Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion o/t 9/11

What have you told your kids about 9/11? We watched a special on Nick about it and have been talking about it all week. We let the kids ask whatever questions they wanted and answered the best we could. DH knew someone in the WTC. I know one of the air traffic controllers that lost a plane.

I don't think DS2 is ready to learn about such things from a receptive language standpoint, if nothing else. DS6 has known for 2-3 years now about what happened, which extended at one point to watching a PBS TV program with us that featured video recordings from the day itself. We spent some time talking about terrorists, what motivates them, how they operate, etc. He seems to have a level head about the subject. He was happy to learn that Osama bin Laden had been killed, though he tends to view death as a sad event.

My son was three years and four months old when I watched the original televised 9/11 events. I was in shock and wasn't really aware that my son was watching. He found a piece of paper and drew a picture of what he said was people jumping out of a building onto a "platform." I told him I hoped those people were okay. He said something like "sometimes not everyone can be okay." He already knew about a relative who died in the Oklahoma bombing because he always liked to listen to adult conversations and they didn't realize he was listening. At three I think he was already aware of what terrorism meant.

The amount of thinking I do about 9/11 is approximately zero.

That being said, I suppose I *should* think about what to tell my children if it comes up. My son thinks about death sometimes, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

My biggest trauma as a child (age 6/7?) was realizing that the sun was eventually going to consume the earth, we were all going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. I don't recall having any general thoughts about death or war at that age, except I was worried that the Soviet Union was going to nuke us into oblivion and our bodies would melt.

9/11 is pretty much a non-issue, I think. It resulted in a couple of cabinet wars, additional government spending, but nothing earth shattering.

Once all the new towers are up and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, I expect that it will drift away in the minds of people who weren't in NYC or DC on that day.

I had already forgotten that Oklahoma City ever happened.

We have not discussed it with DD7; this was the first year I thought about bringing it up, and I still may. It will freak her out and upset her a lot, though, so I'm not looking forward to it. This is the kind of thing that keeps her awake at night. However, she is old enough and exposed enough to the world that I imagine she will hear about it soon. She may be hearing something because she's asked me about "bombs" a lot recently, but I probed further and she didn't mention anything terribly specific.

We are still dealing with cancer, the sun burning out, hurricanes and tornadoes...I hate to add stuff to the List O Fears.

we don't much discuss it mostly because we try not to relive the day or the time period after. lucky for us all of our family made it home but what a terrifying day it was! We all lost neighbors and friends. We lost so many people on Long Island, it was just so sad afterwards for so long.

i can say that we won't be tuning into any tributes and I hope it's a cloudy day because looking up at a sky as blue as it was that day will just bring back all the memories and emotions, especially for DH who was there (not in the towers).

For us, if the kids want to talk about it, it's more of a discussion on a personal level than a political one. All the people I know that got out of the towers or where nearby at the time do not really want to watch the instant replay year after year.

(ps - I really don't think they should show the videos of people jumping.)

in school back in NY they did talk about it btw and DS10 said they talked about it in SS yesterday...

sorry if I went further O/T... just thinking about 9/11 for a minute gives most of us NY'ers that 1000 mile stare and sometimes we twitch a litle

The 9/11 attack was one of many attempted or completed terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims in recent years. To understand this pattern, I may have children read some books by Robert Spencer.

DD9 came home from her 4th day in 4th grade yesterday and exclaimed "I'm terrible at Social Studies!"

I guess they did a thing on 9/11. I guess all the kids knew what happend and were able to answer the questions.

My daughter only knew the basics. No details...just that some bad guys flew some planes into some big building...about 2 hours from where we live and a lot of people died. I told them (DD9 and DD6) the day the got Osama Bin Laden...and I told them that it was a good day cause they got the bad guy.

Well, DD9 has NEVER been the one to not know all the anwers and lucky for her, there was plenty to watch on TV last night. AND DD6 was tired so she was spared the details AND DH who knows all about the oil and the details of the thing was able to show her in the Atlas where and why stuff happened...She wathced a nice tribute to 9/11 and saw the buildings fall and the people scatter and cry and all the fear. She wants to visit the site.

And that was that. That's how she flies...All or nothing..And when she is interested...she's not going to bed until she gets every detail...and I'm pretty sure she got every detail.

But...I never really wanted to tell her about it..and I protected her from seeing any videos. Like Ultramarina...I wonder why I should add to the fears.

At 7, DD was watching a show about how a gamma ray could set the atmosphere on fire. When DH saw that it was upsetting her, he explained that is hasn't happened once in a billion years, so it's very unlikly...She said..."How would I know that? I've only been alive 7 years?"

I hate having to tell her sad stories.

We have explained to our children what happened on 9/11, to their level of understanding. This was an awful day in our history and should be discussed in my opinion. It would be like not discussing what happened to Pearl Harbor.

We did recently order some childrens dvd's from Time Travelers (a kids cartoon) it has an episode that explains 9/11 , it also does other days in history as well ...haven't seen it so can't comment on it yet, but I will after I see it