping and advocacy.
Limitations
Several limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings of this study. First, consistent with IPA, the sample was small and homogeneous, prioritizing depth of exploration over breadth, and therefore limiting its transferability to larger populations. Second, the participants were self-selected and volunteered to participate in this study. Parents who felt able to participate and willing to speak about their experiences may differ in important ways from those who chose not to participate due to greater levels of distress or ongoing instability. As such, the perspectives represented in this study reflected a subset of parents who may have been
more emotionally-resourced to engage in reflective interviews, thus impacting transferability of findings to other populations. Third, the analyses were exclusively based on parent accounts; perspectives of the children were not represented. Interviews with children may have strengthened the study especially as it relates to how they experienced the quality and helpfulness of the parenting care they received. Moreover, I only received information from one parent in each family. Interviewing both parents may have provided a richer understanding of their individual lived experiences and the specific parenting responses that were perceived as most helpful. Fourth, all data were generated through retrospective, self-report interviews that took place three years following the Highland Park shooting. Memory, meaning-making, and the narrative coherence of participants may have been shaped by the passage of time, subsequent conversations, and ongoing coping processes. The accounts therefore represented the current understandings of their experience rather than direct access to their experiences as they unfolded in real time. Fifth, it bears mentioning that Highland Park is a highly resourced community, with many residents privileged with regard to socioeconomic status and education. Having financial resources and immediate access to community and therapeutic support may have assisted families in reestablishing a safe and secure environment. As a result, the transferability of findings to parents affected by other mass casualty events should be considered with caution.
Finally, although IPA explicitly acknowledges the central role of the researcher in the analytic process, the interpretations presented in this study were inevitably shaped by my theoretical orientation, clinical background, knowledge of trauma-informed and psychoanalytic literature, and personal life experiences. As such, reflexive practices were used throughout data collection and analysis to minimize researcher bias. Despite these limitations, these findings may
provide a better understanding of the lived experience of parents and parenting practices that supported the adjustment of children following a single traumatic event.
Recommendations for Future Research
Recommendations for future research, policy, and practice are made with caution, given the limitations of this study. There are also ethical and practical challenges in facilitating research with traumatized populations as researchers and institutional review boards are hesitant to conduct studies due to concerns of retraumatization or taking advantage of vulnerable populations (Gewirtz et al., 2008; Lowe & Galea, 2017). With these concerns in mind, further qualitative research might include exploring the posttrauma reactions and supportive parenting efforts in more diverse communities, between mothers and fathers, or for parents of adolescent children between the ages of 13–18. Parents may feel that their supportive roles become diminished as teens become more independent, in contrast to a parent’s sense of responsibility for younger children who are more vulnerable and less able to cope (Holt et al., 2017).
While evidence suggested that mass shooting events in the United States have been on the rise over the past two decades, research has focused on the short-term direct and indirect effects on survivors and their affected community (Mother Jones, 2024; Rowhani-Rahbar et al., 2019). Little is known about the longer-term psychological and emotional toll on survivors and communities affected by mass shootings. As such, longitudinal studies of survivors and communities might be helpful for policy makers who tend to allocate resources in the acute aftermath of mass shootings, rather than focus on the longer-term mental health needs (RowhaniRahbar et al., 2019). Additional research is needed to understand the impact of mass shootings on individuals and families from a distance, or those who live outside of the affected community (Lowe & Galea, 2017).
It is an accepted practice that clinical social workers and other mental health providers create a safe and supportive posttrauma environment in which individuals can process their experiences of suffering and loss, and actively strive towards recovery. Participants in this study reported experiencing a wide-range of traumatic responses and uniformly sought social support from others whose family’s outcome was similar to theirs. As one participant stated,
I didn’t lose a child to gun violence so I didn’t want to try to connect to a group with people who did experience this unspeakable loss … I just needed to be in the same lane as other people who were like me, who went through this really awful experience, but their family’s fine.
In this vein, future research might examine the best practices of clinicians who work with survivors of mass shootings and other single-event traumas to yield theoretical and directexperience content for clinical social work curriculum or continuing education programs (Cowan et al., 2020).
Additionally, across their accounts, participants reflected on wishing they had quick and easy access to information on posttraumatic responses in children. They expressed a need for information on what trauma reactions look like in children, how they might present differently based on personality traits of the child or stage of development, and the timetable for emergence of potential symptoms. A few participants were aware of trauma-informed therapies for children due to their profession; however, most were not aware of what type of therapeutic services are best suited for children of different ages, or when it was necessary to seek outside help.
Hopefully this qualitative study has provided insight into these parenting concerns; however, additional research might explore the needs of parents in the aftermath of a mass shooting or other single-event trauma for the purpose of developing readily-accessible parenting guidelines.
Conclusion
In this study, participant narratives offered an experience-near account of the ways their subjectivity and subsequent parenting practices were reorganized following the Highland Park shooting. Providing information on the potential for posttraumatic social, emotional, and psychological effects along with constructive parenting practices that addressed the unique needs of children, may improve posttrauma outcomes for other families who find themselves in a similar situation. Furthermore, the insights from this study offered implications for clinical social workers and other mental health providers in assessing the unique burdens of parenting subsequent to a traumatic event, including offering a framework for how to best support children in recovery.
