"How can one sentence make a city go crazy?"

To my fourth-grader, the grand jury decision and its aftermath looked like a simple cause-and-effect situation. Initially, this prompted an obvious response: There's never an excuse to damage property, steal or hurt another person. Those are criminal acts committed by a few vandals and thieves.

But a complete answer of why this decision has angered so many people is more complicated to explain, although just as vital.

We watched the grand jury decision on television with our young children because they needed to see it. Both had heard classmates talking about it in school and on the bus during the day. Moreover, they had heard the background chatter of news reports since August, when Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson.

They've read front-page headlines at the breakfast table that prompted obvious questions: Why did a police officer shoot this teenager? Why so many times? What really happened?

Often, we didn't have the answers, but told them that people were working to figure it out. We want our children to have faith in the bedrock institutions of our country. But they also must learn that, like the humans that comprise them, institutions and systems are imperfect.

The specters of police brutality and riots have been the backdrop to the start of the school year in the St. Louis area. There's been a collective sense of holding one's breath, a palpable current of anxiety.

Life is filled with teachable moments, but few as stark and close-to-home as this. We focus most of our energy on teaching our children the basic skills they need to learn -- reading, writing, arithmetic. But it's our history that teaches them how to understand their world. One of the critical lessons a parent can teach a child is how to understand a situation from different perspectives.

Race is deceptively uncomplicated in my children's young lives so far. They have relatives who are white, black and brown. Their middle-class lives bounce along in the typical bubble of school, after-school activities and parentally coordinated social gatherings. Brown's death and the aftermath have been a view outside that narrow world.

In a manner typical of her generation, the sixth-grader took a picture of the screen while prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced there would be no charges against Officer Darren Wilson. It was a moment that required her own documentation.

The kids didn't say much in the moment. None of us did. We sat there processing our own emotions, trying to make sense of what was unfolding. Despite the exhortations to always be talking to our children, sometimes it's better to listen.

And if no one is ready to say much yet, it can be enough just to be near.

My son's big question about the city going crazy came the next morning; he had watched a few minutes of burning buildings and rioting on television before we made him go to bed. It's now our job to help him see the bigger picture of how this particular decision fits into the history of this country, and the ongoing civil rights struggle for equal rights and protection under the law. More than three months of demonstrations and the boiling-over anger on the streets started with one young's man death, but it's about more than one person.

Certainly, we have told them countless times before that not every child has schools as good as the ones they attend. Not every child grows up with parents who can spend as much time taking care of them. Not every child gets the same opportunities as their peers.

This time, we have to say: Not everyone is treated the same way by police officers or courts.

In some cases, people are still not treated fairly because of the color of their skin. That unfairness can make people angry. When people protest, they want to make others pay attention to why they are upset and try to change the way things work. That's a right protected by the Constitution in our country. The challenge is allowing people that right while keeping other people safe. There are people taking advantage of people's anger and making a bad situation worse.

It's scary for children to witness chaos and unrest. We can reassure them that we will do our best to protect them. We can help them make sense of confusing and tragic events by reminding them of the social progress our country has made and how long it took to get there.

Within the darkest chapters of our national narrative, there are stories of hope and resilience.

When we tell our children how far we've come, we remind ourselves how much further they can take us.

I'll admit it.

I'm not immune to competitive gifting in this commercialized time of year. I've stalked toy stores, stood in long, snaking lines and scoured the Internet for that perfect gift.

Most people, not just little ones, are happy to receive shiny new things. And the giver gets the pleasure of having provoked that moment of joy.

We remember the special tangible things we get from our parents -- a piece of jewelry, a dollhouse or game. But recently, I started thinking about the gifts from my mother and father that came from the soul, not the store. These gifts were not unwrapped on a single morning, but in bits and pieces every single day.

They are priceless. They last a lifetime. And when we feel most pressured to buy, they are a reminder of how to give.

The best gifts my parents ever gave me:

1. Love. We all made mistakes. I did. They did. We had moments when we hurt one another. But even during the times when we didn't like each other very much, I didn't doubt that they loved me with their whole hearts. I saw it in their faces, and I knew it from how they took care of me. They've told me countless times. I've always believed it.

2. Self-worth. My father would talk about current events and ask my opinion, even as a child. My parents were interested in my thoughts, which meant my voice mattered.

3. Siblings. Playmates, competitors, instigators, foils. Bless my parents for giving me five of them. They taught us that these were the relationships that you have forever.

4. Faith. They made sure we had formal instruction and learned the rituals and practices of our faith, but they also told us stories and made us part of a community. The message was universal: Try to be a better person. Make the world better. My mother showed me by example how to constantly hold a prayer in your heart.

5. High expectations. It can be easy to confuse expectations with pressure. And as a child, there was pressure to do well, but it was tempered with a foundation of love and with the example of two hardworking parents. So I strove for what was expected.

6. A second language. The knowledge and beauty of the world cannot be contained in one language, and I am grateful that my parents spoke to me in Urdu throughout my childhood.

7. Generosity. They didn't talk about what they gave, even to us, but I knew where the money set aside for different charities was kept. And there was always an elderly relative living with us. I saw my parents take care of other people and give, even when we had very little, and internalized what it meant to be of service to others.

