I am with you on not talking to the kids about it. I see links to posts on how to talk to your kids about the most recent horrible world event and think, NO! I am not telling my six- and four-year olds about this, just as we don't discuss any number of non-age-appropriate topics. Not on my watch, indeed.

It doesn't take a parent to feel gutted by a tragedy that takes the life of a child, but once you are, it certainly hits on a new level. I think of all the late nights, bouncing the babies to sleep, the babyproofing, the care we take with every element of their diet, their care, their surroundings. Then I think that something so random could take away this person we love more than life itself. I think of the mother in Boston who's fighting for her own life after having lost one child with her other one wounded. Where does she find the will to push through?

Like you, Amy, I'm just so grateful that my toddler is far too young to think that there may be evil in this world. I hope it's many, many years before she knows otherwise.

My kids are older than your boys and the ability to shield them seems to be decreasing way too damn fast. My oldest wants to discuss the bombing in detail, is now concerned about her safety, her proximity to the White House while at school. My middle girl wants to discuss but only on a just gimme the facts kind of level so that her happiness cloud is not tarnished with ick. I'm trying to do my best, I am. Sometimes I suck and just say not right now, can't talk about it right now. And then there are times the 3 yr old walks in where daddy is watching CNN and points and says, "Why is she crying?" and just...damn.

And today it's West, Texas... and I realize that it'd impossible enough to even try to make sense of tragedies that aren't caused by someone doing something evil. I think for me, if I can't even explain it to myself yet, there's no point in trying to really explain it to my children. I'll never understand how anyone could do something like that, so there's no possible way for me to try and help them understand either. We all make sense of the world and its evils in our own way and eventually we all have to become aware of it, but yeah... there's much to be said for innocence.

My son experienced grief early in life, last year when he was 7. He lost his father to a sudden cardiac arrest. No warning whatsoever. Brought the subject of grief and death to a whole new level, and I've found that I can't really shield him from it as much as I'd like to anymore. He sees grieving people on TV and relates it to his own grief. His questions about world events have taken on a much deeper philosophical bent, and he can empathize so much more. Is this a bad thing? No. Do I wish his personal tragedy hadn't happened? Yes. It's very, very difficult to be a parent and watch your child be forced to mature a little faster than you feel they are ready for due to outside events. Sarah's comment above is so dead on - they truly are a piece of you let loose on the world. Parenting is the most wonderful, scariest thing I've ever done.

we live maybe about 3 (?) miles from where the bombs went off. we weren't anywhere near it (my son was napping around that time), but there was so much panic trying to figure out if all of our friends & family (who mostly live in the Boston area) were OK, since a lot of them run/volunteer at the med tent/spectate. i am still shaking at the thought that...that could have been us, or our loved ones. sometimes i want to wrap my son up in bubble wrap & just keep him "safe" in the house...but realizing that that's no sort of life at all, we venture forward. GAH.

The time comes all too soon when you have to say something to a child because of the wild things he or she will hear from other children. Terri's 8-year-old will want more information and I'm sure she prefers to to present it her way, rather than have someone at recess tell some graphic and confused version. To know when you have to do this is a real dilemma, but it's one any parent needs to face.

We had a school shooting here in southern France last year, and the killer was on the run for several days afterwards. During this time, every school in the town had armed guards posted by the gates, so we had no choice but to tell our children a watered-down version of the truth.

My 6 year old and 10 yr old were told that a bad man had hurt children, but that the school and the police had put measures in place that would keep them and their friends safe. Both seemed to accept it without any obvious long-term negative effects, although both were nervous and asked for reassurance for those days.

It made all of us, parents and teachers, sick to our souls to have to destroy their innocence. What a sad world we live in indeed.

We've protected our 6 year old son from these incidents as much as we can. Although the other night we were at a Mexican restaurant and the news was on with the explosion pretty much on repeat so we told him there had been an explosion but not that someone deliberately had caused the explosion. To hurt people. On purpose. Because, I don't want to tell him that we live in a world like that. Not yet.

Columbine is the first tradgedy I remember hearing about at the time that it happened - I was 12. Two years later it was 9/11 and remember my 9th grade math teacher saying "it's not a big deal". I know now that she was probably the same age that I am now and honestly didn't know what else to say to 30 scared young teens, but I was so pissed off at her at the time.

I am almost in Tears because, that. Exactly! My peanut is only 14 months so far from being able to comprehend any of this mess but I just can't fathom explaining any of this to her. My heart goes out to all effected but part if it also has to stay here and squeeze my baby while she still allows it!

Very, very hard to tell the appropriate "truth." At 9/11, my daughter and granddaughter were living with us. We thought so hard about how to give that 4-year-old an appropriate understanding of the events, and we thought we had done so well. One day when she was 9, she heard about 9/11, and said "Wait, you mean all that stuff was done on purpose?" So, we hadn't quite done as well as we intended.

God bless Boston and all those who are suffering. Today it is my neck of the woods having to suffer. I have been to West, Texas many times. I had a roommate in college who was from Abbott, right next to West. My neighbor is down in West now, cooking for those in need of a meal. Bless them all. A difficult week for many.

I told my three boys (9, 9 & 5) briefly the morning before they went to school. I now regret it but I felt like I wanted them to have some basis for what they were likely to hear in school. I should have talked to the older boys separately because my littlest is my worrier (no longer interested in going to Grandpa's beach house because of concern about tsunamis...). I wish I hadn't given him this to worry about. It nearly broke my heart (and blew me away) when he said (knowing only that 3 people had died and lots were hurt) that "maybe the people who died were the bad guys who had the bomb."

I totally agree and just posted about this too. My girls are nearly 6 and 3 and I don't elect to talk to them about any of this. We live in South Africa and there is so much to worry about in our society at present, but that can't be their worry. Not yet.
I really believe the longer children can believe the world is good, the stronger their foundation will be when it comes time to learn the sad lessons that sometimes it isn't.