Our school handles situations such as these just like geofizz described. I am very happy with that approach because I can then determine the extent of the information I want to share with my daughter (8). I did tell my daughter about Sandy Hook because her classroom has no cupboards in it and I wanted to inform her so that we could come up with a "plan" in case anything like that happened at her school. I didn't go into the gory details with her, just gave her the most basic gist of what happened and I let her know that in that situation, she should just fend for herself (in other words, if the teacher says to stay in your seat and be quiet, she should follow her own gut instinct and hide if she feels that is a safer option). She had a great idea of hiding herself in the coat rack behind the coats and backpacks, so I feel the conversation had a positive outcome because it empowered her with a plan in the event that something like that should happen.
Regarding Boston, I chose not to tell her about the terrorists bombings because I don't want her to feel like the entire world is unsafe. That being said, if she ever were to ask me about it, I would not lie but I would tell her the bare minimum to answer her questions.
I don't watch a lot of news in front of her generally because the news is quite depressing and shocking on a daily basis, and I especially don't watch news when things like this happen.
Regarding the tornado, I told her about it again, because we do not have a family plan and together, she and my husband and I decided what would be best to do in the event of a tornado warning, so once again, I feel like this empowered her to take her safety into her own hands.
My friends think I did a horrible disservice to her by telling her about Sandy Hook but honestly, her level of compassion and understanding is much too high and I would rather she heard it from me then be frightened by her other classmates who might know about it.
