Why?!!

When i watch the news these days i am fairly confident that i will see or hear something awful because noone seems to report happy stories anymore. For this reason i tend to avoid it when my daughter is around. She will learn soon enough how horrendous life can be so i would rather she live in blissful ignorance right now. However it is impossible to shelter children from everything and lately i feel like i am fighting a losing battle.

The most recent incident was just this morning when i was doing her hair. Sky Sports News was on and the story about Mike Dye came up. In the hope that she hadn't noticed i turned over, unfortunately it was too late.
Despite being only 8, my little girl is, on the whole, very mature and luckily is intelligent to understand more than most other children her age. However, living where we do, she isn't exposed to crime and violence so became quite upset. Of course i attempted to explain that there are stupid people in the world who do horrible things, but to her "grown-ups" are to be respected and are supposed to be sensible. No matter how hard i tried she just could not get her head around why a person would hurt someone else like that.

Then she just started crying and needed lots of cuddles and soothing before she said " i don't want to go to football anymore mommy, then daddy won't die"! It broke my heart. Thankfully i calmed her down and convinced her that we will be safe there but the whole situation made me furious!

She is very dramatic but that's just her personality and in a way i am glad that she is compassionate rather than ambivalent. Recent events though have really challenged me as a parent.

Programmes on 9/11, the ice-hockey accident and the red arrows crash led to a debate about the safety of air travel or else we would have had problems if we ever wanted to fly abroad.

The riots created worries about our family members in various affected areas and numerous phone calls to prove that they were safe and well. Then i had to explain why she can't take things that aren't hers and has to respect and show consideration to people and property, yet the rioters were looting and leaving behind a trail of destruction!

Telling her that some people are just naughty and bad seems pathetic but even i don't understand the behaviour I've witnessed. I'm at a loss!!

WHY do people steal?
WHY do people kill?
WHY do people riot?
WHY don't the authorities stop the bad things from happening?

WHY doesn't my baby girl feel safe in her world anymore?