I don’t know what to say….I don’t know what to tell my kids. But I have to say something. It has taken me a few days to process the tragedy in CT. I was so emotional all weekend long and when Monday came I still could not focus at all – thinking of the parents, students and educators of Sandy Hook.
On Friday night my 11 year old went to a friend’s house with a bunch of friends and came home with mis-information (much like was first reported on the news) – that the person responsible for the shooting was still out there, he had an accomplice (how she asked can one person do that at all and to that many people?) and her friends and her concluded that the person was deranged, sick and just crazy (that about sums it up) I was not going to tell them anything. I even made sure all the TV’s in the house were set on the HGTV channel so if they turned on the TV there would be no news. But kids talk and at their Saturday swim meet they held a moment of silence and then my 8 year old wanted to know what happened. So we talked briefly. This week the focus for many is remembering all those who lost their lives and for the students of Newtown to go back to school. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. We talked more about this on 980 WCAP-AM today.
As I was at a loss on what to say to my own kids I sought out information and here is a link to the The Huffington Post blog (galtime.com) about talking to you kids as well as The Hartford Courant article which had some suggestions.