First and foremost my prayers to the entire Chardon community.

It was just reported that one student has died and three others injured after this mornings school shooting in Chardon, Ohio. A sleepy rural town just a couple miles down from us. Close enough to home that our school district had police monitoring our schools and the older students were led into the auditorium for an emergency assembly on reviewing safety procedures. Local Cleveland news have been reporting on the shooting since eight in the morning, without breaking for commercials. People interviewed keep saying, "I can't believe this happened in a place like Chardon".

My first impulse, after hearing about the shooting, was to pursue my dream of living on a farm in the country and homeschooling my children on the land. Maybe even constructing a very high fence around the property to keep out mean spirited people. But that's not reality because my children will have to venture out eventually.

I wasn't going to discuss this incident with my third-grader and second-grader because school is supposed to be a place where they feel safe. I don't want to create an unnecessary anxiety but I know that there will be rumors on the bus ride home, from the middle school students who all have access to cell phones. This is very real. Apparently the shooter posted photos and messages on his Facebook wall and Twitter late last night. People saw these photos/messages. (EDITED TO ADD: this may not be true but was reported on tv). My chat is going to begin by explaining that there are mean people in the world and we can not escape that fact. What we can do is report any suspicious behavior going on in/out of school. I'm going to encourage my children to approach me, like they have been so, about bullies. I'm also going to mention that our schools have a zero tolerance for bullies and that they have every right on God's green earth to tell teachers and administrators any time they feel uncomfortable about someone's actions. I don't how it is to parent a teenager but I do hope this early introduction to sharing feelings will be a solid foundation for the future.

Talk to your children. Keep the dialogue open. Here's an article our school district sent out "How to talk to kids about violence".