On Friday night, my home city of Paris, France, suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Our family had gone to bed early that night, and so realization dawned slowly, mostly as I saw a deluge of texts, emails, and tweets from American friends asking if I was okay. I groggily pulled up Twitter, pulled up my newsfeeds, and the news gradually entered my consciousness, in all its multifaceted horror.

Soon our daughter woke up. My wife and I believe in telling children the truth, so we would have to tell her what happened.

But how?

Sadly, these days, any parent in any world city might find themselves forced to have this discussion with their children. After some reflection and some online reading, here are some thoughts on how to tell your kids about a terrorist attack.

The first thing is to be collected and pulled together. If you’re too overwhelmed, then just wait a few hours before telling them.

Secondly, you do have to tell them. They will find out — from the TV, from friends at school, from headlines in the news kiosks on the streets, and so forth. You need to be their earliest source of information.

Read the article “How to Tell Your Children About a Terrorist Attack” on theweek.com.