Just Curious How Others Have Handled Telling Their Kids About Yesterday...

I agree with others who suggest telling her that he was mentally ill. When my son (5) asks about people he might see 'acting out' (we have a lot of mentally ill homeless people here in Portland, and some are loud and visible) I keep it short and sweet. "You know, honey, his brain just isn't working right. We know that most people are friendly, but this man feels that they are scary." Keeping it super simple helps.

Don't let her rack her brain to figure this out. Let her know that he was likely ill and needed medical attention that he probably didn't get.

Let her know how sad you feel and that you are scared too, but we can't let these things interfere with our own lives.

My daughter had to go to college away from home right after 9-1-1. She told me she wasn't going. I told her she would go and carry on with life like normal. We were all scared, but she would have missed out and messed up a wonderful life.

My daughter is in 7th grade. Her principal made an announcement about it and then they all said a prayer. When she got home, I asked her what was said at school- from teachers and from students, to find out what they were saying and clear up any misinformation. She told me and I asked her if she had any questions. She said no. I randomly asked a few questions throughout the evening to gauge where she was at. But she really didn't want to talk about it much. She had very limited information, and just feels sad for the victims and families.

You did the right thing, because your daughter would have heard things at school on Monday and been unprepared and scared. If she is still upset and anxious, just go over what she can and can't control. She can't control the evil in the world, she can be aware of what's going on around her and trust her gut. Etc. If she's really anxious, go with her to the school and meet with either the counselor or the principal and just ask them to reassure her that they have safety measures in place. Sometimes it's comforting to hear from authority that they do take the kids' safety seriously and are prepared. That should help. Good luck, so hard for kids to understand. :-(

Reassure her over and over again that she is safe. The adults in her world work every day to make sure that she and other children are safe. The person (I refuse to call him a man) who committed this atrocity killed himself, so we will never know his reasons for doing what he did, but know that bad things happen, but very rarely.

Then let her know that if she's really anxious, you will call the school counselor and make an appointment for her this week.

Here is some excellent advice on how to share this type of news with children. I highly recommend reading this!

http://fci.org/new-site/par-tragic-events.html

It wasn't a choice here. We live about a half hour from where it occurred. My kids (MS and HS) came home already knowing - there's kids getting texts and internet, we were on lock in all afternoon with level I emergency dismissal procedures (including sheriff presence). Teachers in the district where my kids go and where I teach had kids of their own in Sandy Hook Elementary yesterday (thankfully these teachers' kids came home safely). My kids already knew that things like this happen. A sixth grader is old enough to know that these things happen sometimes. There are sick and evil people out there in the world and sometimes they act out. While we don't want to make it sound like these things happen everyday, if your child has been shielded from this til now, it's time for her to know that bad things happen for no good reason. She can understand that this happening at an elementary school in CT doesn't mean that it will be happening in her school or most other schools, any time soon or ever. When something like this happens, it's good for kids to get together with friends and discuss it together. Also, be sure that she knows that she can go and see the school counselor on Monday if she is still having a rough time.

I have a 9 year old third grader and a 6 year old first grader and I opted not to tell them. I did ask a lot of questions Friday to pry around and see if they had heard anything about what happened and neither of them indicated they knew anything. We are in Omaha, Nebraska and we live mere blocks from the High School where (almost 2 years ago) a student walked into the school shot the Vice Principal and the Principal, killing the Vice Principal. My daughter was in first grade at the time and the school went into a "code red" and were in lock down. I know she was very upset that someone was killed in school. For that very reason I did NOT bring up the subject, telling them what they didn't already know seems unnecessary. If kids talk about it today at school and they learn about what happened I am happy to sit with them and reassure them that they are very safe at school and answer any and all questions they might have but I don't feel I need to tell them about it and cause fear, anxiety or sadness if it's not necessary. Telling them won't make it go away or make it any different it will only put fear into them and cause them to question safety at school, a second time for my daughter. Maybe I am doing the wrong thing by not telling them but I just don't see any good coming from it, if they were older I might have had the discussion over the weekend.

I think the worst thing parents can do is "tell" their kids. Such drama nearly always creates unneeded fear. As always I was prepared to answer questions, as it is none came.

My youngest who is eleven stopped and listened to the news for a few minutes, said whack job, and walked away. Seems like she has a pretty good handle on the situation.

I know she didn't linger because she didn't want to deal with the horror of who died but I don't think she should have to internalize that anyway. I guess that is another thing I find strange about how most parents handle this, why should a child have to internalize the horror? I an actually shocked that there is a sort of dick measuring contest going on in my Facebook, who's child is more upset. I don't understand, perhaps it is just me. I am glad my kids aren't upset.

