Dealing with distressing news stories and a 7 year old, any tips?

[solidgoldbrass]

We live in Croydon, so at the moment we are surrounded by posters of the missing girl, Tia Smart. DS is worried by this and keeps asking me what's happened to her and if we can go and look for her. So far I have been saying that no one knows what has happened to her, and maybe she ran away from home or something, and that the police are looking for her and we should leave it to them (there has actually been something in the papers about vigilantes forcing their way into people's sheds and garages...) Has anyone else got any tips for dealing with this? Particularly as it's likely the poor little sod's been murdered by a family member.

I always reassure the DC that it is rare and that's why it's in the news.

Say everyone is doing everything they can and there is no need for him to go and look.

what a sweet, kind boy. It sounds like you're handling it well - You're not lying to him - just looking for something true that is less scary. I guess what will be tricky is explaining what happens if the worst does.

I was thinking about this earlier in the week. We're not there yet, but at some point our son will be able to read headlines and they're generally awful e.g. Thugs Shoot Kitten In Head - this week,- and suggest the world is a scary place. The only thing I could think would be to tell him that we hear about sad things in the news because news stories are about things that are surprising or unusual - i.e. There's lots of good things that happen but because there's so many it's not unusual so doesn't get put in the newspaper.

Particularly as it's likely the poor little sod's been murdered by a family member Not sure sod is the right word here.

Anyway I would suggest not letting him watch the news but as you say there are posters up and its inevitable hes going to have a sense of whats going on. I think you have done right to answer his questions truthfully and reassure him people are out there looking for her.

And now she's been found dead. Hopefully I will just be able to distract him with his own concerns tomorrow, and the posters will come down... he was too young to take much notice of the Madeleine McCann case so this is the first time he's really been aware of children going missing.

I was discussing the US cinema shooting with two eight year olds today. I always stress that, although bad things happen, they are rare. There are billions of people in the world, and only a few, very bad and sad, stories make the news, so these are very very rate.