Explaining 9/11 to My Kids

We homeschool our kids and I knew the day was coming up but when I was going over calendar skills with my younger two I asked my oldest what today's date was & my 8yr old piped up - "Today is the 11th."

I guess my face showed the pain of 9/11 and I said "Oh, I didn't know it was today."

My 8yr old said "Why, Mommy?"

I was shocked to feel my throat close up at the memories & sighed asking for God to give me the right words. I knew my oldest remembered just a bit from it. She was in the room when I first put on the news that day and even though she was only 6 she was shocked as I was when we saw the towers falling.

"Well . . . 7yrs ago today some bad men from another country wanted to hurt the USA. They got onto some airplanes with people on it and they crashed the airplanes into some buildings. One airplane though the people fought back. They said to them that they were not going to come into the USA and hurt us like that. These people fought with the men who had the guns & their airplane crashed. But it didn't crash into a building hurting & killing even more people."

My 12yr old got tears in her eyes and said "I remember watching that on tv. It was sad."

My 8yr old asked "But, why would people want to do that? Didn't those men with the guns know they were going to die."

I nodded still trying hard not to cry. These memories were flooding back fast.

"It is sad and hard to understand. But, in some countries men raise their sons to hate the USA and other countries. These boys learn that it is an honor to die for your country and hurting the USA. They grow up wanting to die while killing other people too."

My 8yr old who loves babies and dolls asked "Did kids die too?"

I didn't remember any exact stories but I'm sure it happened and I explained "There were a bunch of people on those airplanes and in the buildings. A lot mommies, daddies, aunts and uncles died that day. I'm sure there were kids too who died."

Right after 9/11 happened I bought a book showing American Heroes and how firefighters and other hero's were made out of 9/11. I got the book and we started flipping through it. It showed a lot of fire fighters helping people, a photo of Robin Williams giving blood, the First Lady talking to hurt people, houses flying the flags and more.

"You see, those bad men wanted to HURT the USA and make us weak. They only made us stronger."

My 12yr old who is very emotional like most preteens said "I am never getting on an airplane again."

"That is just what those men wanted to do. They wanted to scare us & make us afraid." I told her, "After this happened for a long time a lot of tv shows didn't air. You would just see news, people talking about what happened, them looking for the bad men, hero stories and more. Then one night Mommy & Daddy sat down to watch our favorite show that came back on. Saturday Night Live. The mayor of New York told us that it was ok to laugh again and be happy. So these New Yorkers took up their sadness and got on stage to make us happy and to let us laugh again. All the people who died did not want us to be scared. They wanted us to smile and live."

My 6yr old son who was quiet said "They'd be sad if we were sad."

I was still holding bad tears and told him "Yes, remember what the devil uses to hurt us God will turn that into something good. Airplanes started flying again. They got better at keeping us safe on airplane so we wouldn't be scared & the USA got even stronger. We are still fighting a war where the bad men are from. But we are also showing them we are strong. We are American's and they can't hurt us so bad that we can't fight back."

We looked at more pictures of what happened and the pictures of people who lost their loved ones. The kids were all quiet for awhile and I hated telling them about something so scary.

The main thing I remember about 9/11 is how God kept me strong. During that period of time I was going through horrible mental flashbacks of past childhood sexual abuse. I was back seeing a therapist twice a week for depression, I was on some meds for depression and I was a mental mess. Usually something like this would have sent me into a panic attack and I would have been in a corner crying till my husband came home. I was a mess!

So when my 12yr old asked me "Did Daddy come home when this happened to watch it on the news?" (I had told her how people were glued to their TVs for days & weeks.

"No, believe me I wanted Daddy to come home. I was so scared too. But, right away something inside me told me I needed to pray. This was right after I saw the LIVE footage of the tower falling. I went into the bathroom (fearing I would break down and didn't want to do it in front of my kids) & prayed hard. God filled me with so much peace and I was calm and relaxed. I went and turned on the radio to a Christian station so I could stay focused on God's word and not fill with fear again. Then at that very moment the man on the radio said the words I had just heard from God about praying. The man said he felt we all needed to pray together and right then and there TONS of people prayed together for the USA and all the people in danger. God kept me calm & I wasn't as scared anymore."

"Wow!" My 12yr old said, "I wish God would do that for me. But he did keep the people safe right?"

"A lot of people died. But I have heard tons of amazing stories of how God kept people save and did amazing things that day."

My daughter nodded and said "I remember while you had Zachary (my son I had on 9/14) that we saw a bunch of people who did live on TV. People at Mimi's church were praying too."

"A lot of people prayed and a lot of people turned to God during that time too."

The rest of our school time was pretty sad still. I could tell the story had hit the kids hard and I prayed I had handled it right.

But still, it is so hard to show your kids that world isn't always that safe.