Do Your Kids Know About 9/11? - Cuba,MO

I can tell you that my kids know about 9/11, through the school system and also from us at home. I was pregnant with my youngest and with contractions (who was born on 9/14) and on my way to the doctor's office when the first tower came down. They have been taught in school about it, they always do a little something, memorial/rememberance at school. But it is good for us as parents to let them know aswell.

I don't know what it was like before Dec 7th, 1941... or Aug 18, 1920...

Or what it's like to not have planes, or cars, or immunizations, or printing presses. I can imagine, but as I was born into a world that had already had WW2 & Women's Suffrage, and planes, cars, immunizations, printing presses... these are just normal things for me.

When I was in the 6th grade, the Berlin Wall came down. In K, the Challenger exploded. Yet these things weren't taught in schools for another 10-15 years (for one thing it takes awhile for history books to be published, as well as for an event to BECOME history).

Current Events usually isn't taught until Highschool. For the very good reason that current events are usually pretty terrible (whether it's 1916 or 2016... if it's happening RIGHT NOW... it's scary and awful and we don't know what will happen), very complex (go ahead, describe the Israeli / Palestinian Conflict, or any of several ongoing wars). We don't know what's going to happen, there is no "And this is what happened". We can describe the Genocide of the Albanians by the Serbs (the only place in the world you really WANT to shout "I'm an American!" in a riot is Kosovo... they have days of mourning for our internal crises)... or the Cold War... or Prohibition because they've OVER. We have a beginning, middle, and end to share with children. When we only have a beginning and are IN the middle with the end up in the air... we save that for highschool and college.

They do teach about it in schools I learned last year when my then-11 year old came home & told me about it as if I hadn't lived through it, lol. He had just turned 2 & my youngest was 6 months old on that most awful of mornings. My kids knew a little bit about it already as we've discussed it through the years. My husband was in Security Forces for the Air National Guard at the time so he left for his first of many deployments in October of 2001 so it has directly affected our little family, as well as all police & firemen, both military & not, in a way a little different I would imagine than most.

I don't know if they teach it in school, but they should! We've told our kids (5 and 3) that on 9/11, there were some evil people who hurt a lot of Americans. We explained about how they used the airplanes to crash into buildings, and that there were two WTC buildings in New York that aren't there anymore. We actually brought it up last year on 9/11/10 because we want our kids to understand that awful day.
Everything changed. It still makes me cry just to think of it, almost 10 years later.

My 9 yr daughter knows about it, but I don't think she really gets the scope of it. I have told her about it, and they briefly talked about it in school last year. I plan to talk to her about it again this year as the day gets closer and the footage is back on TV again.
I was newly pregnant with her (our first child) on that morning. I remember holding my tummy while watching the footage at work and thinking what kind of world am I bringing this baby into?

The only thing my daughter knows about 9/11 is that it's daddy, uncle, and grandpa's birthday. When she gets older (she's 4) she'll learn that 9/11 means more than just lots of cake, but I don't feel the need to burden her with it now.

My kids know about it. They probably know mostly beause my brother was in the Army for 5 years and I told them exactly why he joined up and fought for our freedoms. So they understood it a little bit more. I'm sure it is not a huge deal for them like it is for us...my kids are 8,6, and 4. We are also planning to go to NY to show them the memorials there. Not to dwell on the past and the tragedy, but we never want to forget those who died at any point in our history for our freedoms.

I had turned on the TV to check the weather that morning. And I watched as the second plane hit the towers. My son was twenty-six months at the time. As I stared in disbelief, with tears running down my face, my son came over and climbed up on my lap. He kept pressing my "happy button" (a mole on my neck that I had told him was my happy button, and whenever he pressed it, I would be happy). I kept crying. And hugging him. And telling him everything was going to be okay.

Our school has never discussed 9/11 with the children. But my children know a little about it because they have the book "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers". And I've discussed it briefly with them, in simpler terms for my 8 yo.

Not long ago, I asked my son if he remembered anything about 9/11. And he said, "Not really." Then, after a long pause, "But I do remember that your happy button was broken."

Yes, sweetheart. Yes, it was.

Dwelling on disasters is just not what kids do.
My Mom remembers Pearl Harbor.
She was 7 yrs old and temporarily in an orphanage (it was the Great Depression - there wasn't enough food to keep the kids at home).
The nuns called all the kids in off the play ground, they went to chapel and prayed the rest of the day.
Reading about something that happened the day you were born is almost like reading about something that happened 100 years or more ago.
JFK was assassinated when I was a baby.
They taught about it later in school but I was a baby at the time - it had no meaning for me and I have no memory of it.
My biggest concern at the time was cutting a new tooth or so my Mom tells me.

I was pregnant with my daughter when 9/11 happened. She knows of it, but we haven't had a detailed discussion about it. It's time we did. One thing I will be sure to tell her is that terrorists come in all colors/races, religions, nationalities including American, and types of extreme beliefs. Terriorism happened before 9/11 and has happened since.

My daughter who just turned 13 knows about it...when everything was happening, we were on a ship just about to disembark for a day in the Bahamas, needless to say, our hearts were very heavy the whole day. Being three at the time, my daughter was old enough to pick up on all the energy the rest of the trip and the days following. She just finished 7th grade and I know she did learn more about it when her Social Studies teacher spent many lessons teaching about the major world religions. She must have been a really great teacher that encouraged a lot of discussion and open respectful dialogue because my daughter said they had some pretty intense conversations about terrorism and fundamental Islamic religion. My twin boys, however, really don't know much about it since they are only 6 but as the remembrance approaches and more and more images reappear on the news, I'm sure we will explain to them what happened.

Riley J said it well. I was born in 1968 so I didn't know what America was like before Vietnam and JFK (a big time of change in America.)
Momentous incidents like 9/11 are usually taught and discussed at the high school level. That's when you learn your bulk of US and world history: from the birth of America, through WW2 and the holocaust, all the way up through Vietnam and 9/11 to today.

I didn't check out your article yet.

My kids do know because I have talked to them about it. My older two, 11 and 8, did come home last year from school because it was discussed a little bit.

My daughter is 16 now. She remembers.

We had a flight the next week and she was scared because the National Guard was there, with guns.

My daughter has covered this quite a bit in her History classes. She is one of the youngest children in America who will have real memories of what 9/11 was, she is 16.
Her Youth Group leader said this past Sept, "Look to that other room, (the middle schoolers) None of them remember the towers falling. They were too little."
My two little ones know about it. My 13 yo saw the tribute last Sept about it on the History channel. My 10 yo knows but has not seen any footage nor paid attention to anything newsworthy yet.