It is very important how information is handled and this may be different from one family to another.
In all the families there are events of a certain severity, and in the world in which we are passing unfortunate things every day such as catastrophes, wars, people dying of hunger, etc. And it is there where we ask ourselves if we should keep children out of these things, and that is when it is not true to think that children should live in limbo. We should not believe that we should always keep them away from the sad news. If we act in this way, we will deprive them of learning and assimilating fundamental aspects of life.
They can even learn something that we certainly do not intend to teach them: to systematically ignore important plots of reality, to stay away from the things that matter, to feel that their opinion does not matter and that they are not counted on. This can become a stable feature of his personality, producing unconscious, selfish, stunned types who never find out about anything ...
Children also have the ability to grasp when something important happens; but if you do not know what it is you can get confused and worry, they can feel the sadness by threat of a catastrophe, taking their imagination beyond reality .
Considering that children are important members of the family, it is convenient to inform them of the important facts that affect them. But if it is sad facts, we must be prudent, avoid the harshest and most disturbing aspects, reassure them and transmit security.
And we should not be so explicit in telling them everything, because sometimes it's not important for them. We must know how to say things to children, and teach them that you should not talk to other people sometimes about what is happening as it could turn into a bigger problem, for example talk about war, politics, religion ... we should teach them to respect the points devista of others but not to ignore the truth.
Depending on the age of the children, it will be easier to understand them, but at any age we must be subtle to explain what is happening in this complicated world and offer them the necessary tools to face reality; among these tools are to give them security, trust, support, and for children to know that they can always count on that person who will always tell them the truth and will not have to look for others who give them the distorted information.