It remains to be seen which parts of this traumatic experience, for either parent or child, are implicitly held outside of one’s conscious awareness, yet still able to influence behavior and emotional response (Boston Change Process Study Group, 2010; Siegel, 1999). The following vignette describes one such anecdote: In the immediate aftermath of the Highland Park shooting, one family hid in an outside storage closet behind the parade route with their infant son and fouryear-old daughter. It was pitch-black inside as they huddled together with many others. Three years later, the now seven-year-old daughter, who never showed signs of lasting distress following the shooting, was in a safety drill at school. Following protocol, the child’s teacher brought the students into the backroom closet, which was rather dark. This parent shared her daughter’s account of what happened that day:
She’s like, “mom, it was so awkward. We had to all hide in the janitor’s closet. And it was so awkward.” And she’s giggling as she’s telling us this, and we’re like, okay, “what do you mean by awkward?” She’s like, “well, it was just dark.” My husband and I are
looking at each other. She’s not making this up. She lived through that exact scenario three years ago. I think we both did an assessment in our head of what good can come in this moment of telling her that this drill that she found funny at school is the exact replica of the experience that she had as a four-year old at the parade. And so we just didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to change that experience for her. I didn’t want to put a meaning on it that she was not putting on herself (Celine, personal communication, October 10, 2025).1
1 This anecdote was shared at the beginning of the researcher’s second interview with this participant, just one hour after her daughter shared the story of her “awkward” experience at school that day.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., DSM-5-TR). American Psychiatric Publishing.
Archibald, M., Ambagtsheer, R., Casey, M. & Lawless, M. (2019). Using Zoom video conferencing for qualitative data collection: Perceptions and experiences of researchers and participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–8.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596
Beckerman, N. & Henshaw, L. (2020). In the aftermath of a shooting trauma: Application of family informed trauma treatment. Journal of Anxiety and Depression, 3(1), 1–15.
https://doi.org/10.46527/2582-3264.199
Belmont Report, The (1979). The national commission for the protection of human subjects of biomedical and behavioral research. HHS.gov. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulationsand-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html
Berzoff, J., Melano Flanagan, L., & Hertz, P. (2022). Inside out and outside in: Psychodynamic clinical theory and psychopathology in contemporary multicultural contexts (5th ed.).
Rowman & Littlefield.
Blair, J. P., & Martindale, J. H. (2013). United States active shooter events from 2000 to 2010: Training and equipment implications. Police Executive Research Forum.
Bloomberg, L. (2023). Completing your qualitative dissertation. A road map from beginning to end (5th ed.) Sage.
Bonanno, G. A., Brewin, C. R., Kaniasty, K., & Greca, A. M. L. (2010). Weighing the costs of disaster: Consequences, risks, and resilience in individuals, families, and communities. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 11(1), 1–49.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100610387086
Boulanger, G. (2002). Wounded by reality: The collapse of the self in adult onset trauma.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 38(1), 45–76.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2002.10745806
Boulanger, G. (2007). Wounded by reality: Understanding and treating adult onset trauma. Psychology Press.
Boston Change Process Study Group. (2010). Change in psychotherapy: A unifying paradigm W. W. Norton & Company.
Bowen, G. (2005). Preparing a qualitative research-based dissertation: Lessons learned. The Qualitative Report, 10(2), 208–222. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2005.1846
Bowlby, J. (1958). The nature of the child’s tie to his mother. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39, 350–373.
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss. Vol. 2: Separation. Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss. Vol. 3: Loss. Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss. Vol. 1: Attachment. Basic Books. (Original work published in 1969)
Boyd Webb, N. (Ed). (2004). Mass trauma and violence: Helping families and children cope. Guilford.
Breuer, J. & Freud, S. (1893). On the psychical mechanism of hysterical phenomena. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol 2 (pp. 1–17). Hogarth Press.
Bromberg, P. (2003). Something wicked this way comes. Trauma, dissociation, and conflict: The space where psychoanalysis, cognitive science, and neuroscience overlap. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 20(3), 558–574. https://doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.20.3.558
Bromberg, P. (2008). Shrinking the tsunami: Affect regulation, dissociation, and the shadow of the flood. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 44(3), 329–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2008.10745961
Brymer, M. J., Jacobs, A. K., Layne, C. M., Pynoos, R. S., Ruzek, J. I., Steinberg, A. M., Vernberg, E., & Watson, P. (2006). Psychological first aid: Field operations guide (2nd ed.). National Child Traumatic Stress Network & National Center for PTSD. https://www.nctsn.org/resources/psychological-first-aid-pfa-field-operations-guide-2ndedition
Calhoun, L. G. & Tedeschi, R. G. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice. Erlbaum.
Candela, A. G. (2019). Exploring the function of member checking. The Qualitative Report, 24(3), 619–628. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3726
Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. University of California Press.
Choy, L.T. (2014). The strengths and weaknesses of research methodology: Comparison and complimentary between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 19(4), 99–104. https://doi.org/10.9790/0837-194399104
Coates, S. (2003). Introduction: Trauma and human bonds. In S. Coates, J. L. Rosenthal, & D. Schechter (Ed), September 11: Trauma and human bonds (pp. 1–14). Routledge.
Cobham, V. E., McDermott, B., Haslam, D., & Sanders, M. R. (2016). The role of parents, parenting and the family environment in children’s post-disaster mental health. Current Psychiatry Report, 18(53). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-016-0691-4
Cohen, E. (2009). Parenting in the throes of traumatic events. In D. Brom, R. Pat-Horenczyk, & J. Ford (Ed.), Treating traumatized children: Risk, resilience and recovery (pp. 72–84). Routledge.
Corr, C. A. (2002). Revisiting the concept of disenfranchised grief. In K. J. Doka (Ed.), Disenfranchised grief: new directions, challenges, and strategies for practice (pp. 39–60). Research Press.
