How do we talk to our kids about scary, sometimes fatal wildlife encounters? From the 2016 incident of a young boy falling into a gorilla enclosure at the Cinncinnati Zoo to the death of a two-year-old boy who was killed after an alligator dragged him into a large, man-made lake near a Disney hotel outside of Orlando, Florida, these incidents can leave both parents and children shaken.

“I think this is so tragic that you’re never going to find the words to magic it away,” says Melina Gerosa Bellows, National Geographic's chief education officer. “But what parents can do is reassure their kids that mom and dad are doing everything they can to keep them safe.”

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