I told my 11 yr old son in a calm manner but didn't get into major details. I didn't get emotional or make him watch the news. He did read about it online afterwards, but seems to not relate it to his life. He asked some questions and I answered them. My younger two overheard but didn't seem to process it.

Just assure your daughter that her school is secure and that the chances of that happening are low. I think the news said school related tragedies happen 1% of the time. I told my son that some people are mental and do bad things. I just said to them all that he was a bad guy. They seem to understand that.

My kids are 14 (9th grade), 17 (senior) and 19. They were aware of it before they got home, but I also had the news on. And they were already familiar with things like this happening in the world. They were familiar with this type of thing when they were in middle school too because of the Virginia tech shooting (I had a cousin attending VT at the time so it was a personal issue).

I simply explained to them that while I can't positively guarantee it will NEVER happen, the chances of it happening at their school was very very low. That the teachers and school took a lot of measures to make sure they were as safe as possible.

As for the why of things like this .. I simply tell them that some people's brains don't work the same way other's do ... and since I have a child who is on the autism spectrum they get that. That the person who did this (and that) weren't "evil monsters" ... they had a sickness that led them to do this.

I've had hallucinations twice in my life ... once when I was 10 (and is a major reason I never did drugs) and once in my late 20's. When I was 10 it was because I was sick with a really high fever. In my 20's it was a reaction to Vicodin. I can tell you this .. I would NOT want to have to live with that every day of my life. Seeing things you know intellectually can't POSSIBLY be happening yet you're seeing them plain as day. Hearing voices that don't belong to anyone or anything, no matter how much you search for the source ... because you KNOW intellectually that voices don't just happen from nowhere. From personal experience ... THAT is terrifying. And If I had to deal with that day in and day out ... I can't imagine just what that would drive me to.

The young man who committed this horrible act was sick ... that doesn't excuse what he did. But none of us who have a brain that functions the way it should, for the most part, can understand or comprehend what it was like inside that boys head. And I personally feel immense sadness for ALL involved ... in the end they were all victims.

My son's in middle school (14 yr old) - 8th grade.
They made no announcement at school yesterday.
They'll be talking about it - it's an unavoidable current event.
If your child is older, no doubt they'll hear about it on Twitter and/or Facebook or on the bus or email or someplace else on the internet (and lot's of people access it on their smart phones).
When my son came home I let him know something bad happened and we watched the news together.
It was his choice to turn it off when it became repetitive (which didn't take very long).
(They discussed 9/11 in 6th grade (he was not quite 3 when it happened).
We didn't talk to him about 9/11 till he was in about 5th grade.)
He tells me some kids in school will be very emotional about this but most will listen and not think too much about it.
You know your kids best.
You have to decide what level of information they can handle.

My kids kinda found out by mistake.

We have Netflix and every once and a while it will cut out and then just flip back to whatever channel the TV was on to begin with.

This happened and one of the sick Entertainment shows was covering what had happened.

Instantly my oldest started asking questions.

So without too much detail, I explained what had happened and that, we were safe.

My youngest dont really connect the images with real life. My oldest kind of gets it.

I think in the wake of any tragedy it is common for people to want to bring it up, yet can be awkward to have a discussion on. We still need to connect on the issue. Especially when it is this bad.

This has turned the Holiday into a time to truly hold our loved ones near. Take time to realize that each and every life is effected by someone else. And for this reason we need to think of people other then ourselves. I think it is truly time we do something. Talking about it is not good enough anymore.

We need to show our kids we want better. It takes an honest conversation, making it a group effort.

We witnessed a group of children loose their innocence yesterday.

Every child that will hear of it and understand, will loose a bit of their innocence as well.

We parents have a new worry to add to our minds.

This is about Gun control, as much as it is about the Social awareness that needs to happen, about the dangers of the mentally ill and unstable.

More and more men and women are coming back from War zones. Not receiving the right amount of care. Having to fight for treatment and what is due to them. We can bet that as the try and re-socialize, they will go off the deep end. At least the ones who we have already lost and just dont know it yet.

We need to make our families(kids included) and community aware of the issue and then figure out a plan of action on how to ''fix'' or understand those hurting(normally the responsible) better.

I have a hard time blaming the responsible when they are not mentally right.

Sorry I went totally off topic to some degree. This is an awful situation. I am still trying to make sense of it all.