Cowan, R., Blum, C., Mihalyi Szirony, G., & Cicchetti, R. (2020). Supporting survivors of public mass shootings. Journal of Social, Behavioral, & Health Sciences, 14(1), 169–182. https://doi.org/10.5590/JSBHS.2020.14.1.12
Cowan, R. G., Cole, R., Lee, C. J., Britt, L. D., & Goolsby, C. (2023). “It will stay with me forever”: The experiences of physicians treating victims of public mass shootings. Traumatology, 30(3), 432–438. https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000453
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (3rd ed.). Sage.
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2023). Research design. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (6th ed.). Sage.
Daniel, E. (2016). The usefulness of qualitative and quantitative approaches and methods in researching problem-solving ability in science education curriculum. Journal of Education and Practice, 7, 91–100. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1103224.pdf
Davies, J. & Frawley, M. (1994). Treating the adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Basic Books.
DePrince, A. & Freyd, J. (2002). The harm of trauma: Pathological fear, shattered assumptions, or betrayal? In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss (pp. 71–80). Routledge.
Des Pres, T. (1976). The survivor: An anatomy of life in the death camps. Oxford University Press.
Doctors, S. (2008). Notes on incorporating attachment theory and research into self psychological and intersubjective clinical work. Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 3(1), 34–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/15551020701743451
Doka, K. J. (1989). Disenfranchised grief: recognizing hidden sorrow. Research Press.
Felsen, I. (2017). Adult-onset trauma and intergenerational transmission: Integrating empirical data and psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, (12): 60–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/15551024.2017.1251185
Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: Overcoming internal selfalienation. Routledge.
Flanagan, L. M. (2022). Object relations theory. In J. Berzoff, L. M. Flanagan, & P. Hertz (Eds.), Inside out and outside in: Psychodynamic clinical theory and psychopathology in contemporary multicultural contexts (5th ed., pp. 92–124). Rowman & Littlefield.
Fox, J., Burkle, F., Bass, J., Pia, F, Epstein, J., & Markenson, D. (2102). The effectiveness of psychological first aid as a disaster intervention tool: Research analysis of peer-reviewed literature from 1990–2010. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 6(3), 247–252. https://doi.org/10.1001/dmp.2012.39
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)
Freud, A., & Burlington, D. (1943). War and children. Medical War Books.
Freud, S. (1896). The aetiology of hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 3 (pp. 187–221). Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1897). Letter to Wilhelm Fliess, September 21, 1897. In J. M. Masson (Ed.), The complete letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887–1904, Vol. 42 (pp. 264–267). Harvard University Press.
Freud (1917). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 14 (pp. 237-258). Hogarth Press.
Geist, R. (2008). Mini-analyses and idealizing transferences: Autobiographical reflections on the development of a therapeutic model. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 3(3), 320–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/15551020802108711
Geist, R. (2008). Connectedness, permeable boundaries, and the development of the self: Therapeutic implications. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 3(2), 129–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/15551020801922971
Gewirtz, A., Forgatch, M., & Wieling, E. (2008). Parenting practices as potential mechanisms for child adjustment following mass trauma. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 34(2), 177–192. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2008.00063.x
Gillies, J. & Neimeyer, R. A. (2006). Loss, grief, and the search for significance: Toward a model of meaning reconstruction in bereavement. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 19, 31–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720530500311182
Goldman, L. (2002). The assumptive world of children. In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss (pp. 193–202). Routledge.
Gordon, B. (2020). Vulnerability in research: Basic ethical concepts and general approach to review. Ochsner Journal, 20(1), 34–38. https://doi.org/10.31486/toj.19.0079
Hafstad, G., Haavind, H., & Jensen, T. (2012). Parenting after a natural disaster: A qualitative study of Norwegian families surviving the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21, 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-011-9474-z
Hagman, G. (2017). Helping Newtown: Reopening a school in the aftermath of tragedy. Clinical Social Work Journal, 45, 168–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-014-0498-x
Herman, J. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence: From domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books. (Original work published in 1992)
Hewson, C. (2008). Internet-mediated research as an emergent method and its potential role in facilitating mixed-method research. In S. N. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds.), The handbook of emergent technologies in social research (pp. 525–541). The Guildford Press.
Hiller, R., Meiser-Stedman, R., Lobo, S., Creswell, C., Fearon, P., Ehlers, A., Murray, L., & Halligan, S. (2018). A longitudinal investigation of the role of parental responses in predicting children’s post-traumatic distress. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(7), 781–789. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12846
Holt, T., Jensen, T., Dyb, G., & Wentzel-Larsen, T. (2017). Emotional reactions in parents of the youth who experienced the Utoya shooting on 22 July 2011; Results from a cohort study.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1989). The benefits of illusions, the threat of disillusionment, and the limitations of inaccuracy. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 8, 158–175.
https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.1989.8.2.158
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. The Free Press.
Janoff-Bulman, R. & Frieze, I. (1983). A theoretical perspective for understanding reactions to victimization. Journal of Social Issues, 39(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15404560.1983.tb00138.x
Kane, R., Lopez, B., & Haskins, P. (2023). National Institute of Justice Special Report: Public mass shooting research (NCJ No. 307401). National Institute of Justice.
https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/307401.pdf
Kauffman, J. (2002a). Safety and the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss. In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss (pp. 205–211). Routledge.
Kauffman, J. (2002b). The psychology of disenfranchised grief: Liberation, shame and selfdisenfranchisement. In K. Doka (Ed.), Disenfranchised grief: New directions, challenges and strategies for practice (pp. 61–78). Research Press.
Knapik, M. (2006). The qualitative research interview: Participants’ responsive participation in knowledge making. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(3), 77–93.
https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500308
Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. Norton.
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure? Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Kohut, H. & Wolf, E. (1978). The disorders of the self and their treatment: An outline. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 59, 413–425.
