Wednesday 24 May 2017

Explaining The Manchester Terror Attack To Children

Sadly, we have had far too many minute silences these last few years, the latest one being for the 22 deaths in Manchester following a suicide attack on a concert attended in the main by teenagers.
Although it is devastating to see the all victims of any terror attacks, it stings that little bit more if the photo staring out from the newspaper or TV screen is that of a child. 
As the Manchester Arena was packed with thousands of children and young people when a suicide bomber detonated his device, we will be seeing more of them over the coming days along with the picture of Salman Abedi who caused all the death and devastation in some sorely misguided religious fervour.
As the majority of victims were children, and as our media has been full of the tales of the terror that night, parents have been dealing with the obvious questions from their children of why it happened and the unenviable situation of having to explain terror attacks to children.
Advice from the NSPCC is to not turn off the news to try and shield them, things that happen in the news will be talked about in the playground and it is better that your child is armed with the real information rather than depending on the Chinese whispers of their school friends.
Explain simply what has happened but offer reassurance too, remind them that there are many more good people than bad people and most importantly that they are safe and the likelihood of being caught up in an event like this is so, so small, you can't even do the sums to calculate the risk.
The saddest thing about all this is that 22 dead bodies a day is about the average for countries like Iraq and Syria but they don't get a fraction of the news time or the silent 60 seconds of contemplation that they do in the UK, France or Belgium.

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