Talking to Your Kids about Tragedy
Today is September 11th. Ten years ago our world changed. In many ways it seems like a hundred years ago...life is so different than it was then. We were newlyweds getting ready to celebrate our 1st anniversary. We had no kids, lived in an apartment, and my husband was away at Officer Training School for the Air National Guard. Nearly everything is different about our lives now, in ways we couldn't have imagined back then. But in other ways it could have been yesterday. The details of that day are still so vivid in my memory. I remember just what my little apartment looked like that morning, I remember what I was wearing, what I was thinking, the moment the towers fell...the confusion and horror. I remember the moment I finally got a call from my husband after not hearing from him all day...bursting into tears at a stop light. It is so fresh in my memory. I have been taking moments all week to remember and to say prayers for those who lost family members that day. We will never forget the sacrifices made by all of the heros that day.
But as a parent of small children it is hard. I don't want them to know the horror of that day, but I want them to know why people are upset and sad when they talk about the day. I don't want them to be afraid of terror attacks, but I want them to know that we should be proud to live in such an amazing, resilient country. I don't want them to cry the tears of sadness and fear that I have cried, but I want them to know why I cried in church this morning during the prayers.
We hadn't told them about September 11th before, but with all of the media attention surrounding the 10th anniversary we figured they would probably hear about it somehow (even though we don't ever let them watch the news...there are a lot of images out there and also special prayers in church and at school). So we decided to talk to them about it in a very non-scary way to let them know why this day is an important day. We told them that some very bad men attacked America 10 years ago on this day and that a lot of people died and that it is a sad day because we remember that, but that we can also be very proud of the heros that helped a lot of people be safe that day and of the heros who have found the bad guys so that they can't hurt us anymore. We left out a lot of details (with Daddy being a pilot we didn't want them to know about the airplanes crashing) and we focused a lot of the fact that we don't need to be scared of this happening again because of all of the heros working to keep us safe. Someday they will have a full understanding of what happened, but at this age we just wanted to make sure that it wasn't too scary or upsetting for them.
They had a few questions and understood that it is a sad day, but they didn't dwell on it or act upset. And that is what I wanted. Though I thought it was important for them to understand what this day means, they have the rest of their lives to know what fear and true sadness feel like...for now we can let them keep a little of the innocence that we all lost that day.
Did you talk to your kids about September 11th this year? How do you tell your kids about tragedy?