Krouse, W. J., & Richardson, D. J. (2015). Mass murder with firearms: Incidents and victims, 1999–2013. The Congressional Research Service.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf
Krystal, H. (1978). Trauma and affects. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 33, 81–116.
Lai, B., Lewis, R., Livings, M., La Greca, A., & Esnard, A. (2017). Posttraumatic stress symptoms trajectories among children after disaster exposure: A review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 30(6), 571–582. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22242
La Greca, A., Silverman, W. K., Vernberg, E. M., & Prinstein, M. J. (1996). Symptoms of posttraumatic stress in children after Hurricane Andrew: A prospective study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(4), 712–723. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022006x.64.4.712
Landsman, I. S. (2002). Crises of meaning in trauma and loss. In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss (pp. 13–30). Routledge.
Levine, P. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books.
Liechty, D. (2002). The assumptive world in the context of transference relationships: A contribution to grief theory. In J. Kauffman (Ed.), Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss (pp. 83–93). Routledge.
Lifton, R. J. (1988). Understanding the traumatized self: Imagery, symbolism, and transformation. In J. P. Wilson, Z. Harel, & B. Kahana (Eds.), Human adaptation to extreme stress: From the Holocaust to Vietnam (pp. 7–31). Springer.
Lifton, R. J. (2023). Surviving our catastrophes: Resilience and renewal from Hiroshima to the Covid-19 pandemic. The New Press.
Loveland, J. L. (2016). Therapy with couples with addiction: A psychoanalytic perspective [Doctoral dissertation, Institute for Clinical Social Work]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2444616123/DB03217FE5F14C83PQ/1? sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses
Lowe, S., & Galea, S. (2017). The mental health consequences of mass shootings. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 18(1), 62–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838015591572
Lowe, S. R., Blachman-Forshay, J., & Koenen, K. C. (2015). Epidemiology of trauma and trauma-related disorders: Trauma as a public health issue. In U. Schnyder & M. Cloitre (Eds.), Evidence-based treatments for trauma-related psychological disorders: A practical guide for clinicians (pp. 11–40). Springer.
McKim, C. (2023). Meaningful member-checking: A structured approach to member-checking. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 7(2), 41–52.
McTighe, J., & Tosone, C. (2015). Narrative and meaning-making among Manhattan social workers in the wake of September 11, 2001. Social Work in Mental Health, 13(4), 299–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2014.977420
Mother Jones (2024). A guide to mass shootings in America. Mother Jones. https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map/
National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (2021). NASW code of ethics. Socialworkers.org. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-ofEthics-English
National Institute of Justice. (2022). Public mass shootings: Database amasses details of a half century of U. S. mass shootings with firearms, generation psychosocial histories
Norris, F. H., Friedman, M. J., Watson, P. J., Byrne, C. M., Diaz, E., & Kaniasty, K. (2002).
60,000 disaster victims speak: Part I. An empirical review of the empirical literature, 1981–2001. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 65(3), 207–219. https://doi.org/10.1521/psyc.65.3.207.20173
Norris, F. H. (2007). Impact of mass shootings on survivors, families, and communities. PTSD Research Quarterly, 18(3), 1–7 https://www.nvpsychology.org/assets/docs/impact-ofmass-shooting-on-survivors-families-and-communities.pdf
Novotny, A. (2018). What happens to the survivors: Long-term outcomes for survivors of mass shootings are improved with the help of community connections and continuing access to mental health support. American Psychological Association, 49(8), 36. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/09/survivors
O’Donnell, D. A., & Powers, J. (2009). How has terrorism impacted the American family? In: Morgan, M. J. (Ed.), The impact of 9/11 on psychology and education. The day that changed everything? (pp. 161–172). Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101593_12
O’Neill, K., Vega, C., Saint-Hilaire, S., Jahad, L., Violano, P., Rosenthal, M., Maung, A., Becher, R., & Dodington, J. (2020). Journal of Acute Care Surgery, 89(1), 29–35.
https://doi.org/10.1097/ta.0000000000002635
Park, C. L. (2022). Meaning making following trauma. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1–4.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844891
Parkes, C. M. (1975). What becomes of redundant world models? A contribution to the study of adaptation to change. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 48, 131–137.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. International University Press.
Piaget, J. (1953). The origin of intelligence in the child. Routledge.
Reid, K., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2005). Exploring lived experience: an introduction to Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. The Psychologist, 18, 20 –23.
Rowhani-Rahbar, A., Zatzick, D., & Rivara, F. (2019). Long-lasting consequences of gun violence and mass shootings. Journal of the American Medical Association, 321(18), 1765–1766. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.5063
Rubin, A., & Babbie, E. (2016). Essential research methods for social work (4th ed.). Cengage.
Salmon, K., & Bryant, R. A. (2002). Posttraumatic stress disorder in children: The influence of developmental factors. Clinical Psychology Review, 22, 163–188.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7358(01)00086-1
Scheeringa, M. S. and Zeanah, C. H. (2001). A relational perspective on PTSD in early childhood. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14, 799–815. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013002507972
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Siegel, A. (1996). Heinz Kohut and the psychology of the self. Routledge.
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. Guilford.
Siegel, D. J. (2012). Pocket guide to interpersonal neurobiology: An integrative handbook of the mind. Norton.
