Paris attacks hit too close to home for Montreal family

Caroline Jerabek normally shelters her three children from news reports about violent events, but with her husband at a conference in Paris at the time of the attacks last Friday, she could not turn off the news coverage.

"I just thought, 'I need to know what's happening. I need to know,'" said Jerabek, who lives in Montreal with her husband and three children.

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Although her husband and their extended family in France are safe, the whole family is shaken by the attacks on Paris, which killed 129 people. 

The Montreal family is among many across the city struggling to explain the horrific events to their children.

It hasn't been an easy task.

Daybreak Montreal7:37Montreal children ask tough questions about Paris attacks

CBC's Shari Okeke sits down with a Montreal family to find out how they're processing Friday's attacks in Paris.

Tough questions

"Why did they do this? Why do they want to kill people?" asked Max, Jerobek's 10-year-old son.

Zazie, Jerobek's 12-year-old daughter, has also been looking for explanations.

"Why did these extremists do this? And you know, no one really knows," Zazie said.

Zazie, Max and their 5-year-old sister Charlie attend Collège international Marie de France, an international French school that is part of the Lycée system.

The school held one minute of silence Monday and throughout the day all minds were on Paris.

"A lot of people were talking about it, how many terrorists were there, if they survived or not and how many wounded people or dead people," said Max, who went on to say he still feels sad for people who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

'I think he needed hugs'

Jerobek said once they knew her husband was safe, Max didn't say much about the attacks but that he is a sensitive child.

"I think he needed hugs," Jerobek said.

His older sister, Zazie, needed to talk more and really appreciated the fact her French teacher spent close to an hour answering students' questions.

"A lot of people [asked] how does ISIS work? How do they get these people to do these things?" Zazie said.

"[Our teacher] said a lot of these people are brainwashed...so a lot of her answers were reassuring," she said.

Despite feeling shaken, Zazie and her family are holding on to optimism. 

"ISIS and those terrorist groups are kind of just a tiny speck of the population of the world," Zazie said.

"There are more good-intentioned people than bad-intentioned people so I think that we shouldn't live in fear."