Hello and

I'm your host, Dr. Ellen Hendrickson,

and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a

sympathetic ear, and zero judgment. So it's been about a year since we covered

how to talk to kids about terrorism and sadly the topic is still as timely as ever.

And in fact, between Oregon, Paris and San Bernardino, it's time to add how to talk about gun violence to our parenting

repertoire.

For me at least, it's a timely topic because a couple of weeks ago, my seven-year-old

had an anonymous threat of gun

violence directed at his school district. Nothing came of the threat and the

teachers, school administrators, and authorities reacted swiftly and bravely, but getting emails with FBI updates and seeing

uniform police officers guarding the one not locked down entrance to his elementary school isn't

how I envisioned my son's first grade year.

Needless to say, he and I have done some talking.

And the hardest part of the conversation wasn't how to bring it up or how to help him feel safe, but rather handling his tough questions.

Kids are smart.

They're pint-sized philosophers trying to wrap their heads around all the good and bad that

comes with this world.

And gun violence is hard to explain no matter their age, but for younger kids in particular,

they still want a concrete answer. Now, I don't claim to have all the answers, no one does, but let's

tackle two of the most common questions which parents lucky us are also the hardest to answer.

So the first is why?

...