Reply to Mom Told DD about 9/11

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]She's 6. It's time to introduce the topic.

And remember, it traumatized you far more because you were alive. Your child will have as much connection to it as you do to WW2.[/quote]

OP here, very true and good point.

For those saying she will learn about it in school ... of course ... but not in kindergarten, right? Or even 1st grade? I was thinking that was more a 3rd grade thing. She and I did have a good conversation about it after she asked me to change the channel, so I'm not upset that she knows, I just thought maybe we had another year or so. Also, she's just a bit of an anxious kid and the pandemic has been plenty for her without talking about global terrorism. [/quote]

I’m just going to point out a couple things that your posts brought to mind. Some kids know. Some parents don’t shield their kids, some of her classmates will have older siblings who share info. Even if it’s not a structured program at school or part of the curriculum, it’s an interesting and scary topic and kids love to talk about interesting and scary stories. Do you want her to learn from you or other people?

Think about other topics you might want to introduce before her friends or school do, like drugs, alcohol, vaping, sex, anatomy, etc. You should already be having age appropriate conversations about these topics if you haven’t yet. Get a book to read with her if you haven’t yet or don’t know what to say.

I have kids with anxiety too. My husband and I also deal with it to varying degrees. The pandemic definitely didn’t help. However, protecting  kids who have anxiety from things that make them anxious can make them feel like their anxiety is reasonable. Helping them find a way through the anxiety and coming out well on the other side can be empowering. That doesn’t mean you need to make her start watching the news and explain everything in detail, but if she’s likely to be exposed to a topic you have a chance to give her a sanitized version first.

What would your less blunt version of 9/11 have been? Bad men crashed planes into buildings and people died is scary but true. I can’t think of a more basic way to tell it without leaving out key components or lying. If you had left off the death part, wouldn’t she have asked if people got hurt? Do you also have anxiety OP? [/quote]

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