As adults struggle to understand details emerging on a horrific school shooting in Connecticut, they may want to turn their attention to potential emotional victims closer to home.

Children who are exposed to the frightening images of weapon-bearing police, terrified adults and sobbing children likely cannot understand what is happening and may think they are in imminent danger, authorities say.

Camp Hill psychologist Pauline Wallin said the best thing that parents of young children can do as the Connecticut story unfolds is shield them from news coverage of the incident.

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That is in keeping with an American Academy of Pediatrics stance that young children should be "screen-free," as reported by the Canada-based Parenting Today, is based on kids' lack of a framework for the images that assault them from TV and computers.

Especially with infants, toddlers and preschoolers, images often are new experiences with which they having nothing to compare. Children absorb images and words coming at them without time to process what they're seeing and hearing.

And bad news may seem more pervasive simply because they are more frequently reported. A 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer story noted that crimes are the easiest stories for TV news to cover.

"You go to the scene, you shoot the crime-scene tape, and you've got your story," the paper reported.

And an abundance of crime stories can provoke undue anxiety in viewers, the story said.

Wallin agrees.

She said the risk of school shootings becomes magnified in the minds of viewers even though such incidents remain rare.

Wallin said the best thing parents can do is be sure the TV is turned off when elementary school children arrive home today.

She said it's unlikely kindergarten-through-fifth-grade children who are in class right now even know about the mass shooting in Connecticut. They may hear about it on the way home from school and the truth cannot be sugar-coated.

But Wallin said parents should keep children from watching minute-by-minute reporting on the grisly shootings.

Instead parents can reassure elementary-school-aged kids by telling them that the shootings happened in a town far away. Parents can say that they, teachers, principals and police all know what they need to do to keep children safe.

Parents shouldn't tell children such an experience will never happen at their school but they can say that all the adults in a child's life are committed to keeping the child safe.

Wallin said parents likely will need reassurance, too, in the coming days, so they won't be afraid to send their children to school.

"When you worry about something, it's foremost in your mind. It makes it seem like it's much more likely to happen because it's occupying so much room in your head. Parents will feel like their children are at so much greater risk because now they are worrying," Wallin said.