Are you going to talk to your kids about the shooting today?

[happyhomemaker25]

I did not see a similar topic addressed. What are you going to say? How are you going to do it? When my kids were little we could get away with not mentioning it, but they are older now and will hear about it from their peers. I just don't even know what to say....

[LarlaB]

I'm not planning on bringing it up w/ my kiddos- they are little. :( Buuuut, as w/ the last tragedy (a young girl abducted & murdered in our area) they found out about it anyway- newspaper, public signs etc. So, I'm prepared-

 

Here is a great resource!!! http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/terror_general.aspx

[Catwoman]

My ds12 saw it on the news before I did. Sadly, this sort of thing has happened quite a few times, so there was no need for major discussion, other than to talk about how awful it was, and how those involved must be feeling. :(

 

Praying for the families.

[HomeschoolMamaOfTwo]

They did not see or hear anything about it today. Unless they find out another way somehow, I'm not going to bring it up with them. But if they do, I will talk to them about it for sure. I just don't see any need to do it when they have no clue right now. It would just bring up things that may not need to be discussed just yet.

[Veritaserum]

I talked about this with my 12yo because we were listening to the radio in the car when the news was reported. I emphasized to her that these tragedies are rare and unlikely to ever impact one of us directly. I want her to be able to sleep at night. I don't think I'll bring it up with the other kids.

[Murphy101]

We watched it on the tv from about 10 to after lunch.

And talked about it in and off.

 

Now they are playing wii and eating cookies.

Because that's how kids roll.

Thank God.

[Jennifer3141]

Already did. We ended up having a long discussion about whether this was real or imaginary DVD stuff.

[regentrude]

My kids have seen it on the internet already. We all agree that it is horrible and sad. I can not think of anything else that needs to be said.

[PrincessMommy]

Not unless they want to. My 10 year old heard about it because we were talking about it. He didn't say much.

 

this is what happened to us. Mine didn't say much either. Perhaps over the next few days it might come up.

[lamppost]

Mine are 3 and 5 so if we can avoid the subject we will. We're being careful to keep news away for now (TV, internet, radio). If they find out some other way we will have to talk to them about it but at this age since they haven't already heard I feel it's best not to tell them.

[Parrothead]

Yeah, I'll talk to dd tonight when we have our long talks. It will be hard for her.

[DawnM]

Warning: Christian Content!

 

My almost 15 year old was very sad about the whole thing and told me he was grateful he was homeschooled. I explained that this can happen anywhere and for those of us who know God, we can't live in fear, but we can be ready when the day comes for us to leave this world.

 

My 8 year old doesn't quite comprehend but said it was horrible and sad.

[whitestavern]

Well, we live in CT so it was the only thing on the radio and TV, and everyone everywhere was discussing it. My dc are old enough so we discussed it, but it was difficult trying to give them answers to "why". DS has some anxiety issues so I'm trying to let the dc lead the conversation/questions. Counselors interviewed on the radio said that children are usually good at talking through things like this if you let them know you're open to it.

[Embassy]

I'll talk to them if they find out somehow. I don't plan on telling them though. We don't have TV stations so they won't see it on the news.

[5LittleMonkeys]

My older girls know. They said it was horrid and they couldn't imagine having that happen to their own little sisters or brother. They also said they felt bad for the surviving members of the shooter's family. We also talked about how there are more children who die daily throughout the world than died today at that school and how people react differently when death happens en masse.

 

I've not, nor will I mention it to my younger dc.

[nmoira]

Not today. Not right after the mall shooting here. I'll wait until next week, when I'll be able to share some facts, rather than just wild speculation.

[sassenach]

I did before PE, because I thought it was possible that another kid would mention it. I'm sure it'll be a series of conversations in the coming weeks.

[8circles]

No. My oldest is 9 and I'd like to spare him this event for now. We have talked about other tragedies but this one seems especially horrific since children were so targeted.

[Alessandra]

I think a number of kids will hear or sense one way or another. We are not in CT, but still police were deployed around every school here. And the line of parents waiting at pick up time started about half an hour earlier than usual. No announcement was made in the schools, but I think kids will figure out that something bad has happened. Our school website advises limiting exposure as much as possible.

