A serious question tangentially related to this thread’s topic: how do you talk to your high-school-aged daughter about how a friend of hers (studious, quiet, white 15-year-old boy) brutally murdered an elderly couple just for the adrenaline rush?

We already went through hell when he was first accused, with her sobbing on the floor “why did he do it? Why did he do it?” Now he’s admitted it and there are really explicit stories in the newspapers, with details that she is inevitably going to be hearing at school today. These were TERRIBLE murders. Stabbing, mutilation, possibly torture. And he was planning to do more when he was arrested. This boy was a sociopath. How do I help my daughter to understand that somebody she saw as “sweet” (her term) was, well, sour? Here, the mental health issues are loud and clear.

You try to protect your kids from the violent society we live in and then it comes right home to you.