How Not to Talk With Children About the Sandy Hook Shooting

From the Motherlode Blog at the New York Times

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA

“First, find out what they have heard.” That’s the first line of Benedict Carey’s article on how to talk to your children about the mass shooting that took place Friday at an elementary school in Connecticut. I received a similar e-mail from my own children’s school, encouraging parents consider our individual children and their needs as we try to find words. How to talk to our kids is paramount, but I found myself focused on a different side of the question: how not to.  Read on...

 

Also at Motherlode...

Should Students Be Trained for School Shootings?

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA

The images of the children leaving their elementary school in Newtown, Conn., after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School leave me with the same chill of disbelief that I think all of us share. They brought to mind, too, a program that Nancy Rappaport, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of school-based programs for the Cambridge Health Alliance, drew to my attention last week: ALICE, for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate.  Read on...