String of Violence Has Shaped but Not Hardened Kids

As Gretchen Schofield, an Oakton mother of two, said: "If it wasn't for the technology today, I probably would not have told my 8-year-old." Now, she said, "we have to tell our kids" -- or worry that someone else will do it in ways that might be more frightening.

When Schofield did tell her daughter, the child said: "Mommy, I don't want to go to Virginia Tech." She was scared. "I'm not going to make you go anywhere," Schofield recalled explaining, "but . . . it's safe to go to school. This could have happened anywhere."

Maddy Weingast's teachers did not mention Virginia Tech, but the 12-year-old knew about the shootings anyway. She had watched the television news reports at home in Vienna with her mother, and even though they have no close friends on the campus, they were drawn in: So many innocent faces, so many grieving families.

"You see their pictures on the news, and you don't really know these people, but part of you feels like you do," Maddy said of the victims. "I kept getting sadder and sadder."

On the bus and in the lunchroom, Maddy and her friends traded details about the events as they became public. She was not scared, she said, just at loose ends. "I felt like I wanted to help so bad," she said, "but I didn't know what to help with."

Perhaps most disturbing for some parents were the menacing images released late Wednesday of Virginia Tech killer Seung Hui Cho brandishing weapons and delivering a rambling diatribe on video.

Suzie Holman of Springfield tried to keep her 10-year-old son, Kyle, from seeing them, hovering as he used the Internet. She sent him from the room if the photos or video appeared on TV while they were watching together.

"It's very hard, because he's asking questions: 'How come I can't watch?' " Holman said. "I want him to be aware of what's going on, but he doesn't have to see the killer with the guns and the hammer and all that stuff."

Other parents chose different strategies for limiting the relentless news coverage. In Springfield, Susan and Eric Israel allowed their children, ages 10 and 13, to see whatever they themselves were watching or reading.

At that point, Susan Israel said, 10-year-old Jake had already asked whether his school was safe. His mother assured him and reminded him of a recent renovation that included new security measures, including an intercom for buzzing in visitors.

Said Eric Israel: "I want to know what they're hearing and seeing so I can explain or we can talk about it. No accidental info."

For the Israels and some other families, the video and pictures of Cho became the breaking point: They switched off the TV even before networks began limiting use of the images because of public outcry. "We just chose not to watch," Susan Israel said.