You talk about things that affect people in your family, extended family, friends. You talk to kids on a level that's age appropriate. You do not talk about everything ~ something happened to someone somewhere. But if they've hear about it and ask, yes.

I was actually wondering about this! I don’t, because my 6 and 8 year olds are already very anxious kids. I absolutely do not want them worrying about getting shot. It kills me that they have lockdown drills every year - my 6 year old likes them for some reason; my 8 year old is more aware but they are told there’s a bad guy or a bear in the building. They do not know about school shootings yet.

My kids are mid ES. White and Jewish. We talk about some but not others. I can't really talk to them about school shootings right now and I hope I have another year of sheltering them from that. My oldest is super sensitive and she'd be scared to go to school and not sleep for days. We talk about violence and ICE and things in the news and the war in Ukraine and we know people directly affected by these things. It's hard.

Not unless they specifically bring it up.

They have their whole lives ahead of them to realize how much adults generally suck and are oftentimes evil.

I don't need to contribute to that any earlier than it needs to be. Let them be kids.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is different than it used to be, at least for those of us who pay attention to what's happening right now (sociology and political science degree here, plus I protest every Saturday).

My children are in 1st and 3rd grade, I talk with them about basically everything. Their father is black, I assume white kids are way more sheltered about what's happening to certain communities in America right now. We talk about ICE, Trump, school shootings, really whatever is on the news I don't shelter them, though I wouldn't want them watching certain footage like people being attacked etc or footage from the shootings.

I see people here are not as radical as me. My kids are happy, and I don't talk about it all the time.

Crazy

I think this is different than it used to be, at least for those of us who pay attention to what's happening right now (sociology and political science degree here, plus I protest every Saturday).

My children are in 1st and 3rd grade, I talk with them about basically everything. Their father is black, I assume white kids are way more sheltered about what's happening to certain communities in America right now. We talk about ICE, Trump, school shootings, really whatever is on the news I don't shelter them, though I wouldn't want them watching certain footage like people being attacked etc or footage from the shootings.

I see people here are not as radical as me. My kids are happy, and I don't talk about it all the time.

My oldest was 6 when sandy hook happened. It was really hard figuring out what to say and how but we did talk about it.
I think for stuff like the Brown shooting, I probably wouldn’t raise it with kids under 8, as that won’t even seem relevant to them. But kid over 8 probably worth a “maybe you heard about this …, do you want to talk about it?” Convo. It really depend on how close it hits home for them. For most 6 year olds, News about 6 year olds massacred in school will provoke anxiety, but news about a shooting at an office jbuildkng across the country won’t register for them. So if you are Jewish, the synagogue shooting might be more traumatic for your child and you might want to preemptively address it.

My ES (at the time) kid was really frustrated with us for not telling her about Russia invading Ukraine because at school all her classmates knew and it was a big topic. Now we make sure she has top line awareness of things that other kids will know, or that minister will mention in church prayer, etc.

A baby 3 blocks away got run over by his next door neighbor's car by accident. We talked about that with B5 and G10. This is why we say look at driveways before walking past them.

Our school will engage and stifle news like those 2 instances if it arises, at least in early elementary grades. Its a smaller school, so that practice might be more practical there than at some other places.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking to your kids about what happened at bondi beach? At Brown? Other terrible current events?

Definitely not in elementary school. Let kids be kids. There's plenty of time for them to learn how awful things can be.

NP. This is our approach also.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking to your kids about what happened at bondi beach? At Brown? Other terrible current events?

Definitely not in elementary school. Let kids be kids. There's plenty of time for them to learn how awful things can be.

Except that they will hear about it in school. I learned my lesson on January 6th when I thought I was doing my young elementary schoolers a favor by shielding them from what was happening. Turns out every kid was discussing it and there were class discussions as well.

My middle kid verbalized that he would rather have heard it from us (6 at the time). From that point forward, we give age appropriate, limited detailed information about major events so that they are not blindsided and have a chance to talk to us first.

As a rule, we do not keep news programming on when the kids are around—it’s overwhelming for adults let alone kids.

Now that our kids are late elementary school and beyond, they are more aware of news and are also good about deciding how informed they really want to be.

When they ask. Ages 8 and 10 and so far nothing.

Anonymous wrote:Are you talking to your kids about what happened at bondi beach? At Brown? Other terrible current events?

Definitely not in elementary school. Let kids be kids. There's plenty of time for them to learn how awful things can be.

Are you talking to your kids about what happened at bondi beach? At Brown? Other terrible current events?