What do we say to our children?

PARENTS with children around the same age as those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School should be honest and succinct when discussing the massacre, an expert says.

Director of early childhood consultancy Early Life Foundations, Kathy Walker, said it was best to avoid exposing preschoolers, kindergarten and primary school students to the massacre, which left 20 children - aged between five and 10 - and seven adults dead at the US school in Connecticut on Friday. ''If they haven't seen it yet … I'd just not expose it to them because it's pretty horrendous stuff and even as adults we're really struggling with it,'' she said.

Ms Walker said that tragedies could be overwhelming for young children. She said that if children had heard about the massacre, parents should keep them focused on the present, by saying: ''This thing happened a long way away from us, some children were hurt and some people did die and it's a terrible thing. Luckily for us we are safe.''