Generally I'm very open and honest, but there have been some things I didn't bring up at all, or actively protected him from, because I thought they were just too much for right then. For an extreme example, DS was about that age in September of 2001, and because of a bit of luck followed by a bit of good planning managed to avoid ALL of the news coverage of the World Trade Center. There was absolutely no way I was going to bring it up, even obliquely, because we were about to get on an airplane several days later (actually the first international flight out at the end of the week). If he panicked it was going to be completely unmanageable.
He eventually heard about it, but at the much more comfortable distance of a few years. At this point (9) I think I'd tell him about anything, but not at 2... and especially not things that hit close to home. It's one thing to tell a child that there is suffering in the world, and another thing altogether to point out specific instances that could affect him directly. It's kind of like people who feel compelled to tell pregnant women all their labor and delivery horror stories... Everyone knows there's a risk, but you don't have to bring it up to someone is in the thick of it.
