Baby Steps: How to explain to children that not everyone is good?

Parenting can make you go insane. As if parenting wasn't stressful enough, I not only have to worry about my kids eating the right food, hitting all the learning milestones on time and just overall not being jerks, but I now have to worry about clowns. Clowns! The boogie man is no longer fictional, but right here in our own backyards. Just this week a person dressed up as a clown chased a child from the bus stop in Memphis, Tennessee.

Clowns shouldn't scare kids -- at least not until they are 14 years old and watch Stephen King's "It" for the first time. When I was a child, clowns were fun. A few friends with cool parents had clowns at their birthday parties. Clowns did funny skits and made balloon animals. Clowns did not stand in the shadows and beckon children into the woods, or make threats on the internet to go to elementary schools and hurt children.

Speed up 25 years, and not only do I have to explain stranger danger to my 6-year-old, but I now have to explain that some people are sick and they dress up like clowns to chase and scare kids. We had the talk about strangers a few weeks ago. It's hard to explain to a child that not everyone is good.

Children have this innately good view of the world that you don't want to crush. My son believes in Santa, the Easter Bunny and leprechauns, and here I am telling him clowns can be bad people. Where is the middle ground? How do I explain bad people in a broken world to my son and still keep that sparkle in his eyes?

The solution? I don't have one. I just did my best explaining good people and bad people and prayed it was enough. Cooper sat there with a blank look on his face and then rolled his eyes at me and said, "Geez, mom, I know about stranger danger. We talked about it at school."

Did it sink in? I don't know. When Halloween rolls around in a few weeks, if he screams at the sight of a clown, I'll know I might have gone overboard. But if he sees a person following him or watching him who just doesn't seem right and he tells his teacher, parent or police, then I did my job OK.

Only time will tell.