Like every other parent, I was heartbroken and very nearly physically ill as I watched the news unfold in Newtown, Conn., on Friday. I spent most of the afternoon fighting the urge to flee my desk and get to my two children — who were at school, safely and happily ignorant of the news — to hug them and smell the tops of their heads.

Then I saw a news report from ABC saying that Ryan Lanza had told authorities that his brother Adam, the alleged gunman in Friday’s massacre, had an autism spectrum disorder.

No. Oh, no no no no no.

My brain was screaming: Please, please, please don’t make this about autism. People with autism are no more likely to commit this kind of senseless act of violence than anyone else, and mentioning autism in this context can create inaccurate associations in people’s minds.

As the parent of a child with developmental disabilities, I hoped it was a fleeting rumor and that it would disappear, but it has since been reported by most media outlets, including The Post. Many journalists have pointed out in recent days that there is no link between autism and violent behavior, but autism advocates worry that it might not matter at this point.

Up until now, most parents could control the flow of information. This weekend, many of us followed the expert advice we’d heard or read: Turn off the TV, limit exposure to the news and, if we must talk about the Newtown massacre with our children, to do so in simple, reassuring language.

But we were in a vacuum.

That all changes Monday as kids headed back to schools; schools where tense atmospheres, new police presences and a curriculum of disaster drills are being sprung upon them.

(Shannon Stapleton - Reuters) One Georgetown University childhood trauma expert said in The Washington Post on Monday that the adult reaction, in the form of more police presence and tightened security, is “a double-edged sword.”

“I’m sure it will be very reassuring for the parents, but for the children and staff it’s going to be another reminder of what happened,” Priscilla Dass-Brailsford said.

Add to that the fact that school hallways and playgrounds are notorious for acoustics that allow any rumor or taboo information to ricochet.

No matter how hard teachers and principals try to limit unsupervised discussions, many kids will arrive home Monday with new and troubling ideas about something so horrible that it certainly doesn’t need embellishment.

What to do? Follow a child’s lead, experts say.

“I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.’’

Writer Liza Long’s account of life with her 13-year-old son has touched a chord on the Internet, being picked up in full by the HuffingtonPost and Gawker, among other sites.. In the Boise writer’s essay, she argues that the broader discussion is not about guns, but about mental health:

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan -- they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

Read Long’s full article on the blog The Anarchist’s Soccer Mom.

Long’s point — that the spate of recent mass shootings are both mental health and gun issues — has been taken up anew. Nicole Bernier, a Boston-based writer, suggested on Sunday that President Obama appoint “explainer-in-chief” Bill Clinton the czar of gun safety and mental health.

Early Friday afternoon, I glanced at my e-mail as my daughters ran up a hill to play in the giant ZOO sign. That morning, a sunny brisk one, I had thrown out the plan to drop one daughter at school and run holiday errands with the other in favor of an impromptu adventure.

I steered the car toward the National Zoo and its new carousel. We arrived about 9:30 a.m, so early that the zoo was devoid of other humans. So alone were we that my older daughter, in kindergarten, insisted it must be closed and began a campaign of whining to force her mother to “stop breaking the rules.” I began to question my last-minute change-up and considered loading us back in the car to head to Target.

Just in time, we spied a young woman behind the “Closed” carousel kiosk. She and other staff took pity on us and opened the gates early. That meant the girls had their choice of gloriously rendered animals to ride. The kindergartener’s mood abruptly changed. “I want the giraffe!”
(Jim Michaud)

The operator set the ride in motion and for a moment we were all caught in silent anticipation. After that, I can’t recall if there was accompanying music because my girls’ squeals provided my personal soundtrack. There was no question there’d be a second go round.

It was one of those sublime moments that are never captured in surveys results about how happiness plunges after kids are born.

“Is this where Charles’s kids go to school?”

That was the first e-mail I noticed hours later when I thought to check my iPhone. It was from a friend whose job it is to monitor breaking news and who is normally too busy to e-mail.

“I know you are usually off on Fridays, Janice, but do you want to file a post?”

That was the second. From an editor.

I had no idea what either referred to. But I knew it must be bad.

What should parents do this weekend to help their children cope with the Connecticut school shooting?

“Turn off the television,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. If weekend plans include decorating a Christmas tree, having a play date or attending a holiday concert, all of those things should go on as planned.

Both Finkelhor and Wendy Mogel, a clinical psychologist and author of two books on parenting, warned against parents transferring their anxiety about the shooting to their children. “Don’t feel the need to overshare,” Mogel advised.

“The reality is this kind of thing is very, very rare. Schools are the safest place kids can be; much safer than being at home,” Finkelhor said. In 2010, the last year for which there are statistics, 17 children were killed in schools in the United States, according to Finkelhor. That accounted for less than 2 percent of all child-related homicides that year, he said.