They start active shooter drills in Pre-K. That’s 3-4 years old. You’re kids are going to be more likely to be shot at school than a police officer after 20 years of service. Homie, they get told.

That… really depends on your politics. It could range from ‘There are bad people who want to hurt us’ to ‘we are bad people who hurt people and sometimes they decide to try to hurt us back.’

There’s no real art to it. It’s done the same way you grew up in a world where horrible shit had happened 20 years before you were born. You just sort of internalize it over time. Or not.

That’s what story books are for they exist to explain that there is evil in the world & not all people can be trusted. Red Riding Hood teaches stranger danger, & other traditional stories teach other lessons. Just because these stories aren’t real doesn’t mean the lessons they hold are less valuable. Tell them a fairytale & explain how people in the real world can be a wolf but you may not see their fur or fangs. The fairytale elements allow a child to learn & they can apply the lessons when they face a situation that reminds them of the fairytale.

I’m guessing that’s why we had fairytales. Those should still work no?

Also, It’s not like humanity hasn’t faced bigger horrors than 9/11 in it’s pasta humanity has faces much MUCH graver horrors than that. Hiroshima comes to mind, and what about the black plague? The kids were alright, somewhat.

Kids are resilient, just don’t push them off a cliff. Start explaining that there are less nice people in the world that don’t like to share cookies, and take it from there

sit around the campfire, and tell them how bush destroyed a huge us building and killed us citizens in order to kill more people somewhere else.