Silverstein, L. B., & Auerbach, C. F. (1999). Deconstructing the essential father. American Psychologist, 54(6), 397–407. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.6.397
Smith, B., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 194–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972
Smith, B. W., Tooley, E. M., Christopher, P. J., & Kay, V. S. (2010). Resilience as the ability to bounce back from stress: A neglected personal resource? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(3), 166–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2010.482186
Stolorow, R. (1999). The phenomenology of trauma and the absolutisms of everyday life. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 16(3), 464–468. https://doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.16.3.464
Stolorow, R. (2013). Intersubjective-systems theory: A phenomenological-contextual psychoanalytic perspective. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 23(4), 383–389.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2013.810486
Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). The posttraumatic growth inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9, 455–471.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.2490090305
Tedeschi, R. G., & Moore, B. A. (2021). Posttraumatic growth as an integrative therapeutic philosophy. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 31(2), 180–194.
https://doi.org/10.1037/int0000250
Tolpin, M. (1986). The self and its selfobjects: A different baby. Progress in Self Psychology, 2, 115–128.
Tufford, L., & Newman, P. (2010). Bracketing in qualitative research. Qualitative Social Work, 11(1), 88–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/147332501036831
Turner, D. (2010). Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice investigators. The Qualitative Report, 15(3), 754–760. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol15/iss3/19
Updegraff, J. K, Silver, R. C., & Holman, E. A. (2008). Searching for and finding meaning in collective trauma: Results from a national longitudinal study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(3), 709–722.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.709
Ulman, R., & Brothers, D. (1988). The shattered self: A psychodynamic study of trauma. Analytic Press.
U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). (2020). What to expect in the wake of mass violence. VA.gov. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/types/mass_violence_help.asp
U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). (2025a). Risk and resilience factors after disaster and mass violence. VA.gov.
van der Kolk, B. (2007). The body keeps the score: Approaches to the psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorder. In B. van der Kolk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic Stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 214–241). Guilford Press. (Original work published in 1996)
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score. Viking Press.
van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A., & van der Hart, O. (2007). A general approach to treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. In B. van der Kolk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic Stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 417–440). Guilford Press. (Original work published in 1996)
van der Westhuizen, M., Walker-Williams, H. J., & Fouché, A. (2022). Meaning making mechanisms in women survivors of childhood sexual abuse: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 24(3), 1363–1386. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380211066100
Vargas, E., & Hemenway, D. (2021). Emotional and physical symptoms after gun victimization in the United States, 2009–2019. Preventative Medicine, 143(2021), Article 106374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2020.106374
Varpio, L., Ajjawi, R., Monrouxe, L. V., O’Brien, B. C., & Rees, C. E. (2017). Shedding the cobra effect: Problematising thematic emergence, triangulation, saturation, and member checking. Medical Education, 51(1), 40–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13124
Walsh, F. (2007). Traumatic loss and major disasters: Strengthening family and community resilience. Family Process, 46(2), 207–227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15455300.2007.00205.x
Watson, P. J., Brymer, M. J., & Bonanno, G. A. (2011). Post-disaster psychological intervention since 9/11. American Psychologist, 66(6), 482–494. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024806
Winnicott, D. (1953). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena – A study of the first notme possession. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34, 89–97.
Winnicott, D. W. (1960). The theory of the parent-infant relationship. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 585–595.
Winnicott, D. (1987). The child, the family, and the outside world. Perseus. (Original work published 1964)
Winnicott, D. (2018). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. International Universities Press. (Original work published 1965)
Wolf, E. (1988). Treating the self: Elements of clinical self psychology. Guilford Press.
Ziegler, R., Howe, J., & Pasternak, G. (2004). Psychotherapeutic debriefing of children and adolescents after exposure to violence in home or community. Journal of Infant, Child, & Adolescent Psychotherapy, 3(2), 163–184.https://doi.org/10.1080/15289160309348460
Appendices
Appendix A: Interview Guide
APPENDIX A: Interview #1
**I will initially ask questions about your immediate reactions to the parade shooting, including your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I’ll then ask questions about your personal and parenting experiences following the event, and how things are now.
1. You and your family attended the 4th of July parade in Highland Park, IL in 2022. While you were there, something happened. Please tell me your story of what happened.
(Emphasis will be put on having the participants narrate as freely as possible, describing their family’s experience)
a. What words would you use to describe your immediate reaction?
b. What was most important to you in those moments of chaos?
c. Tell me about how you felt while everything was going on?
d. How did you manage your own experience, while tending to your children?
e. How did your children react?
f. What did you think your children needed most in those moments?
g. What specifically, did you do to address to their needs?
h. Have you ever experienced anything like this before?
**People react to trauma very differently with various social, emotional, or physical experiences. The next few questions have more to do with your personal experiences in the days and months following the parade event.
2. In what ways did your general sense of well-being change in the days and months following the shooting?
a. Tell me about any lingering emotions, fears, or worries, or other concerns that you had following this event?
b. Did you experience any new feelings of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic memories, nightmares, or anything else?
c. What was most difficult for you, in the days/months following the parade?
d. What did you find most helpful to supporting your own well-being?
3. What were your expectations or assumptions around safety or the goodness of others prior to this event?
a. Have your assumptions of safety changed? In what ways?
b. Do you think about your safety now in a public place? In what ways?
c. Has your parenting reflected any change in your concerns of safety?
d. Please talk about how you deal with knowing that tragic things can happen at any moment?
e. Did the parade shooting impact your sense of what you can and cannot control?
**One of the primary reasons for doing this research is that little is actually known about what parents do to help their children cope in the aftermath of a mass shooting... The next few questions will look at the parenting part of your experience.
4. In what ways did your parenting practices change in the days and months following the parade shooting?
a. What was most important to you as a parent following this event?
b. What specifically did you do to help your children cope?
c. How did you understand what each child needed most from you?
d. Did your children have different needs? How so?
e. Was there something in particular that guided your responses to their needs?
