School shooting - Is shielding my 7 year old from the news the right thing to do?
My wife and I have been very conscious to not turn on the news in front of my 7 year old soon since the shooting in Newtown, CT - whether that be TV or internet. Part of me wants to have a discussion with him but I don't want to freak him out. He's normally cool as a cucumber so I don't think he'd be that freaked out but why open a Pandora's Box if I didn't have to??? How have other EN'ers dealt with this topic with their elementary school-aged kids?
On a sidenote, I attended my tri club's Christmas party last night and it was interesting listening to other's perspectives on the shootings as it related to gun control, home protection, personal defense and so on. Everyone wanted to talk with me about it because of what I do for a living (I'm a FBI Agent for those that didn't know). This is Texas so the gun control debate isn't "much" of a debate here but I got a lot of questions about what guns would I choose for home protection. I always tell people that I have guns because of my job and if I didn't have my job I wouldn't have any guns. The reason I never possessed a gun prior to joining the FBI 10 years ago was I didn't personally see the need to have one. I didn't hunt, I didn't collect, and I didn't live in a high crime area where home protection was an actual concern. Nothing has changed besides my job - I still don't hunt, I don't collect and I live in an even more upper-middle class suburb than before. I think some were taken aback by my personal views because they probably assumed a law enforcement guy living in Texas was gung-ho about firearms. I'm just not. I'm pretty well set when the zombie apocalypse comes as I have an M4, two Glocks and a ton of ammunition. 
Comments
I am not a FBI agent, but I do own several guns in Liberal biased NJ. My guns are locked in a safe in my closet. I grew up as a hunter and my dad has a dozen guns under his bed in Pennsylvania. He taught me to respect guns (ands fireworks...) So i am one of the people who believes that if we had super strict gun laws then the ONLY people who would own guns would be the criminals. And the areas of the country with the loosest gun laws (i.e. Texas) actually much lower gun crimes compared to the areas with the strictest gun control laws (i.e. Washington DC)
If you want to read more about this here's an article written by a group at a notoriously Liberal institution: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
I would personally blame our culture of violence on things like video games, movies, and TV shows that glamorize blowing things up and killing people...
When they start to ask, we try to be as truthful and open as possible.
@ Kevin - I would be honest with him if he were to ask about it. Odds are that he will hear about it at school next week.
Bob - our kids are 7, 10, and 12. Last night Gen and I spoke with each of them individually. That way we could discuss it at their level and each was free to ask questions without their siblings present. Funny enough, it was our 7-yr old daughter that had the most questions.
Also, we are pretty sure that it WILL be discussed first thing monday morning at school. And we would rather they hear it from us first.
One thing we did with each of them, though, was to discuss what they should do if they are ever in that situation. Their school teaches them, for the most part, to huddle together. In our opinion that is a terrible idea. We want our kids to present a much harder target if they should be in that situation. We likened it to one of the Wii games they have -- Wii Play with the duck/alien shooting. The ones that don't move are easier to hit. The ones that are moving, esp in a zig-zag pattern, are much more difficult. They instantly understood what we were trying to tell them.
And there is another article here that I think is equally, if not more important, in terms of these events raising (I hope) our nation's awareness and ability to do something about severe mental illness....just read this piece and put yourself in this mother's place. She is not alone, and according to my wife, a clinical social worker who works at a university, the situation the author describes in terms of resources is actually 100% that bleak. So sad. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html
Such a sad day...
I think ^that^ is the real issue.
Not a parent, but one of my own experiences about this stuff:
One time in middle school (a few years after the events at Columbine), we had a rumor going around about a certain historical mass-murderer's birthday coming up. Basically, a lot of us kids believed that on that day there would be a shooting targeted against a certain demographic. There was a lot of commotion about it and a lot of students thought about not going to school on that day, until a group of adults (the principal and teachers) stepped in and put an end to the rumor, assuring that our school was one of the safest places we could be.
That day came, and everything was (thankfully) uneventful. Everyone showed up to school as usual. We did however, see a police officer assigned to patrol the campus. Not sure if that was in response to any particular threat, or just an extra measure of reassurance for everyone. Things were different at the nearby high school though. The same rumor went around, but basically no one showed up to school that day. Nothing happened, but the fear was very very real.
I think there's definitely value in talking with and educating kids about this stuff, because otherwise imaginations just run wild and they'll get all sorts of crazy/scary thoughts. As for shielding them from the media and 24-hour news cycle, maybe. Even as an adult, I still find it upsetting to be bombarded with endless coverage when these senseless tragedies happen...
From what I've read, the mother was receiving a sizeable alimony of ~$250k/yr and was caring for her son full time. I can only imagine that she had to have seen signs and reached out for help in some way? That said, and without knowing more, HUGE lapse (understatement) to have those weapons in a house with that dynamic without having them properly secured.
Again, lots of holes, but I see a mom caring full time for her mentally ill son...with an AR-15 somewhere in the house. WTF?
We set our 10 yo daughter down and spoke with her in detail about the incident BUT we let her direct where the conversation went.
I have to agree though with many we really need to step up with our Mental/Pschy coverage with insurances!!!
The sad thing is someone somewhere will do this again and try and make it bigger then this one cause the media makes a spotlight out of trageties-why? cause we all watch!!!!
I just read that she was preparing to have her son committed and he wasn't on-board with the plan. That may have been the last straw for him. Apparently the kid's issues had become much worse over the last two years as he had more or less become a shut-in and just played video games all day long. The kid was always weird and awkward from all accounts I have read but it had reached the point that the mother could no longer care for him.
Why he chose to go to an elementary school and did what he did as opposed to just killing himself and his mother is the question we all want answered. We may never know that answer.