PP, I'm so sorry. Are you from Middletown? My husband is, too. Awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Me again. I'm wondering if this was his actual teacher or if he heard from older kids at school. I can't imagine a teacher talking about the planes to a group of 7 year olds.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

Wow, you scare me. After it happened, and still today, I think "never forget". I never expected to hear people saying "never know". It wasn't "about the planes" any more than Pearl Harbor was "about the planes". There are bad people in the world and they attack us.

Not "never know" - more like "not find out at school why mommy and her family went to 12 funerals in fall of '01, why mommy still cries when she sees video of the day and wonders if those falling bodies in NY were her friends, why mommy - 14 years later - is still finding out about acquaintances from her childhood who died that day." My NJ town was absolutely devastated on 9/11. I intended to tell my kids about it, but it snuck up on me and I never thought the teacher would have brought it up with first graders. Bad on me for assuming. And I have a pretty good idea of how the conversation unrolled because I actually talked to the teacher about it. My continued anger is that the teacher thought it wasn't that big a deal. To her, 9/11 was as real as Pearl Harbor. For me and my family, no.

Anonymous wrote:As a millenial, this whole thread is so funny to me.

Funny? You should chose your words more carefully, millenial.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

There are just some things you cannot control. Another child could tell your child all about it without the teacher knowing a thing about the conversation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Me again. I'm wondering if this was his actual teacher or if he heard from older kids at school. I can't imagine a teacher talking about the planes to a group of 7 year olds.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

Why is it unforgivable for kids that age to know about a significant event in our country's history?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Me again. I'm wondering if this was his actual teacher or if he heard from older kids at school. I can't imagine a teacher talking about the planes to a group of 7 year olds.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

Wow, you scare me. After it happened, and still today, I think "never forget". I never expected to hear people saying "never know". It wasn't "about the planes" any more than Pearl Harbor was "about the planes". There are bad people in the world and they attack us.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

Things happen. When I taught, I had a first grader raise her hand to share. Turns out her daddy was in jail for "raping that woman".........I quickly changed the subject and I am pretty sure it flew over their heads. But sometimes, you just don't have control of a conversation. Without being there, you really don't know how the conversation unfolded.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Me again. I'm wondering if this was his actual teacher or if he heard from older kids at school. I can't imagine a teacher talking about the planes to a group of 7 year olds.

My 7 year old's teacher let a class conversation take a turn of its own and unwittingly introduced 9/11 to 6 and 7 year olds. Egregiously poor judgment, intuition, and classroom management on her part. Unforgiveable.

My 12 year old has known since she was fairly young, and we have visited the Pentagon memorial each year since she was 5 or 6. Every year our discussion gets a bit more detailed, but by now I think she has all of the information, has heard if possibly not completely understood my take on motivations/implications, and has at least some understanding of the emotional context.

My 3 year old only knows the basics and we haven't taken her to the memorial on that day yet (we have visited with her at other times).

Knowing our history is very important to us, and 9/11 is currently an influential part of our history in terms of having a noticeable, direct, continued impact on the present.

How does a kid around here not know about it?

Anonymous wrote:

Kids need to know, ask questions, and process it in their own way. It is CRITICAL that opinion doesn't get mixed in with the facts. I would absolutely come down on any teacher that brought opinion into it.

So just the facts as to what happened and nothing as to the why? That's not much of a history lesson.

Anonymous wrote:Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Me again. I'm wondering if this was his actual teacher or if he heard from older kids at school. I can't imagine a teacher talking about the planes to a group of 7 year olds.

Spoke with my 7 yr old about it today because his teacher brought it up in class. He had a lot of very specific questions. I wasn't planning on giving him this many details at this age. I didn't mention the word terrorist or any group but said bad people and stressed that airport security wasn't what it is today. He already knew a lot of details about that day before our conversation and DH is always flying. I don't have an answer for why this happened. So many answers to why bad things happen...

Anonymous wrote:OP,

I suspect you did not live in this area on 9/11. Am I right?

I'm the OP and yes I did live in this area at the time. I was in Tysons Corner VA working at my job that day. My dd has expressed fear of flying in a plane, and this summer, we had to fly to see MIL. So I haven't been wanting to bring up people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. That is scary for all of us but I think even more for a 9 year old afraid of flying. We made the trip fine, and afterwards she said it was fun. Not sure if I could have gotten her on the plane if she understood what happened on 9/11. Thanksfully we don't have to fly again for awhile.

As a millenial, this whole thread is so funny to me.

I was 11 when 9/11 happened and my sister was at NCS, my dad worked downtown. All Iknew was they were in DC, where the planes were headed, and I was terrified they were going to die.

Not to mention, everything on TV was about 9/11, for weeks. We all watched the footage pf people throwing themsevles out of buildings, of the buildings hitting the ground.

Even today- I can;t watch footage of the buildings burning (and the jumpers) or falling to the ground. It's too traumatic.

It's just crazy- that event shaped so much of my and other kids' worldviews.