Talking to your child about kidnappings

My daughter has been VERY concerned about the Destiny Norton case.

She was horrified this morning, as were we, to see the news that she was killed; found dead in the basement of someone 150 feet? yards? away from her home.

My daughter has all sorts of questions . . . we've been trying to answer them, although to her question of what Destiny's body looks like, I just said it looks like she is sleeping, but no pink in her cheeks, no breathing, and the body would be cold. That sounds SO cruel and harsh. I HATE that stuff like this happens, and to children, and to Destiny in particular in this instance. I feel so much for her family. I couldn't figure out how to explain about what happens to a body after death, but I figure she doesn't need to know about those things right now, and I've given enough to answer her question.

If only the dogs had alerted on the scent at this man's house, but they didn't.

I guess I need to look up some resources on how to talk with your children about this. It was a knife in my heart when my daughter said tearfully that she didn't want to be killed . . . .

Her questions about why did that man do this to her, and why did he WANT to do that to her, were hard ones. I answered with, I don't know why people do bad things, but some people do bad things to people; some people want to hurt other people, and that's why we need to be careful of strangers. I also said that not all strangers want to hurt people, and that even most aren't like that, but that we just don't know which ones do, so we need to be careful.

She asked about if he had a rifle or a short gun, or a weapon. I said I didn't know. I also said that if someone is trying to take her and/or hurt her, even if they have a weapon she needs to kick and bite and scream and hit and run away as fast as she can.

She said that Destiny should have run home, and I told her that she probably tried to, but that the man was too strong for her. I said that she still needs to try as hard as she can to get away if someone ever tries to take/hurt her.

I also questioned her about what to do if a stranger comes up to her and asks for help finding a lost puppy, or something about that . . . she answered that she should run away. I added in that she should also scream and yell and stuff too.

Other hard questions. We haven't had the news on that much these last few weeks, but my daughter took particular note, worry and concern over Destiny and what might have happened to her. She's taking it personally and seriously. I am concerned about what this might be doing to my daughter; I'll be asking King about that at my appointment in half an hour.

She keeps wanting to watch the news, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. Then again, I don't want her to feel like we're hiding stuff; perhaps letting her see a 2 minute segment (that we TIVO and pre-screen to find a suitable segment that doesn't get graphic . . .) would be a balanced approach? I don't want to make her fears worse by her seeing too much, or being denied her requests for knowing what's going on and so she'd be left to wonder and make up how bad it is, and also lose the opportunity for teaching my daughter about safety . . .

This is a minefield . . . and I am scared I am going to screw this up. That is far, far nothing to what Destiny's family is going through, I know, but I am trying to help my daughter through this in a way that will hopefully not damage her; I cringe when I see how personally affected she is by this, it's very hard . . . .