5. What specifically did you do to help your kids feel safe and secure?
a. How did you understand what your children needed most to feel safe?
b. What signs or behaviors from them, helped you understand what they needed to feel safe?
c. Any new rituals to bolster their feelings of safety?
d. In what ways were family routines impacted by this event? Did they factor into your parenting practices?
e. Upon reflection, was there one thing you did that felt most important to helping your child/children feel safe and secure?
6. How did you talk with your child/children about what happened?
a. What felt most important, as a parent, during these conversations and/or around the subject matter in general?
b. How did you know when a child needed to process or talk about this event?
c. In what ways did you help your children make sense of their feelings?
d. Did you feel it was important to encourage discussion or to limit discussion around the events of the day? How so?
e. Did your child/children act differently after the parade? In what ways?
f. How did you understand these behaviors?
**Some people seem to find a kind of strength or resiliency in surviving very difficult times…
7. In what ways, if any, have you noticed unexpected feelings of strength or resiliency that emerged since this event?
a. What has been a source of strength in the days, months, and years since the 2022 parade?
b. How have you made sense of your feelings in the years following this event?
c. Have your thoughts or feelings about yourself, or your role as a parent changed in any way?
d. What has been most meaningful to you and in your role as a parent in the three years since this event?
8. How do you make sense of your own survival and that of your children?
a. In what ways, if any, has your life been changed by survival?
b. Did you experience any kind of sadness or mourning after this event?
c. Reflecting on the social, emotional, and psychological impact of this event, how has this shaped who you are as a person, and as a parent?
d. Do your children ever talk about this event?
e. What goes through your mind now when you reflect on this shared family experience?
**Since this trauma was experienced by so many in your community, the next questions will look at this shared experience..
9. What community or other supports were most helpful in the days/months following the shooting?
a. Were there any social, emotional, or community-based supports that specifically helped you as an individual and/or as a parent?
b. In what ways did friendships and/or extended family play a part of your family’s healing?
c. Is there anything you didn’t have access to that might be important for other parents to have in the same situation?
10. If you don’t mind my asking, what was your reason for deciding to participate in this research?
a. What has this interview experience been like for you?
b. Is there anything I haven’t asked you about your personal and parenting experiences since the parade shooting, that feels important to say?
**Thank you so much for participating in this study.
Appendix B: Brief Resilience Scale (BRS)
APPENDIX B: BRIEF RESILIENCE SCALE
Scoring: Add the value (1-5) of your responses for all six items, creating a range from 6-30. Divide the sum by the total number of questions answered (6) for your final score.
Total Score: _____/ 6
My Score: _____ (average)
Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., and Bernard, J. (2008). The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the Ability to Bounce Back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 194-200.
Appendix C: Recruiting Email
APPENDIX C: RECRUITING EMAIL
Subject: Invitation to Participate in a Research Study: “Parenting in the Aftermath of a Mass Shooting”
Dear [Recipient's Name],
I hope this message finds you well. My name is Rebecca Strauss and I am a licensed clinical social worker and PhD candidate at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, Illinois. As part of my dissertation, I am conducting a research study aimed at examining the experience of parents who attended and survived the 2022 Highland Park parade with their children. Equally important will be exploring the ways in which this tragic event impacted their parenting practices.
Attached to this email, you will find a recruitment flyer that outlines the purpose of the study, eligibility criteria, and details about participation. Feel free to share this flyer with anyone you know who might be interested in participating in this study.
What’s the Study About?
This research will explore the impact of the Highland Park shooting on parents, including how parents managed their own post-traumatic experiences, understood what their children needed to feel safe, and what they specifically did to help their children cope in the aftermath of this traumatic event.
Who Can Participate?
Individuals may qualify for the study IF:
- They are parents and attended the 2022 Highland Park parade with their children
- Their children were between the ages 3-13 at time of the incident
- They reside in Highland Park, IL or Highwood, IL
- No one in their family was physically injured from the events on July 4, 2022
- No one in their family or close circle of friends lost their lives on that day
What’s Involved?
- Participation: Includes two interviews via Zoom, lasting 45 to 90 minutes each, with the possibility of a follow-up interview
- Compensation: $25 Visa gift card for each completed interview.
How to Get Involved?
Interested in participating or want more information? Please contact me directly and I will provide further details:
Rebecca Strauss, LCSW
Email: rstrauss@ICSW.edu
Thank you for your time and support.
Rebecca Strauss, LCSW
Appendix D: Recruiting Flyer 1
Research Study Seeking Parents Who Attended the Highland Park Parade With Their Children on July 4, 2022
Are you a parent of young children who attended the July 4th parade in Highland Park, IL in 2022? We would like to hear your story.
What’s This Research About?
This research will explore the ways in which this traumatic event impacted daily lives of parents, including how parents managed their own experiences, understood what their children needed most to feel safe, and what they specifically did to help their children cope.
Who Can Participate?
You may be eligible IF:
You are a parent who attended the 2022 parade with your children
Your children were between the ages 3-13 at the time of the incident
You reside in Highland Park or Highwood, IL
No one in your family was injured due to events on July 4, 2022
No one in your family or close circle of friends lost their lives on July 4, 2022
What’s Involved?
Interviews: Participate in two conversations lasting 45 to 90 minutes, with the possibility of a follow-up interview if needed.
How to Get Involved?
Interested in participating or want more information? Please contact me directly and I will provide further details:
Rebecca Strauss, LCSW Email: rstrauss@ICSW.edu
Your voice matters. Your insights will contribute to understanding the ways parents are impacted following such a traumatic event and how they can best support their children in its aftermath. Participation is voluntary, and all information will remain confidential. Thank you for considering this opportunity.
