Iucounu, with all due respect, I think maybe you don't know how it is to live inside the body of a really sensitive person. You seem to be a very analytical person who can easily put some intellectual distance between yourself and these events, and perhaps your son is too.
I am a really sensitive person; that's not to say I'm not analytical. Note that I discuss events like 9/11 openly with my son so that he understands the full human impact of those events, which he can't do without the information.
Anyway, sometimes people who are not sensitive mistake sensitivity for weakness or some sort of personality flaw. I'd remind you to keep in mind that sometimes very sensitive people are incredibly brave and are, in fact, the people who do the most in the world to change things. You haven't met my daughter, but let me assure you that while she cries over a dead dragonfly, she is, at the same time, the kind of person who would stand up to the tanks in Tiananmen square.
I would be tempted to take (really minor) offense at your tone, but I know it's only used because you feel insulted. I'm not going to apologize for my beliefs or parenting style, but I wholeheartedly want you to understand that I wouldn't snipe or cast veiled aspersions about something like this.
I don't want to descend into minutiae here, but while I'd agree that emotional sensitivity is a good thing to have, it's not been a necessity for many people who have changed the world in vastly important ways. I also don't think that the self-sacrifice of people like the Tiananmen Square tank suicide, self-immolating monks, etc. tend to cause large-scale political change, though they may serve as symbols for a movement at a useful time. Either the critical mass for change is there, or it's not.
I await the first Wikipedia link on Thich Quang Duc.ETA: I want to explain a prior sentence of mine a little further:
If a child has been taught that life is full of unicorns and fairy princesses who dispense light and magic wherever they go, of course it's going to be a bit shocking to see people plummeting to their deaths.
This is meant to refer to shielding children from reality in general, often with heaping doses of cloyingly sweet pop culture and media aimed at keeping children babyfied. In my opinion too many children are fed a steady intellectual diet of low-quality fare dealing with fairies, princesses, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Barney, etc. when they could just as easily be exposed in easy small doses to the way life really is, along with much higher quality stories. If pop culture for kids in the U.S. weren't so unnecessarily babyfied, children would begin their learning trajectory on real life much earlier, and I'm certain that no harm would be done. The learning curve should be gradual enough to avoid any harm, but there's no reason for it to be unnecessarily delayed.
The shape of the optimal curve will be different for each child based on sensitivity, sure, but the curve is unnecessarily depressed for almost all children, at least in the U.S. That's my belief, and unfortunately it's tough to get across without causing offense.
