I'm a journalist who has always protected her children from the news. Columbine. 9/11. Just the random day-to-day violence that is modern America.

I've hidden the newspaper. Avoided CNN. Don't get me wrong. I don't bury my head in the sand. But I don't want my children to see and hear things before they are ready.

But my son is 12 now. ESPN is his news source of choice. Of course he wants to see the game highlights, but I can almost feel his attention become more focused when the story is about another athlete's brush with the law. A rape or drug bust or a DUI. I don't like it, but I've started to let him watch. I wish I could say I've taken every opportunity to talk about the issues, but I haven't.

When he does his current events report every week for school, I often point out particular stories in the newspaper that I think might be interesting to him. He tends to judge what's interesting based on how long a story is (note to self: are newspaper stories too long?). But I've noticed that he's drawn to stories that are more....unseemly.

So now this...Virginia Tech. Two weeks ago Alec could tell you it's an ACC school with a solid sports program. And now he knows more than I ever would have wanted him to know.

When I brought up the killings, the first thing he wanted to know was whether it was a terrorist attack. I explained that it wasn't and I asked which is worse, just a very disturbed person or terrorism? To him, terrorism is worse.

He was eager to ask me questions: Why did he do it? What did the police do? What did the other students say? Did the students who jumped out the windows get hurt? Very specific questions.

I'm going to let him guide me through this discussion. Give him the opportunity to ask. I know I won't have all the answers, but maybe that's not as important as just giving him a way to try to figure things out himself.