 

Unfortunately, I was in the car with dd when I heard the news. It took a while to figure out what was happening. Tears fell (from both of us).

 

No TV here, thank goodness, and I haven't looked on the internet, partly because I don't want to see too much and partly because I don't want dc to dwell on at the time it is happening.

[Sahamamama]

Not at all. See ages in sig. And we have no TV, so that should help them avoid it.

 

Here I was, all geared to NOT tell my young children, and my husband goes and tells them all about it.

 

I am PEEVED. :toetap05:

[Guest inoubliable]

Already did here. They saw it pop up on a news feed. It ended up being a good discussion about personal rights (gun control), how different people are going to deal with the grief (some people pray, some people go to the community to be a physical presence, some people will donate money to help with medical bills, some people will reevaluate things in their life, etc.), mental illness. DS12 is trying to find a way to send cards to anyone injured in the hospital - I'm afraid that will be difficult to find.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I told my kids what happened. They were sorry that it happened but did not talk about it much more than that. They were much more upset and engaged when there was a local shooting and a friend of a friend was there when it happened.

[happyhomemaker25]

My kids don't play on the internet. Well, right now they are grounded from the internet. DH and I were shopping all day so they were watching dvds. They have not heard anything about it yet. We are going to a party tomorrow and church on Sunday so I think they will hear about it at some point. I just want them to hear about it from me first. My oldest is 15 and then 12, and 11. My 9 will be oblivious, but I know my 6yo will pick up some of the talk. He's very attuned to adult conversation. I just think we should probably address is tonight.

I'm thinking I will just stick with a man walked into a school today and killed some kids and adults. There was probably something wrong with him. We need to pray for all of these families tonight.

From there I will ask them to come to me with any questions or any other information they get. I will ask them not to discuss it with their younger siblings unless daddy or I are present. One of my kids has a flair for the dramatic and will repeat everything she hears from her peers. She will also embellish with stuff she does not know. I think that it will be a good idea to try to filter this child around the siblings.

Does that sound dumb?

[happyhomemaker25]

Not at all. See ages in sig. And we have no TV, so that should help them avoid it.

 

 

I miss mine being that young. We did not share a lot with them at that point. I was not worried about them catching it on the news because we don't have t.v and they did not have internet access. They would not hear about it from their peers because most of my friends and I "sheltered" our kids against it at that age. I don't think I have that option anymore though. :(

[happypamama]

I'm not going to talk about it with the kids unless I have to. I'm not going to tell them about it. They still don't know about 9/11, and when the Penn State scandal hit last year (and was very big in our area), DH and I were very careful to keep the kids shielded from it. They have extremely limited internet access, and I'll keep it that way (no social media or news or anything). I don't have a problem with them learning about bad things in age-appropriate ways, but when it involves children, I'm particularly sensitive to keeping it away from them. (My 10yo is not generally sensitive or scared, but she gets really upset about anything that sounds like social injustice or bad things happening to people. She was really upset when she learned about the earthquake in Haiti a while ago; I don't think she needs to know about this unless she happens to get wind of it from somewhere.)

 

Happyhomemaker25, I don't think that sounds dumb; I think that sounds wise.

[ChristineW]

If I can avoid them ever finding out so much the better. My kids attend PS, and it was incredibly difficult to drop DD5 off at afternoon kindergarten today. Six kids in her class were absent out of a class of 22 so I imagine some parents kept their babies home. My oldest is in first grade. They love school and are both especially sensitive. I don't want them to be scared especially now when its all about the menorahs, gingerbread, and polar express at school.

[lynn]

My 7 year old does not know . We are keeping the tv off for a few days.

[Lucy the Valiant]

Us, too.

[jujsky]

We watched some of it on the news today. DD was scared and upset. DS did okay with it. They listened to DH and I talk about it during dinner tonight. I'm pretty open with my kids. I don't shield them from very much. It's going to be all over the media and everyone is going to be talking about, so better they hear it from me.