8. Laughter. There is so much teasing that happens in a big family that you learn quickly not to take yourself so seriously. When you come from a family of storytellers and jokesters, you learn to laugh easily and often.

9. Sacrifice. They left the country in which they were born and raised. They left their families. I saw their reactions when they received letters and phone calls from back home. I felt their loneliness and pain. At a young age, I confronted the question: If you want something better, what are you willing to give up for it?

10. Chores. They made me do chores. I learned how to properly clean a bathroom. I knew how much effort it took to cook for and maintain a household of eight people. Eventually, I learned the peace of mind that comes with creating order in your surroundings.

11. Boundaries. They said no to so much of the fun stuff everyone else was allowed to do. They said no a lot. They instilled a healthy fear of disappointing or disobeying them. This saved me from a lot of trouble.

12. Community. Family extends to all your kin -- your cousins, your aunts and uncles and those who treated you like family. They prioritized those relationships because it was a way to keep us in touch with where we came from and who we were. It gave us a sense of belonging.

13. Manners. They instilled in us the basics of civility and respect, from how to greet an adult, to visiting someone who was sick or had experienced a loss. I saw the way in which they considered the feelings and needs of others.

14. Courage. As much as they taught us to respect authority, we were also taught to stand up for our beliefs and have pride in who we were. When I saw my mother wear traditional clothing or hijab to cover her hair, it was a quiet act of courage.

15. Independence. My parents were from the generation of anti-helicopters. They never "advocated" for me in the school system. They never called a teacher or coach. They expected me to solve my own problems and figure out how to get stuff done. I did.

When I started jotting down ideas for this column, the list quickly grew too long. I reviewed it with my 9-year-old son, who helped cull the catalog. I couldn't resist asking him: So, do you feel like we are giving you some of these same gifts in your childhood?

"Yeah," he said. He paused and then smirked. "At least half of them."

Sense of humor? Check.

Recess ended before they could include him in their game of Twister.

They already had four players. They would add him in the next round, but the bell rang. The upset, excluded child said to his young classmates: I want to bring a gun to school and shoot and kill all of you.

Monica Wilder Brown, a parent of one of those children, received the call that afternoon from the assistant principal about the incident. She and her husband were so concerned they went to the school and met with the principal the same afternoon.

Brown kept wiping away tears during the meeting.

"I'm sorry. This is not like me," she said.

It was a day in this same suburban St. Louis school district more than 30 years ago that changed how safe she could feel at school. She had sat next to him on the bus that morning. He was her friend. They argued about his bag taking up too much space.

In that bag, 14-year-old David Lawler was carrying the gun and ammunition he used at Parkway South Junior High on Jan. 20, 1983. He killed one student, wounded another and then shot and killed himself. Brown remembers the confusion at lunch. She saw reporters swarming around the school through the giant windows.

"It was a pretty terrible day," Brown said. She's blocked out most of it. But this threat against her daughter reopened those old wounds.

How was the school going to keep her daughter safe? She wanted specific answers about how the child would be disciplined. School officials could not give her those answers because of student privacy laws. The child was not in school the next day.

"I feel like he should have been kicked out of the district," Brown said.

Dissatisfied with the response at the school, she called Chelsea Watson, the assistant superintendent of student services. Watson explained that any threat is taken very seriously. School officials consider the child's age, previous discipline history and any disability involved. They investigate the specifics of the situation, have conversations with the student and parents, and try to determine if the child has access to a gun or a plan in place.

"We are seeing students with more emotional issues at school," Watson said. School officials are trained on how to monitor these children, to teach character and coping skills, to create safety plans when any kind of threat is made. When a child returns to school, he may be required to check in and have his belongings searched before the day starts, to talk to a counselor regularly, walk to classes separately, and be monitored at lunch and on the bus.

The school has to abide by disability laws that protect students if their behavior is a manifestation of a disability, she explained. And, neither she nor any school official could share any specifics about another student's history or discipline.

"Oh, how quickly we forget," Brown said to her. "David Lawler."

"Oh, no," Watson said. "I don't forget. I was a student there, too."

They had attended the same school that day.

Brown learned that the child at her daughter's school made another comment to her once he returned. He blamed her and her friends for getting him in trouble. He wanted to talk to them after class, Brown said. She kept her daughter home from school the next day. The other child was out the rest of the week.

"I was afraid," she said. She was trying to figure out whether to transfer her daughter to another school.

Her panic is understandable, especially given the horror she experienced as an adolescent. After watching the news from too many mass shootings like Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech and, most recently, a high school near Portland, Oregon, most parents take any rumors or threats seriously. When the children who have lived through these school shootings grow up, how do we expect them to respond if their children are threatened?

And would it make society safer if schools could simply expel any child who makes such a threat? Where would these children go?

In the meantime, Brown is keeping her daughter at the same school, where she believes the school will keep a close eye on her classmate. She worries about what may happen when they go to middle or high school.

A few weeks later, her daughter saw the same classmate falling behind during a race at school. She walked back toward him.

"Do you want me to walk with you?" she asked the boy whose words had rattled her mother's world.

The child held up his hand to her, she told her mom, as if to say, 'I can't talk to you.'