Rebecca Strauss, LCSW PhD Candidate Institute for Clinical Social Work
Chicago, Illinois
Appendix E: Recruiting Flyer 2
Seeking Participants for Important Research Study on Parenting in the Aftermath of a Mass Shooting
I am licensed clinical social worker and a PhD candidate at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, Illinois. I would like to share an opportunity for parents who attended the Highland Park parade with their children on July 4, 2022.
We are conducting a research study aimed at understanding the experience of parents and their specific parenting practices following this tragic event. If you attended the parade with your children, and survived without injury to yourself or your children, we want to hear your story.
What’s the Study About?
This research will explore the ways in which this traumatic event impacted daily lives of parents, how parents managed their own post-traumatic experiences, understood what their children needed most to feel safe, and what they specifically did to help their children cope.
Who Can Participate?
You may qualify IF:
You are a parent who attended the 2022 parade with your children
Your children were between the ages 3-13 at the time of the incident
You reside in Highland Park or Highwood, IL
No one in your family was injured due to events on July 4, 2022
No one in your family or close circle of friends lost their lives on July 4, 2022
What’s Involved?
Interviews: Participate in 2 conversations lasting 45 to 90 minutes, with the possibility of a follow-up interview if needed.
Compensation: A $25 Visa gift card will be provided for each completed interview.
How to Get Involved?
Interested in participating or want more information? Please contact me directly and I will provide further details.
Rebecca Strauss, LCSW Email: rstrauss@ICSW.edu
Your voice matters, and your insights will contribute to a better understanding of the ways parents are impacted and how they can best support children following a traumatic event. Participation is voluntary, and all information will remain confidential. Thank you for considering this opportunity.
Rebecca
Strauss, LCSW
Appendix F: Informed Consent
Institute for Clinical Social Work Research Information and Consent for Participation is Social Behavioral Research
Parenting in the Aftermath of a Mass Shooting
I, ________________________________________________, acting for myself, agree to take part in the research entitled “Parenting in the Aftermath of a Mass Shooting.”
This work will be carried out by Rebecca J. Strauss, LCSW under the supervision of Dr. John Ridings, PhD, LCSW.
This work is being conducted under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work; At St. Augustine College, 1345 W. Argyle St., Chicago, IL 60640; (773)935-6500.
Purpose
The purpose of this phenomenological research study will be to explore your life experience and parenting practices following the Highland Park parade shooting on July 4, 2022. We aim to understand the ways in which your direct experience of a mass shooting has impacted you and your family, your perception of personal or public safety, and your efforts to re-establish a sense of safety and security for your children. The findings may provide insight as to what other parents can do to best help children cope following a traumatic event and contribute to guidelines for clinical social workers who support survivors of other disasters.
Procedures used in the study and duration
You will take part in two, one-on-one interviews over Zoom, lasting about 60-90 minutes each, with the possibility of a follow-up interview if needed. During each interview, we will ask openended questions that encourage you to share detailed responses about your life experiences following the Highland Park shooting and the ways this event altered your parenting practices. As a token of appreciation, you will receive a $25 Visa gift card for completing each interview.
Benefits
You may gain insight into your own post-trauma experience and recognize the parenting strategies most crucial in helping your children cope. While there may not be direct benefits to you, your participation may contribute to the broader knowledge about parenting in the aftermath of a mass shooting and inform future guidelines for community resources and survivor supports.
Costs
There are no monetary costs associated with your participation in this study.
Possible Risks and/or Side Effects
Participating in this study may cause some emotional discomfort when discussing your personal experiences relating to the Highland Park shooting. You can choose not to answer any questions or you can prefer to skip questions. If needed, we will provide referrals to counseling services. Specific risks cannot be predicted due to the nature of qualitative research.
Privacy and Confidentiality
Your privacy will be protected throughout this study. Identifiable information will be kept separate from research data, which will be stored securely. After the study is completed, data will be permanently deleted from all electronic devices. Only the research team will have access to identifiable data, and none of this information will be saved online or through the internet.
You will be asked to choose a pseudonym that we will use to identify your data in the study. A pseudonym will also be chosen for any additional individuals you mention in the information you share with us. If you do not want to choose a pseudonym, one can be assigned to you. As each interview will take place on Zoom, please arrange to have your interview in a part of your home where you will have privacy.
We will record the interview using the digital recording and transcription functions of Zoom on a desktop computer. Digital recording files and the transcription will be labeled using your chosen/assigned pseudo name. These files will be individually password protected and stored on a password protected computer. Any transcription files that are printed to aid in the analysis process will be stored in a locked drawer, and/or immediately destroyed after use.
Subject Assurances
By signing this consent form, you agree to take part in this study. You have not given up any of your rights or released this institution from responsibility for carelessness.
You may cancel this consent and refuse to continue in this study at any time without penalty or loss of benefits. Your relationship with the staff of ICSW will not be affected in any way, now or in the future, if you refuse to take part, or if you begin the study and then withdraw.
If you have any questions about the research methods, you can contact Rebecca Strauss via email at rstrauss@icsw.edu or Dr. John Ridings by phone at (312) 415-6083 or by email at Jridings@icsw.edu
If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, you may contact Dr. John Ridings, Chair of Institutional Review Board; The Institute for Clinical Social Work; At St. Augustine College, 1345 W. Argyle St., Chicago, IL 60640; (773) 935-6500; irbchair@icsw.edu.
Signatures
For the Participant
I have read this consent form and I agree to take part in this study as it is explained in this consent form:
Participant Name (please print): ___________________________________
Participant Signature: Date: _____________
1. Would you like a summary of the results of this study?
Yes: ____
No: ____
For the Primary Researcher
I certify that I have explained the research to _________________________ and believe that they understand and that they have agreed to participate freely. I agree to answer any additional questions when they arise during the research or afterward.