[Mélie]

I don't plan to bring it up, but if they see newspapers or magazine covers about it (we'll be in airports twice next week) I'll just give the very basics, but answer all their questions. I think that's all we can do at their age.

[Spy Car]

Mercifully my son's plea to listen to his new favorite radio-station, Noventa-Tres Punta Nueve (93.9) a Spanish language station that plays today's hits (in English) was honored by his mother (who was unaware of the news) rather than listening to her usual NPR. And since my child neither understands Spanish, nor is there any news on this station that I'm aware of, he came home blissfully unaware. If I can I will keep it that way.

 

Bill (who will aim for news black-out)

[Forget-Me-Not]

I probably won't discuss it with mine. They aren't aware of it, though my littlest seems to sense my distress today and has been cuddlier than usual.

[Kirch]

I miss mine being that young. We did not share a lot with them at that point. I was not worried about them catching it on the news because we don't have t.v and they did not have internet access. They would not hear about it from their peers because most of my friends and I "sheltered" our kids against it at that age. I don't think I have that option anymore though. :(

I wish I did have that option too. I'd rather not have that discussion at their ages (6 & 8), but I can almost guarantee they'll hear about it at church tomorrow (play rehearsal) or Sunday--it's happened before. :( I'll do it as low-key as possible, but my 8yo is a worrier and will probably fixate on it. A family here in town had a fire a few months ago and he was obsessed with it--and no one was even hurt in that. Not looking forward to the conversation. I may wait until tomorrow so he doesn't have trouble sleeping. :(

[*Lulu*]

I imagine mine will hear about at church either Saturday or Sunday. DH and I will discuss tonight what we should say prior to services tomorrow.

[Freckles]

I was prepared to tell my girls when I picked them up from school today, but they had already heard about it. We talked a little bit. They seem to be handling this horror so much better than I am. I have been crying all day.

[Psyche]

Our son is 6 and we already talked about it a bit. He heard about the shootings in Colorado at karate so we wanted him to be prepared.

[mama2cntrykids]

I talked to my kids about it b/c they saw it over my shoulder when I was reading yahoo this morning. It's so hard to discus, isn't it?

 

I just talked about how the person obviously had mental problems. People that are right in the head just don't do that kind of thing, I told them a that this was a person that must have been in a very bad place inside their head. Then we talked about the kids that witnessed it and what they must be going through.

 

My kids did say that they're glad to be hs'd. I think when seeing these kinds of things, being hs'd gives them a sense of security. I'm glad that we could talk about it.

[annandatje]

No.

[8circles]

DH was driving DS9 to his show tonight and passed some flags at half-mast. DS asked why they were at half mast & DH told him and then asked him his thoughts. He responded "I don't want to talk about it". Sigh. Im sure there will be questions in the next few days.

[swellmomma]

I did. My bigs heard about it when they read over my shoulder while I was reading about it. So I started with talking to them, and the littles asked what was going on. I did not get into the nitty gritty with any of them. I just told them that a bad man hurt a bunch of kids in a school with a gun and that many of the hurt children had died. We talked about how the parents of those hurt and killed kids will have broken hearts right now and could use some extra help from God right now, so we prayed for them. We talked about how kids are usually safe at school and other such places, that this was just a very bad person and that that person could not hurt anyone again. (added that part to it because my ds9 started to panic about what would happen if he ever had to go to ps). Every now and then today someone will say or see something that makes one of the kids think about it, and we stop what we are doing and pray in that moment. I assume there will be many more times in the coming days that we stop what we are doing for a moment to pray for the kids and their families.

 

(we started this back when a van crashed into a school and landed in a below ground classroom crushing 3 kids, 1 of which died. It was much closer to home than this shooting, but the kids liked that when they thought about it we would stop and pray. It helps them feel better about the bad stuff in the world)

[SKL]

Not if I can help it. They are the same ages as those kids who were murdered. They go to school and I don't need them worrying about school shooters. I also don't like to get into violent talk anyway, especially since my 5yo can be quite morbid and ask a thousand questions. It's just too raw.

