[cstreit]

Gang,

In my town, there was a horrific murder of a young child at the hands of his mother. Anything like this is horrible, but this one is probably the worst I have ever heard of and probably ever will.

I found out this weekend that the boy was somone I knew, and worse, that my 7 year old son knew. We have seen him 2-3 times per week for the last several years and as recently as last week. Fortunately they weren't very close so my son doesn't know right now.

My hope is that he will be insulated from this and that it will fade before he has a chance to find out. However in the event that he is exposed or will be, I do not know how to explain it to him, but have to be the one to do it. I can barely wrap my own head around this event and so I struggle with what I might say to him. If I am too vague he will ask questions I don't want to answer, but I do not want to be overly specific either.

Have you ever had to do this? What did you do? How does one communicate something to a kid that he should never hear or even imagine to begin with?