Researcher Name (please print): ___Rebecca J. Strauss, LCSW______________
Researcher Signature: Date: _____________
Appendix G: Researcher Script for Responding to Potential Subjects
Thank you so much for reaching out. I appreciate your willingness to consider participating in my study. There are a few things we need to cover before we move forward. Sound good?
(Their response..)
I am a PhD student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago. I am conducting this research to explore the impact on parents and their parenting practices following a mass shooting, specifically the one that occurred in Highland Park, IL on July 4, 2022.
My goal is to examine the ways parents were affected by this traumatic event, how they understood what their children needed to feel safe and secure following it, and what they did to help their children cope in its aftermath.
There is very little research on this phenomenon so your participation may contribute greatly to the current knowledge base!!
In an effort to minimize any risk to you, I’d like to ask 5 yes/no questions that might make you feel a bit vulnerable or emotional. They are necessary in determining who will be eligible for this study. Are you okay with this?
1. Did you attend the Highland Park 4th of July parade with your children in 2022? (YES)
2. Were your children between the ages of 3-13 at the time of the event? (YES)
3. Do you reside in either Highland Park or Highwood, IL? (YES)
4. Were you or anyone in your immediate family injured from the mass shooting? (NO)
5. Did anyone in your family or close circle of friends lose their life in the mass shooting? (NO)
***For inclusion in the study: Answers to # 1-3 must be “yes.” Answers to # 4-5 must be “no.”
For those who do not qualify: I really appreciate your willingness to consider participating, however I’m afraid you cannot be a part of this study because …… Thank you so much for your time.
For those who do qualify: There are just a few other things we need to determine. Are you willing to participate in two, 60-90 minute interviews via Zoom, with the possibility of a third interview if needed?
Since our meetings will take place over Zoom, will you be able to find a private and quiet place in which to do the interviews?
Are you okay being recorded? As each interview will be audio and video recorded via the Zoom platform. The interviews will transcribed using a professional transcription service, Rev.com. A pseudonym, or false name of your choosing, will be used with all of your transcripts. In fact, all data from your participation in the study will include your chosen pseudonym to assure your privacy.
That’s it. Do you think you would like to participate in this study?
OK then.. I will email you a Survey Monkey link to complete the Brief Resilience Scale as a part of the final selection process. Based on the results, we will schedule one, in-person meeting to go through the informed consent process in more detail. This can either be at my office located at 899 Skokie Blvd, Suite 342, in Northbrook or at a location of your choosing, so long as it provides a quiet space to talk. Then the research process begin!
Date Received:
Participant’s Name:
Appendix H: Demographic Questionnaire
Institute for Clinical Social Work Demographic Information Sheet for Participation is Social Behavioral Research: Parenting in the Aftermath of a Mass Shooting
1. What is your age? _____ yrs old
2. What is your gender? _____ Female _____ Male _____ Other: _____________________
3. What is your marital status? _____Single
4. What is your race? _____ Black
Hispanic
Asian
White
Other: _____________________
5. What is your religious affiliation?
Protestant
Roman Catholic
Mormon
Orthodox
Jewish
Buddhist
Hindu
Muslim
Sikh
Atheist
Agnostic
Unaffiliated
Other: _____________________
6. What is your highest level of education?
High School
_____ Undergraduate
_____ Graduate or beyond
7. What were the ages of your children at the time of the 2022 parade?
Child 1: _____
Child 2: _____
Child 3: _____
Child 4: _____
Child 5: _____
8. What is your chosen pseudonym? ___________________________________________
Appendix I: Informed Consent Script
Informed Consent Script
The informed consent process will include explaining the purpose of the study, expected length of the interviews, and potential benefits and possible risks to each participant. You will be informed that there are no costs to participating and that all of the information will remain confidential. You will also be informed that you can terminate your consent and stop the process at any time. I will read and review this consent and then ask you what your understanding of the study is, in order to confirm your informed consent. If you agree, you will sign the consent to participate in this research study.
We are conducting a research study aimed at understanding the experience of parents and their specific parenting practices following the Highland Park parade shooting on July 4, 2022. This research will explore the impact of a mass shooting on parents, how parents understand what their children need most to feel safe and secure, and what parents specifically do to help their children cope following such an event.
You will be asked to take part in two, 60-90 minute interviews via Zoom and the possibility of a third follow up interview, if necessary. You will be given a $25 Visa gift card upon completion of each Zoom interview as a thank you for your participation. There are no other known benefits to you for participating in this study.
A potential risk to participating is that you might experience intense emotions as a result of talking about your experience. Should this happen and you wish to receive outside support, I will provide the necessary referrals for individual therapy services. These referrals will include licensed practitioners who accept private insurance.
You do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to answer. You can stop the interviews and/or withdraw your participation at any time without consequences. There are no costs to participating.
All information shared will remain confidential. Identifying information will not be included in the research and will be located in a separate, locked location from all other data. My committee members and I will be the only individuals who have access to the raw data. The information will be disguised, under a pseudonym of your choosing. Audio/visual recordings and all documents related to the study will be password protected. After the mandated five-year postgraduation time has been met, I will personally destroy all paper data by shredding it. All electronic data will be deleted.
Do you understand the purpose of the study and your rights as a participant?
What will happen if:
o there is a question that you do not answer?
o you want to stop the interview?
o you want to withdraw from the study?
Can you summarize what we are trying to understand in this study?
Do you have any questions for me before we schedule our first Zoom interview?
