I do have a child with some anxiety issues, so there's that. I could be accused of sheltering, I suppose. We do not watch the news or listen to NPR with DD around. I always answer questions honestly and pretty completely. DD is certainly aware of some basic ugly facts of history. However, to me there is a big difference between "Here are the facts of what happened" and "Here, let's watch a documentary with graphic footage of deaths." Similarly, there are books I'm not giving her at this time. She may come across them but I hope not yet. Her teacher gave her Anne Frank last year and I very earnestly asked her not to read it yet (she actually chose not to, to my surprise). She isn't ready. Some kids are walking live nerves with a raw heart very close to the surface. DD was crying about a dying dragonfly in the garden the other day. She cries about plastic in the ocean killing sea turtles. BTW, she has lost family members, so it's not that she's a child with no experience of true loss.
She sounds so much like my oldest dd. She is extremely sensitive and it is difficult when she wants to know everything about the world and yet gets so upset about the truths of it all.