 

Up until about 2 weeks ago, the lady in charge of the "late room" at school used to have the TV news on while the kids were there. When she realized my kids were coming home and telling me about the child rapes and murders they were hearing about, she realized they were really listening, and she decided not to have the news on TV any more. Thank goodness. That was what I worried about after I heard about this - that my kids would be sitting there listening to it while waiting for me to pick them up at school. I was relieved to find they had not been clued in.

[BigMamaBird]

We sort of have to. We were at Pizza Hut with Dd's Book It coupon and all four of their giant TVs were blaring pretty explicit news footage. God Bless the employee who came in, looked at the room full of kids, did a double take at the TV and switched it to Sponge Bob!

[La Texican]

Here is the Scholastic News version.

http://sni.scholastic.com/top-news/2012/12/A-Tragedy-in-Connecticut?cid=SN/e/20121214///CTadvice//////&ym_MID=1455116&ym_rid=19428600

 

I used it as a template to decide what to say. I said there was bad news today. Somebody shot twenty people and they died. This is a very rare that these things happen, only a few times ever. Obama told the mayor of that town he would try to help. (We recently followed the election so I followed Scholastic's lead that maybe a familar name would help.)

 

We talked about it happened. It almost never happens, only two or three times. It was very sad. I did not say it was at school or that it was kids. He might hear about it (check the siggy- he's in half day pre-k), and he might hear it on the morning news if they're still talking about it on Monday. The hubby watches the news getting ready for work.

[bolt.]

We had an evening winter concert event with my dd5's preschool tonight. I found out about an hour before we left, and was quite shaken. I thought some of the adults would be similarly out-of-sorts, so I told them (dd5 & dd8) that, "There was a really bad accident in the United States <we're Canadian> and that people were sad and upset about it." DD8 asked what it was, and I said that I didn't want them to be sad too, so I wasn't going to tell them.

 

I know 'accident' wasn't entirely accurate, since the shooting was clearly a deliberate act of violent crime... but it seems to me that it was sort of 'accidental' that such a man got to that kind of extreme state.

 

Later, I might explain more, but I think it would be likely to insight fearfulness more than anything else. I hope it will fade, but if they ask again, I will probably be age-appropriate-honest. Thanks for the scholastic news version.

[Shellydon]

No.

[Arcadia]

. And since my child neither understands Spanish, nor is there any news on this station that I'm aware of, he came home blissfully unaware. If I can I will keep it that way.

 

Bill (who will aim for news black-out)

My school district superintendent just sent out an email to all parents about the news and what they are doing about it. One of the items mentioned was that there will be drills for this kind of emergency.

[Spy Car]

 

My school district superintendent just sent out an email to all parents about the news and what they are doing about it. One of the items mentioned was that there will be drills for this kind of emergency.

 

Our school does regular drills for emergencies, and is in a legitimate fire-zone with limited access.

 

Security getting into to the school is pretty limited. One has to pass through the office, but...

 

To tell you the truth I hope things don't change at our school security wise. I would hate to feel like we are on permanent lock-down.

 

Bill

[Word Nerd]

I talked briefly with my older DD about it. I asked my 2nd grader if they had talked about any news at school today. She told me something about an inflatable Santa on a motorcycle, so I asked her a few more questions and she didn't give any indication that she had heard about it. I haven't told her anything yet, though she might wonder why I have been giving her extra hugs tonight. When I read what happened earlier today, I pictured what the scene in that classroom must have been like, and I can't get that horrible image out of my head. I don't want it in hers. :crying:

 

We don't have regular TV so she won't be exposed to news coverage, but I can't imagine that she won't hear about it at all in the coming days, with funerals and more news coverage. I just haven't decided what to say yet, and I'm not in the right state of mind.

[Word Nerd]

My school district superintendent just sent out an email to all parents about the news and what they are doing about it. One of the items mentioned was that there will be drills for this kind of emergency.

 

Our school already has "intruder" drills just as they do fire and tornado drills.

[sparrow]

Since I was intermittently shedding tears, though trying to hide it, throughout the day, my kids asked what was going on and I told them.

 

My ds came out of his room at about 10:45 asking more questions. Wondering how many kids died and did we know why the shooter did it. He has a sensitive, thoughtful soul. This will affect him for a while :crying: .