How to talk to children about the Boston bombing


Posted on April 16, 2013 at 6:34 PM

Updated Tuesday, Apr 16 at 6:42 PM

Paul Murphy / Eyewitness News
Email: | Twitter: @pmurphywwl

NEW ORLEANS -- As investigators try to piece together events leading up to the bombing in Boston, parents are left to help their children make sense of an insensible tragedy.

"I think it's natural for them to be scared," said Kris Kaliebe, an LSU child and adolescent psychiatrist.

Kaliebe recommends parents start a dialogue with their children by asking how they interpret the event.

"Some of them are more sensitive to this and not be able to figure out how far away things are, what the likelihoods are. If it's in the short period of time and it's something that is manageable and it goes away, fine. If it stays with them, then you have a problem."

Kaliebe said in talking about the bombing, try to make your child feel secure.

"What I would sort of say to a kid is, I feel confident that I'm safe and I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe and that's where we're going to have to leave it."

He said some kids may not what to talk about it.

"If they don't want to talk about it, if they don't want to tell you something, you've got to be OK with that."

Kaliebe said it's also fine for parents to be affected by the bombing.

"I think people are naturally going to be more apprehensive and more fearful and more watchful. Then again, the more watchful people are, the harder it is for someone to do something."

As for the mind of the bomber, Kaliebe says people who commit mass violence feel they are part of some sort of movement and they believe they are helping some type of cause by creating this kind of chaos.

"It just seems like someone who put two different bombs in two different trash cans in a busy area had to plan that out and be pretty thoughtful about it. So, that's very different then someone who becomes psychotic and impulsively does something, even something very destructive."