by Danyelle Little (www.TheCubicleChick.com)
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. On that day, over 3,000 people lost their lives during four targeted attacks on U.S. Soil””The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where a plane hijacked by members of Al Qaeda was flown into a field by passengers who were trying to stop it from flying into a building in Washington, D.C. More than 6.000 people were injured and left us wondering””WHY?
My oldest was 7 years old at the time of the 9/11 attacks. At the time, I didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t ask any questions, but he knew something happened. I wasn’t prepared to discuss it with him, and I guess he knew that because he never broached the subject with me. We kind of tried to go back to business as usual shortly afterwards, but it was hard. We lived by the airport and for 4 days, never heard a plane fly by or rattle the house. As a mother, I failed because I didn’t explain to him the enormity of what had happened.
My other child was not born at the time of 9/11, and now she is 7 and I don’t want to make the same mistake with her that I did with my son. When she was 5 years old, I sat down with her on 9/11 and explained to her what happened on that day. We watched several programs honoring those that lost their lives, and when I visited the site of Ground Zero last year, I shared the pictures with her and my son. I didn’t want it to be a secret””I wanted her to express how she felt about the tragedy and know that she could ask me any questions.
I ask the question of how do you talk to your kids about September 11th because for many years, I didn’t know how to broach the subject. And now that we have an open forum in my home to discuss the disaster, I want to hear from others so I can also implement other methods.
This year, with it being the 10th anniversary, both of my kids and I will be watching the many specials and documentaries about September 11th. I want them to always remember what happened, and that it can happen again. Not to scare them, but to let them know that there are still people out there that want to hurt us and cause us pain. I would rather be honest with my kids than to sugarcoat it, or pretend that it didn’t happen. Or to forget.
How do you talk to your kids about September 11th? I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Danyelle Little is a mother of two and the woman behind the lifestyle blog, TheCubicleChick.com. She also freelances and creates articles for many sites on the web and is working on her first published book.
Lamar says
Thanks Danyelle for allowing us to share this with our audience. You bring up some great points and thank you for being real and transparent with your parenting. We have a 9 year old and and she knows what happened but I’m not really sure to what extent. I think this weekend we’ll sit down with her and her two younger sisters to really talk about and discuss what happened to a deeper extent. Thanks for sparking this discussion.
Vdr608 says
Thanks for sharing you view and I totally agree. My son will be 10yrs old in November, so he wasn’t born on 9/11, but he watches the news and takes it all and he is very inquisitive. So we discussed it some last year and we continue to discuss it more as the day approaches. Keep it real for them, there are people out there that dislike the US and will do anything to hurt us.
Mfminfo says
I heard very poignant words recently, which were “hurt people hurt people”. If we are sincere about being “honest” I think we should tell our kids that ‘war’ didn’t start that day but has been waged all over the world for centuries; that these dreadful events occurred on Sept 11th and encourage them to look deeper into the entire picture that has been built up – not just of that day but throughout the years, because no matter how many times it is said, the world did not change “that day” for some people in the world, the ravages of war are everyday life. On a more personal note I teach my child that as Black people there is a long history of “people out there that want to hurt us and cause us pain” – The Tuskeegee experiment being just one of many that comes to mind. We need to be honest with our kids that for many years before that day, since that day and for the foreseeable future evil acts and atrocities have and are being committed by one and all. We must then go on to broaden our children’s minds by having discussions about other cultures, past and recent historical world events, that have shaped the world we live in and teach them the opportunity they have to shape the future world to be a better place.